Aren’t We in Mexico Yet? (Interstate Report)

The last two days have been what I thought the first would be: pure Interstate days.  There was no way around it.  Starting in Seattle, there’s simply a lot of USA to get through before I cross the border and what I think of as the real trip begins.  And part of the USA is going to be epochal; my path will take me past Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, Horseshoe Bend and the far end of the Grand Canyon.  But even to get to these, one has to start by eating miles.

It’s no fun in a Miata.

I’m eating lunch in a Village Inn in Ogden Utah and I’m not in a mood to pull punches.  American Interstate driving Is an experience largely defined by boredom.  It’s lonely, it’s alienating, it’s enervating.  It goes on all day and you feel you’re getting nowhere.  When the jockeying blocks of high-speed metal around you pull into the same rest stop and resolve themselves into people, their aspect is not improved.  As almost the opening round of my trip, this stint of USA highway travel is setting the wrong tone, and I can only vow to get it over with as quickly as possible and back to smaller roads.

As highways go, I-84 through Oregon and Idaho is not unscenic.  I’ve driven it before.  Long plains of green and russet grasses roll far away to low blue mountains in the distance.  But Interstate scenery is dioramic: at 70 mph it’s behind glass, dead, untouchable, unsmellable, immobile even in its slow changes.  And it’s worse in a Miata. 

The Miata’s not made for highway driving and my little car resents it as much as I do.  The motor buzzes and strains at 70 while the other cars coast effortlessly by at 80.  Though it’s a sunny day I keep the top up at this speed, both for aerodynamics and to prevent the stuff in my front seat from blowing all over Idaho.  Even so, it’s too loud in the cabin.  I worry about my visibility; out here my main companions are the big trucks, and I feel like a squirrel who’s stumbled into a dance of elephants.  Driving a Miata on the Interstate is the one time in life when I could wish for a giant SUV.

A strange night last night, too.

After my tent-camping night I opted for a hostel—not because I disliked camping, but for the social life.  At the campsite the rain had kept me in my tent, and I was in the mood for people.  I picked out a Boise hostel by its name—“Hostel Boise”—only to find it a misnomer as it was out in the wide, flat farmlands of Nampa.  It was a lovely place, and very budget-friendly, a sweet farmhouse with a full kitchen, living room and bathroom.  But I wasn’t too surprised to find myself the only guest.  Oh, well.  That, however, was for the best, as I wound up having, out of nowhere, the worst bloody nose of my life, to be followed shortly by an email from Washington State Unemployment doubting my job search and hinting that they might want their money back.  At 2:00 am I emailed them back the relevant portions of my job-hunt log. (See?  It was good there was no one else in the room.)

Village Inn pie completed, coffee drunk (they put the whole pot on your table: thumbs up), and this concludes my Interstate Report.  Now to send it up on their free wi-fi and gird myself for more I-84 East.