Day 12: In Transit - Orcas Island to Missoula

“beep beep beep beep” Sara’s watch alarm beeped quietly inside her sleeping bag. I was already awake, as often happens during 5:45am wake-ups. My phone alarm rang minutes later to a much louder tune. We packed up camp, loaded our damp kayaking gear into the trunk, and departed for the 7:15am ferry on the other side of Orcas Island. This time my car was loaded next to a massive lumber truck on the left and sewage truck on the right (previously it was a flammable liquids truck). Apparently when you have kayaks on the roof you are lumped with the big ones.

When we arrive in Anacortes at 8:15 we'll drive down to Seattle and return Sara’s kayak Renaldo. They've become close over the last 5 days and it will be a tearful goodbye. In Anacortes I'll be careful not to speed, as Bridget was awarded a $200 speeding ticket after disembarking the ferry a couple days ago. We'll be mailing Bridget’s sleeping bag, sun hat, and some other goodies back to Oregon after we return Renaldo. After I drop Sara off at the airport, I’m headed east towards Spokane.

Don’t know where I'm sleeping yet tonight! I’m going to try to get as far east as possible today. Rya, a friend that I met in Santa Cruz back in my hostel-staying days, lives in Colville now, 1.5 hrs north of Spokane. She offered her couch to me, but I'm struggling with adding 3 more hours of solo driving. I may just camp in a field tonight! I just got word that Devin will be in Bozeman when I'm there tomorrow night, so that’s a nice surprise! Our last meetup was during my previous cross-country road trip with Marika a few years ago, before I moved to California and Devin and Anna moved to Vermont.

Okay, the ferry is arriving in Anacortes shortly so time to close up and head down to the car!

Next morning update: Yesterday went more or less as planned. After I dropped Sara off at the airport I drove east to Spokane, where Rya and I planned to meet for dinner. I was early, so I blogged at the Rocket Bakery, which had speedy internet and delicious lemondade:

Rya's truck broke down (likely overheating - it was 102 degrees!) north of Spokane, so I drove up to meet her at Twigs. It was fun catching up - she's engaged and in the middle of building a cabin by a lake in Colville. I couldn't stay long as I was headed to Missoula (3 hours away) for the evening. I ended up solo camping at a National Forest campground an hour outside Missoula. Some views from the drive...

North of Spokane

Nepal #14: How to cross the street in Kathmandu, and other scary things.

If I told you it was like Frogger, I'd be lying. Crossing the street in Kathmandu is much scarier than crossing the street in Frogger. What we learned was to gather in as large a group as possible and cross together as soon as there was any semblance of a gap in traffic. Once you start walking, keep your head down and keep a constant pace. If you stop suddenly or speed up you might confuse the oncoming traffic. Don't make eye contact with the drivers - this tells them that you're going to let them pass. This is a fairly simple process when there are only a couple lanes... it's a different story when there are 6!

Driving is also terrifying. There are no lanes, stop lights, or police to enforce the laws (which may or may not exist). Hypothetically, one should drive on the left side of the road, but this is somewhat optional. There are less than 5 stop lights in the entire city, so the most complicated (4+ lane) intersections are sometimes manned by a policeman standing on a concrete pedestal (specifically for this purpose) in the middle of the intersection, wildly waving his hands.

The system almost works, in a strange, terrifying way. Rather than blindly following laws while talking on their cell phones like we do in the U.S., they pay very close attention to the roads and use their horns liberally. Rather than using it to angrily complain when someone is driving too slowly, they use it as a means of communication. When passing another vehicle the driver always honks as they drive by. As you can imagine, this makes for some very loud streets. 

Single 'lane' mountain roads are also great places for horn usage. Every time our bus was approaching a turn at a terrifying speed the driver would honk the horn (which was usually some ridiculous ring-tone sounding song) to notify anyone coming around the corner to slow down.

Most of the buses we drove on had a neat system where one helper would hang off the back of the bus and tap it loudly to send messages to the bus driver. Another helper would take people's money and tap on the side of the bus to tell the driver when to stop and pick people up.

Speaking of buses, they certainly pack them efficiently. There were a number of times when we were all piled on top of each other. Here's a picture I took after I managed to get out of this bus (there were still a few of us trying to get out while all these people wanted to get in!):

Private cars are a rarity. When you do see them, they're usually pretty fancy/un-dented, and are driving very cautiously. Finally, when walking on the street in Kathmandu, the best way to avoid getting clipped by a motorcycle - I'm pretty sure we all got bumped at least once - is to stick as close to the side of the road as possible!