I definitely felt better today. Having a day off for the body I think helped a decent bit, and with that improvement, I also found my mental emotional health significantly improved.
That was nice. Really nice.
I think I made it inside maybe somewhere around 10:30? I’m just making a number up, but that’s probably somewhere about right.
When I went inside, I found that Leslie had made breakfast, and so I ate a little bit while chatting with her. She’s working on a network TV show idea that she’s going to film a pilot for and then pitch.
🤞
After eating breakfast and chatting with Leslie for a little bit, I headed downstairs and took a shower. As usual, I washed my socks and a pair of underwear as I showered, which was good because I was pretty much out of socks 🙃.
After I finished up with my shower, I helped load mom’s stuff up into the van, as we decided to leave after we got back from lunch, which would allow my mom to be able to drive during daylight hours, as her eyes aren’t trustworthy to drive at night.
Once Corinne was done with work enough to pop out to take a lunch, we drove to a nearby vegetarian restaurant and had a great little lunch together, just chatting away, talking a lot about korean’s trip to Patagonia and my trip to New Zealand.
Fun stuff.
After we got back, we all hung out in the kitchen for a little while just talking about life before taking some last little pictures, giving our goodbye hugs, and driving away.
My brother-in-law Mark had been up at the family farm in North Central Washington, so he hadn’t been there, so my mom and I thought it might be cool to swing by the farm and just say hi for a few minutes. So we left with the idea of driving east and popping into the farm to say hello, but we got a call on the way over that he was already heading west.
So we ended up meeting at a Safeway grocery store gas station halfway between where he had started and we had started. 🙂
We chatted for a little bit while getting gas, and then we chatted for a little bit after, before taking more pictures and giving more hugs, and then heading on our way again.
Wagons East!
My mom and I have been traveling for nearly a month, but it’s always been west, west, west. Now that ET is pointed east, it’s starting to feel like the trip is wrapping up.
I’m really lucky to be able to take so much time off of work without being in financial straits. It helps that I don’t have any debt to pay off. I would love to have a house, but that’s financial responsibility that I can’t just walk away from.
Since I have no large financial obligations, and since I’ve busted my butt to work hard and save money, and since I’ve been blessed to not have any life catastrophes so large as two destroy my financial reserves, I’m doing okay.
Hopefully, I can continue that way.
So we headed east!
We needed some provisions, so we stopped off in Moses Lake to see if we could get some stuff from the Walmart there. I was wanting some bear spray, and we were both in need of gloves, with glacier national Park being our next significant destination.
We also needed food.
Walmart was a bust for the bear spray and the gloves for my mom. I was able to get a pair of hunting gloves, but none of the winter stock had come in, so she couldn’t get any long underwear or anything like that.
Just as I was getting ready to start grabbing groceries, I remembered about grocery outlet! So I jumped on Google, and to my delight, I found a grocery outlet less than a mile away, I think it was.
So we got what we could at Walmart, and then we drove quickly over to grocery outlet in the hopes that we could get there and get our shopping done before it closed. I think we got there somewhere around 8:30, and it was going to close at 9:00, so we were good to go.
Boy am I grateful for grocery outlet! 🥳
Remember how I splurge last time and only spent $48?
Yup. Well, I double splurged this time, buying whatever the heck came to mind, and plenty of it. And what was the final bill? $66.xx.
😶
Even with grocery outlet prices, I want to say that I was expecting somewhere around $100. I was just floored once again when it was $66 and change.
That included nine boxes of general Mills corn chex, gazillions of snacks and candies. I mean… we loaded up, and it was only $66.
Hope we get one of those nearby in Arkansas one of these days!!!
With the cooler, the dry food box, and the snack box all full to overflowing, and with vegan chocolate hazelnut cream bars in hand, we again pointed the nose of the van east and drove on, passing through Spokane and ending up at the Love’s truck stop just outside of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
And guess what!?!?
Loves actually let us stay there! 🥳
We were super grateful because we had been aiming for the flying j, because here to four, the flying j had been quite friendly to us around the country, and loves had been the ones who were unfriendly to us.
But not this time. 😊
We pulled in, use the bathroom, fixed up our beds and everything, and called it a night.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 