Life in Washington!: Roadtrip to Seattle

Hello! Greetings to my first blog post from Seattle! I have been here about two weeks now, staying with a few friends so far. I'll go into more detail about Seattle in awhile. First, for everyone who doesn't know what I have been up to for the last few months I will lay it out on this first post and then go from there. I'll start at the beginning of the year- after my amazing Grand Canyon trip and Christmas at home I needed to get to work, pronto. I landed a job pretty much instantly at a local factory, where they make medical waste containers- the kind of buckets you put needles in at the doctor's office or hospital. I had the glamorous job of working on the line, which essentially means I put labels on hot plastic then I put them in cardboard boxes (we call that "corrugate" in the biz). If you are thinking that sounds like a crappy job, you are correct. It was loud, smelly, hot, and had an overall shitty cloud of misery floating around the factory floor. I must say, for as bad as the job was, it was only a temporary stepping stone to Seattle. Most of the people there were more-or-less stuck there. I cannot help but feel for them- hopefully someday they will make it out of the factory. However, for all of the crappiness of the job, there were a few perks. Well, one perk. Most of the people I worked with were Hispanic so I got to practice my Spanish quite a bit there. Everyone called me "Güero" (pronounced "where-oh") which means white boy. It was a culture experience to say the least. Moral of the story: shitty job, nice coworkers, and I'm a better person for having the experience.

Ok, so anyways, that brings us up to speed on my whereabouts for the last few months. May 31st was my last day in the factory and I have been loving life since. My last weekend in town was coincidentally Milk Days. For all who do not know, Harvard, Illinois has a weekend long celebration of Milk every June. It sounds goofy, but basically it's a 2 hour parade and an excuse to drink beer all day. My friend, Kevin, has been organizing a big gathering of friends at Milk Days for years and he was able to put together a great crew for my last weekend in town. I got to see a bunch of friends I haven't seen in a long while and hang out with my good buddies for one last beer filled weekend. The weather was perfect and company even better. Hopefully, I'll see you all at Milk Days next year!
My apologies for this starting to get a little lengthy- it's been a busy month. Let's see, where are we now..... ah yes, the exodus to Seattle. Unfortunately, my moving plans were restricted to bringing only what my jeep could carry and me driving solo for the 2000 mile journey across the country. In hopes of shortening this stretch I'll give you the long and tall of it- the drive really wasn't too bad and the camping was kinda fun. It took me three and a half days, which over the course of the trip I encountered thunderstorms, snow, hurricane force winds, a flat tire, and lots of coffee. I also got to meet some nice people at the campgrounds I was staying at- I met a group of 3 retired Germans on a 3 month motorcycle trip around the United States- funny sidenote: they thought the Midwest was boring- they had my condolences haha. I met a down-on-his-luck guy named Steve in Bozeman. He was hauling RV's around the country because he couldn't get work as a carpenter. We commiserated on working shitty jobs over coffee in freezing Montana sleet. I spent my last night of the trip at Wanapum State Park in Washington
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&aq=f&ie=UTF-8&q=wanapum+state+park+maps&fb=1&gl=us&hq=wanapum+state+park&cid=0,0,7837762114450835399&ei=-fflT8e3Fu-42QWHhtTaCQ&ved=0CHoQ_BIwAA

The park is just above the Columbia River, which is a behemoth. Apparently this state park is known for it's winds, but I happened to be there at record winds. There was a constant wind of 30mph and gusts up to 50mph. I made friends with a family next to me and we spent the night drinking beer and readjusting their tent and staking it down. Really fun. Thanks for the laughs Mike and Martha! Ok, I'm rambling again. At this point I was only 3 hours out of Seattle and my journey was almost done. It the hope of not making this too long, I am going to stop here and continue the story in another post. For now, enjoy the pics and stay tuned for another post! Cheers!