back to bellingham

I arrived in Bellingham on Wednesday, late afternoon. On Tuesday, I had arranged to meet with my high school friend, Andrea, in Vancouver for lunch and we had a lovely time getting reacquainted and talking through life's events since high school. She is an amazingly vibrant woman and I'm glad we were able to spend a couple hours together!

I had hoped to meet another friend in Tacoma, but, due to illness, canceled that and drove out to Shelton, Washington to have dinner with Rich, one of the Air Force crew who flew on my deployment flight last year to Antarctica. It is strange to reconnect with people from The Ice, but usually a lot of fun; and this was no exception.

From there I drove to Seattle, in a massive rain and windstorm (in three places, I could see that trees had fallen across the freeway only minutes or hours before). Sara played hostess for the evening and I slept at her apartment.

In the morning, I met up with Susan, another friend from high school who is home from studying in Switzerland. She and I have a great relationship and could probably talk for days.

Here's my trip by the numbers. I drove 2565 miles total; 1102 down, 1463 back. I was gone 3 weeks, or 21 days, visiting 3 states in that time, and stopping at 7 gas stations. I celebrated 2 holidays with 2 different kinds of my "family." I sat in 1 interstate closure for a 6 semi, 23 car pileup. I saw at least 15 elephant seals and picked up 1 new Starbucks mug for my collection (Portland). I returned to 26 Christmas cards in the mail. And, I drank lots of coffee.