Heavy weather
29 Nov 2005 
in the late evening 
Matt Winckler
I return. After a week’s absence, I am back in the cockpit and at least turning the engines, if not quite on afterburner just yet. I can sum up the past week in few words. Unfortunately, few of them are positive: rain, wind, driving, illness, vomiting, beach, cold, feckless idiots, cheese. Hooah!
We were scheduled to depart last Wednesday morning at 0900 for the sunny shores of Cannon Beach, where we would spend four nights renting a house with my folks to celebrate Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, Mystie came down with some sort of stomach virus early on Wednesday, and her condition later that day ruled out our departure. Thursday morning dawned with Mystie apparently recovered, so we headed out at 0900 and arrived after an uneventful drive at 1400. The weather in CB that afternoon was positively miserable, with intermittent periods of wind and torrential downpour. However, the house was very nice and we were able to settle in and play a game. All in all, an enjoyable enough afternoon, and the dinner that evening was top-notch.
Friday morning’s weather continued to be slightly unpleasant, and my own internal systems were making reports to match the overcast sky. We tried to grab one of the periods of calm between squalls to make a trip to the beach, but didn’t time it quite right, and some few minutes after we were on the beach, the phenomenal rain started again. There was nothing for it but to head back to the house. Shortly after noon, I had a strong urge to go buy a new board game of some sort, so I headed downtown to the only shops likely to have anything decent. As it turned out, no shops had anything besides the typical Monopoly, Yahtzee, and Clue. Extremely poor showing. I headed back to the house.
The rest of the day was spent in something of a downward spiral. I began feeling worse and worse, until finally the whole lot culminated in me going to bed not long before 1900, and a scant hour later, my dinner making an encore appearance on The Porcelain Show. And while the pizza and beer did, on second sampling so recently following the first, still taste quite recognizably like pizza and beer, I really can’t say that the effect was altogether pleasant. Following that, I was down for the count.
Fortunately, it was a pretty short count. An extraordinarily sunny and bright Saturday morning saw my stomach settled, though I hadn’t shaken all the aches and pains. Late in the morning (or perhaps it was early afternoon) I felt fit enough to make my second trip to the beach, in pursuit of the others who had gone down some time previously. I met up with them on their way back, and decided to accompany them back. The fresh air was not invigorating me as it should do, and my body indicated it could do with some more of the old “bed rest” ideal. Thus it was that I found myself alone in the house whilst my compatriots took a trip to Tillamook to see the Air Museum and of course visit the cheese factory. I entertained myself by watching cheap sci-fi and action movies, which only served to reinforce my notions that satellite TV is a complete waste of money and I vaguely dislike any movie involving Nicholas Cage.
Saturday evening I felt better enough to engage in some hands of cards, as well as a hot schnapplate (hot chocolate with a dose of peppermint schnapps). On retiring, I slept the sleep of the just.
Sunday morning I awoke feeling tolerably well, but aching again. Check-out time was 1100, and it was just then that we pulled out of the driveway and began the drive home. There was only one problem. As Bertram Wooster put it, we “encountered rather more astigmatic loonies sharing the road with us than we could have wished”. I might have put it somewhat more strongly than that, but it seemed that vehicular idiocy was rampant on this Sunday-after-Thanksgiving. Firstly, someone wasn’t paying enough attention to road conditions on Highway 26 between Cannon Beach and Portland (a 2-lane road). I still don’t know what happened; all I know is that we were stuck in near-standstill traffic for better than an hour. There had been very slight amounts of snow in the higher elevations, and the road was a little slick in places–enough that I’d kicked the APC into all-wheel-drive mode. After the delay, it was past 1300 by the time we arrived in the first of Portland’s outskirts. We stopped for a quick lunch (which my again-deteriorating condition instructed me to decline) and fuel, then headed on our way once more. As we were leaving Troutdale (on the eastern side of Portland), one of the overhead signs spake these words of wisdom:
ACCIDENT AHEAD
MILEPOST 58
EXPECT DELAYS
No bloody way, thought I! I briefly considered my options. First, I could turn around at the next ramp, drive back to Portland, hop across the river to the Washington side, and trust its two-lane road all the way back home, or at least to Hood River. I didn’t like this, figuring (rightly or wrongly, I’ll never know) that given that the propensity of imbeciles on the road today was such as to cause delays on a 4-lane divided highway, my chances of more serious delays were much higher on a mere 2-lane non-divided highway. I also reasoned that since milepost 58 was still nearly an hour away, surely the helpful Oregon Department of Transportation would have things fairly well cleaned up by then, and the delay (if any) would be minor. We continued on I-84.
My hopes were crushed when we arrived at a standstill line of cars stretching off into the foreseeable distance–shortly before milepost 55.
This, it seemed to me, was too much. I can understand it when people get into wrecks during inclement weather, but there was none of this on I-84. It was the middle of a partly cloudy afternoon and the road was only damp in places from rain earlier in the day. No, my suspicion (later confirmed) was that this accident must have been caused by idiocy and idiocy alone. Somebody not paying attention to where they were going. I confess that with my body going back into flu-like aches and pains, I was in no particular mood to be charitable to whatever miscreant had caused this massive traffic backup. I hoped only that he had suffered grave but not mortal injuries, that he might live to reflect upon his consummate foolishness.
After finally clearing the scene an hour and a half later, we once more headed homeward. This time, there was nothing else to stop us, save for the Oregon State Trooper who almost certainly clocked us, but magnanimously let us slide by as we were doing just under 70 mph. (Crazy Oregonians set their interstate speed limits at 65.) I had already mentioned to Mystie that despite my record of never having been pulled over in my life, I would consider a ticket of a few hundred dollars to be well worth getting home all the sooner by doing 90 or so. Evidently my prudence carried a stronger voice than my feelings, however, and we only occasionally broke 70, which nearly kept us at the speed of traffic.
At long last, we arrived home after the 8+ hour drive that had taken us a flat 5 just a few days previously. After unloading, I crashed. After I’d gotten to it, the thermostat said the house was nearly 80 degrees, but I was still freezing cold. I took one of the hottest showers of my life (if it was a degree under 120, I need to call someone to service the hot water heater), which helped immensely. Also, Mystie generously departed once more and obtained some Nyquil to aid me in my weakness. (An aside here: I am all for generic things in most cases, but Nyquil is one of the rare things where it counts to get the brand name. The “Equate” stuff just doesn’t cut the mustard.) A healthy dose got me warmed up and ready for sleep at last, which I prepared for by dressing in heavy sweats and zipping into a cold-weather sleeping bag.
I awoke Monday morning feeling pretty darn crummy, and even stayed home from work. I lounged about in my sleeping bag all day long, intermittently reading a book and sleeping. Nighttime called for more Nyquil, and this morning I felt marginally better–enough that I couldn’t really justify laying in bed all day again. By midmorning, I was wishing that I was, but it simply couldn’t be arranged. My new office has a window, and besides that, it’s not big enough for a cot. Perhaps some sort of fold-down bunk could be arranged, affixed a ways up on the wall.
And so that brings me to this evening, when I am once again ready for Nyquil and sleep, and indeed should have been sleeping but for this blighted blog and my misguided obligation to write in it. Consider yourself, the reader, blessed and enlightened in that you now know how not to conduct a Thanksgiving vacation. Really, though, I cannot complain. Despite trials and adversity, the boys and Mystie, as well as my family, had a generally good time. It was a very nice place in Cannon Beach. My dad made some first-rate guacamole. And we came home with squeaky cheese, which I am never too sick to enjoy. In all things, God remains good. Especially in the cheese.