Another installment of the Long Strange Trip.
I attended a college that was significantly smaller, in terms of the number of students, than my high school had been. To say I had a bit of culture shock upon arriving at the University of Illinois would be a criminal case of understatement. Instead of ~1,200 students, the [...]

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Strange Trip continued…
My last day of travel remains a blur in my memory. I remember sitting in a car seat that seemed to have become welded to my frame. I was always soaked with sweat. There was a persistent itch between my shoulder blades that never seemed to go away. In fact, I seemed to [...]

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Strange Trip continued…
Waking up in Gillette, Wyoming, I was a very long way away from the Pacific Northwest, and any place that I’d called “home” for the last 15 years. I was checking into a different motel room every night, and all I had waiting for me in Illinois was a huge question mark. I [...]

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Strange Trip continued…
If you have no idea what this is, it’s an ongoing attempt to record my trip to grad school, and perhaps beyond. Entries are few and far between, and so your patience is appreciated. When last we left our hero, he was in a hotel in Missoula, Montana, wondering exactly what he had [...]

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Strange Trip continued….
After crossing the width of Washington State, I passed through Spokane and headed into the Idaho panhandle. The strongest memory I have of this area is how incredibly beautiful it was. After the rolling treeless plains of Eastern Washington, entering the Rocky Mountains was like passing into the Promised Land. I keep telling [...]

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Strange Trip continued….
Washington State is divided by the Cascade Mountain range. On the west side of the mountains, there are thick temperate rain forests, ferns, lichen, and moss aplenty. And rain. Lots of rain. Not necessarily a lot of inches of rain, but a fine drizzle or mist that stretches out for weeks or months. [...]

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