Travel Series: U.S.A. part 4

Last month I wrote about the portion of our U.S.A. trek that took us from New York City to Washington D.C., via Philadelphia. From D.C. we started back across the United States, heading north-west towards Oregon where we would be dropping our (third and last) Driveaway car off.

Snowy, misty goodness.

It was March and snowy, my favourite kind of weather (we never get snow where I live). We passed through some of the most beautiful landscape I've ever had the privilege of seeing. However, at one point during this trek, we enjoyed the following comedy of errors:

• Dad lost his wallet;
• my keycard expired;
• Mum's emergency Visa stopped working.

We tried lots of things to access the money in our accounts, and at one point even got sent to a child abuse centre where they let us make international calls, but nothing worked. I finally managed to get $100 out of Mum's Visa, but we were still on the tightest budget ever.

Long road.

In Dubois, WY, we went to a pub and met some fun locals. The bar owner offered us free beds out the back of the pub for the night! (see what I mean about the kindness of strangers?) Here is an excerpt from my travel journal:

9.28 pm Exxon Dubois, WY (after deer incident) go to pub with barman & Trina & Keith & Courtney & Bill. Talk about pool tournaments, ew wallet troubles. Keith offers us beds. My keycard expired.

I love this stuff!

I'm drawing a blank on the mysterious deer incident, but Dad might have more info in his travel journal (which I really need to read sometime). In the pub there was a big bear head on the wall, and I said something like, "Aw, it's so cute!" The locals responded with something like, "Ain't so cute when it's comin' atcha!". This was also where the locals thought Dad was my boyfriend. Ew! Naturally this inspired me to make him get a haircut later on so he looked less youthful.

We made it to Oregon and dropped the car off, then headed to my Dad's Aunt Roma's place, where we fell gratefully into the welcoming arms of family.

I'll continue this story later, when you'll hear about some hitch-hiking adventures as well as a stint in a San Fran homeless shelter!