Four in the morning and I'm once again awake and driving north in the dark. My legs are tired but there are thoughts to be thunk and decisions to be decided. It doesn't take long to grow sick of NPR's early morning BBC drone and I switch over to Rammstein on the CD player, well aware of the irony in listening to German industrial metal to prepare for six hours of almost total silence and time in my own head. With only a handful of leaf-peepers up at sunrise I'm able to make good time, the dashed-line passing zones granting free passage. I leave them with only a brief turbo whine and doppler-ized, flatulent Subaru rumble to remember me by.
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| Map |
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| Elevation profile |
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| Dry River washout |
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| Oakes Gulf - There's a plane crash in here somewhere. |
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| Montalban Ridge |
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| The Dry River valley |
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| Frost above 5,000 feet |
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| Washington |
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| A new spot for me. |
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| Monroe |
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| As your attorney, I advise you to bring more cheese. |
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| South |
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| North |
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| Dry River valley |
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| Mount Clinton Trail |
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| A wee washout |
As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate. - Camus, The Stranger
