The Memorial Trip 5/23/08 - 5/26/08 . . . Business . . . Adventure . . . 650 miles of memories . . .Friday 5/23/08 -
Woke early today from the all the comforts of home in Black Diamond, WA. Checked my business, ran some ads, assisted downline with 2 new affiliates, mentored 2 affiliates with their businesses. That took some time, and seemingly put me behind on my goal to hit the road for the Olympic Pennisula by noon, before the traffic associated with a 3-day Memorial Day Weekend. No great rush yet though, my new expedited tri-fold brochures had not yet arrived via UPS yet anyway.
Packed up the truck, with all intentions of my dog (Neah Bay) and I using it as our sleeping quarters. With Gas prices over $4.00, and my truck's preference for high-octane fuel pushing us up over $4.25, lending justification to frugality and Cowboy-ing up, I loaded provisions to accommodate 4-5 day's of barraging the great Northwest with Brochures, Flyers, JV Flyers, Biz Card Flyers, Magnets; and of course the new truck door magnets and window decals. I converted my 1998 Dodge Ram into a Homeless Shelter on Advertising Steroids! Hmmmm . . . still no UPS truck with my Brochures.
Well, we had had about 4 solid days of Seattle Sunshine prior to today, so the lawn was quickly approaching bailing length. Knowing that waiting to mow til I got back would mean that I would have 500 tree huggers camping in my lawn trying to prevent me from mowing the newly established rainforest if I waited. So I mowed, and banged my knee pretty good re-installing the mower deck that decided to jump off the tractor. 1 hr later . . . hmmmm . . . still no brochures. Checked business, paid the bills, made a few calls to assist affiliates with their requests, whipped up some leftover spagetti. BINGO . . . brochures arrived! Whoops, I hadn't showered yet; and it might be cowboy showers only for the next couple of days, so better take advantage of a hot shower before we hit the road.
Freshly showered, we dropped the bills in the mail box and we're off at 2:45PM; yea! We jumped on Hwy 18 and headed for I-5 to swing down below Olympia. Screeeech, 5 minutes into the trip Hwy 18 is stopped and backed up 6 miles before I-5, ugh! So much for beating the traffic! So Neah Bay and I broke into the fresh Oatmeal Cookies Patty made for our trip that morning. Normally about 2.75 hrs to Westport, WA, I knew it was going to be extended, especially when we didn't round Olympia til about 2 hrs in. No biggie, we we're in no hurry. 3.5 hrs later we arrived in Wesport, and after a quick nature call, I immediately started stuffing brochures, tacking up flyers, and generally pounding the pavement of a shockingly mostly Closed Up town. After finishing up the downtown area, I decided Neah deserved some time out of the truck. So I took her for a stroll. Westport is a pretty sleepy fishing & tourist town, where you can pretty much walk down the middle of the street, so we did. Guess that earlier nature call hadn't been quite long enough, as Neah decided to hold up traffic for a minute as she deposited some cookies in the middle of the main drag. It was nice to be in a loose community, of chuckling and pointing granters of the right-of way; away from the typical appalled gaspers of disgust that such an activity would have produced on the other side of Puget Sound.
We loaded back in our AdWagon and hit the strip out of town. Rounding Aberdeen we turned for the Pacific Beaches in Hoquim . . . Destination Ocean Shores, Tourist-Town of Washington's Pacific Beaches. Rolled in to town a little before 8:00PM, scoped out a plan for tomorrow, checked out the dense fog on the beach, and decided we needed to look for a spot to make camp.
I hadn't mentioned before that for the past 14 years I have used a CPAP machine for sleeping, since I simply stop breathing when I go to sleep. I haven't slept more than 30 minutes to an hour without it for the past 14 years; but, I was prepared to sleep in short stints without it this whole trip; sitting semi-erect and cowboy-ing up. But hey, I brought an extension cord and 220 plug just in case. Fooled myself #1 . . . The campgrounds with electricty would be pretty cheap, and I could sleep with my CPAP I thought. So I checked out a couple. No Vacancy w/elect., No Vacancy with Elec. Okay, I'm pretty familiar with the coast, so were going to head up the coast a few miles, and some of the fishing camps would surely have vacancy with elect. We drove up to Ocean City, and sure enough, 1st try. Checked in at $20 for the night; heck-of- a-deal for a good nights sleep. Oh-Oh, I can hardly walk! Seems that knee I had banged up earlier decided that being banged around and pounding the pavement of Westport had had enough! Oh well, gotta hurry-hobble up and get camp setup with only a few minutes of daylight left.
Quickly started a fire (or should I say a smoke), set up the truck for sleeping, and broke out the cooler. Knee hurts pretty bad no matter how I hold it, but we mess with the fire until we have enough heat to cook up some hotdogs and beefaroni. Neah settles down to a freshly peanut butter packed bone (I stuffed 1/2 doz. for her before we left) Sure glad I brought a candle, 'cause this cowboy's fire wasn't throwing enough light to see otherwise, and I didn't want to waste the batteries of the flashlight. So we ate, went for a short walk, and settled in for more knee-pain moaning - finally we got a decent fire. About 11:00PM we decide it's time to climb in the truck for the night. Quite a task for a knee that doesn't want to bend anymore. Well the truck accommodations were not such that I could actually extend or stretch that leg, so I wriggled around for over an hour before Fooling Myself #2 came in to play. Decided that this wasn't going to work all night, as I was going to need good rest and a strong leg if I was going to carry out my advertising distribution task of tomorrow. I hobbled back out of the truck and packed up in the dark. We were headed to get a real room!
We drove up past Copalis Crossing, and everything was Closed. Arrived back in Ocean Shores a little before 1:00AM, and found a room with no effort. I was beat; in more ways than one. Wasn't concerned about putting anything in the room but me, my dog, her blanket, food, water and my CPAP. Huh, where is my unique power cord for my CPAP machine? Tore up the truck bed, tore up the cab, NO CORD!!! Wait I remember somewhere after leaving the campground I had heard this racket like something had slap\rattled the back window (exactly where I had fed the extension cord into the cab earlier) DAMNIT!
Loaded Neah and my tired butt back into the truck to see if we could back track the last 20 miles and hopefully find that cord somewhere in the road. Returned to the campground; no luck. Drove all the way to the furthest North point where we had traveled earlier looking for a room and turned around. NOTHING! I'm screwed . . . WAIT, as were sitting in the driveway about to re-enter the road - there's my cord - YEA! Back to Ocean Shores for R&R.
Head hit the pillow a little after 2:00AM, what a relief to mind and knee!
Having spent many a night in hotels across North America in a former J. O. B. one of my rituals was always to turn the alarm clock toward the bed; so I could peek from my pillow to check the time. Didn't happen last night. When I rolled over in the night, I noticed the unmistakable daylight seeping in through the venetian blinded window. I raised my head enough to catch a slight glimpse of the time; 9:30AM. Thoughts of a 10:00AM checkout entered my head, and without hesitation I slapped on some pants, grabbed my smokes and took Neah outside. Neah did her business, and I sat on the tailgate of the truck and puffed a smoke. Stepped back in the room to start some coffee, and was now face to face with the room clock - 5:35AM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Checked my watch for confirmation, yep 5:35AM - CRAP! Debated for a few minutes, grabbed bag from truck, and readied everything to prep for a new day. Nope wasn't going to happen; needed more rest! Crashed for 2 more hours, awakened rested with reasonably working knee again.
Decided that after the 1st night being a rough start to our trip, Neah and I deserved a better breakfast that the rations stuffed in the cooler in the back of the truck. After a shower and reloading the truck we headed for McDonalds. Ordered up each a couple of breakfast burritos, and decided we would drive out on the beach and eat. We were each enjoying our hot breakfast, when suddenly mine got spongy! What the hell! My burrito has a latex glove finger in it!!!!!! Looks like day 1 has carried over.
I pounded Ocean Shores heavy with printed media, even attending a Home Show at the Convention Center and networking with a few home business marketers working booths. With Ocean shores well decorated, we headed up the coast. I tacked flyers on every business, post office, and place I could find. At resorts, I filled brochure racks, dropped brochures in front of every door, layed them in lobby's, breakfast nooks, swimming pools, restaurants, bars, and gift shops. We hammered the towns Pacific Beach, Moclips, and Tahola. We came back inland a bit and hammered Aloha, Humptulips, Neilton, Quinalt, and everything in between. It was early evening and we decided that Forks, WA would be our stopping point for the night. So we drove and distributed on our way to Forks, again with a re-wearied knee and thoughts of another comfortable night in a motel. We arrived in Forks around 7:30PM and started looking for a room 1st. Our luck was still in force, as there wasn't a room or campsite available anywhere for at least another 1.5 hrs away! CRAP! I figured that we were going to have to foresake Forks and many areas to make our way to Port Angeles. So we headed north. About 10 miles north of Forks I noticed this really rundown trailer park, with a delapitated sign that appeared that at one time they accepted RVs. I pulled in and inquired. Nope, they had plenty of 1950's trailers and a few 1960's travel trailers, but, they didn't accept anything but residents. I explained my circumstance to the elderly woman, and she very graciously advised that she would allow me to sleep in my truck and hook up my electricity for $20 if my adapter worked with her outlet. She was closing her office in 5 minutes, so I could park back by the restooms and showers, test my plug, and if she didn't hear back from me in 5 minutes she would assume that I was staying; but no fires. DEAL. I could eat cold food; I was to beat to drive back 10 miles to get a hot meal anyway. So Neah and I hurriedly tested the plug. hmmm no power. Tested another outlet, Eureka! I quickly made up our beds before we lost light. I fired up our candle, put out Neah's dinner and settled on to the tailgate for some beefaroni on bread dinner. Wow! These old delapitated travel trailers are actually peoples homes! I made my way over to the restroom shower area - freakin' coded locks!!! No biggie tonight, as I'm in the woods, but, shower tomorrow wasn't going to happen, as I knew my elderly host didn't open the office until 10:00AM. As we sat and watched stars and listened to the poverty stricken park engage in some colorful indoor between trailer drunken exchanges - we contemplated numerous things; even laying out a tarp and sleeping on the ground. Re-Thought that, being in heavy cougar and bear teritory.
Neah felt very blessed for the Peanut Butter stuffed bone she was enjoying. :o)
Crashed about 11:00PM, with my hunting knife resting under my right hand. Afterall, here I was sleeping in a poverty stricken area middle of nowhere with a couple of "Make $250K per Year" magnets on my doors! Up at 1:00PM to stretch, smoke and let Neah do her business. Crashed through the night, woke to icy windows about 6:00AM; and something ate Neah' Dinner! Quick Pack and headed North.
Tacking flyers along the way, the truck started to act a bit funny. Not a big concern, but it seemed to be missing a little. We turned up the Hwy toward Neah Bay, WA (my favorite place in this world, and namesake of my great Airedale Terrier and travel buddy) Knowing the terrain and the area, I decided with the way the truck was acting, I best not take the chance, so we turned back and headed for Port Angeles. Hammered Port Angeles with printed media, hammered Sequim, and hammered everything where you could drive a tack down the entire west side of Puget Sound following Hwy101. I simply didn't have enough inventory to hit all of the little inlet towns or Kitsap Pennisula, so we stayed the coarse on 101 to Shelton, WA; where I exhausted my stock. By 5:00PM we were rounding Olympia and headed for home.
Stats:
650 Miles Travelled (With Ads on Truck)
50 Hours
44 Gallons of Gas
1000 Brochures
200 Tear-Off Flyers
500 Business Card Flyers
100 Magnetic Flyers
1 Tired Dog
1 Humbled Cowboy
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Cost $ PRICELESS
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