I still don't know nothin. Winging it.
Barely escaped rain last week. Lots of it. The worst of it.
Friday, October 11, I got up, stored what I didn't need in my little rented cubby, laundered my dirties, and left for Eastern Washington. Better forecast there. Turned out to be true. The forecast did.
I was going nuts in the Olympia area, and rain had closed in. I can't take that, not while living in a car. That life is extremely constrained. You can't get up in the middle of the night to piss. Or you can, but need to do it inside the car, which gives you one chance to get it right. And then you have to store what comes out of your peepee until sometime the next day, when you also need to go looking for a place to put it.
And whenever you leave your car to cross any stretch of ground whatsoever on foot, you pick up some wet. Which returns with you to the car, where it's really hard to get rid of it.
Have an apartment? Fine. You go out, get your shoes wet, maybe your pants cuffs, a rain jacket or umbrella, and then you come home. When there, you set your wet stuff where it will dry, and then it dries. Next time you go out, you put on your dry clothes and life is fine, except for the rain, but the rain is not a major problem.
But rain is a major problem when living in a car. Mainly because there is no place to put your wet things to dry. Wet things dry a bit, if you are a lucky and careful person, but while rain is still falling, those things do not dry completely. And if those things do not dry completely, then they will rot. Decay. Mold. Stink.
Unless you drive to the self-service laundry to use the dryer at least once a day, preferably in the afternoon, when you are done going out, and before you park for the night. The cold, dark night, when rot goes creeping.
So visiting Eastern Washington was nice. I avoided all that. For a short few days.
The first night, Friday, I made it across White Pass where there was sleet, and parked along the Tieton River near Rimrock Lake, and listened to the rain all night, but heard less of it than on the western slope of the Cascades, for sure.
This was followed by a nice Saturday, a nice Sunday, a nice Monday, a nice Tuesday, and then I was back in Western Washington, where the weather had somehow, suddenly, become nice.
Although Monday night, when I was parked on the Columbia River at Jackson Creek Fish Camp, things got windy. Srsly. The whole car was bouncing. Gusts must have hit 70mph to 80mph. Roaring gusts. Ripping gust. Roaring ripping gusts.
I knew better, but was still afraid that the car would flip over.
So that covers my sleep between 11:30 p.m. and whenever it was that I woke for the final time, around 5:30 a.m., when the whole world was calm again. And not a drop of rain, unlike the west slope of the Cascades, which I'll let Cliff Mass cover: Heavy Rain, Strong Warm Front, Flooding, and Model Problems
But what's the point here? The point is that I'm still waking up in the dark wondering what the hell I've done and WTF I'm going to do next. In different words, Why Am I Here, Really?
Right now, I guess I could say For waiting. I am waiting, and I can do absolutely nothing until the car I bought is registered, titled, and plated in my name. Can't go, can't plan, can't have fun, can't even bail out and leave and scurry back to Ecuador as a last resort.
Which is why I had even more fun last weekend than I've mentioned so far, because while at the post office on my way to the laundry, I found a FedEx envelope in my mailbox, and it was sent to an address I used to have, and Hertz, where I bought the car, seems unable to understand that the address they have from a year and a half back is no, not my address now. But at least I got the envelop. But it contained an "odometer disclosure report" which the kind and thoughtful professionals at Hertz Burien, where I bought the car, had forgotten to have me actually sign it. So there was that.
Lovely.
There was an included prepaid return label with something scribbled on it. Also a note to call, with a number. So hey. I tried that. Got ahold of Erika S, who was "in a plane over Utah". I do not jest.
Why call? Who knows. I don't.
Signed the report and sent it back, hoping for the best. Got an email the following day, saying that I would be receiving an odometer disclosure report to sign and send back. Wrote a long reply. Got no response, but may have to end up by putting this into the hands of the Department of Licensing, possibly (and I hope not) continuing to small claims court oh god no.
So I still don't know. Still winging it. Having a fucking adventure, eh?
Currently screaming into the void, etc.
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