Dinos and beards

Sunday, November 27^th, 2011

      Somedays, I don't even know where to begin. I'll just roll right into it without a leading paragraph.

      Today I started in a place called Granger, Washington. It is a small place in the Yakima river valley, a bit South and East of Topppenish, and Northeast of Grandview. There's not much to speak of in this town. Were I to guess, I'd estimate about 1000 souls live in the vicinity, probably God-fearing Christians most likely. Well, there's a truck stop here. It isn't the Ritz, but the bathrooms are clean enough, and they have coffee if you're interested. No liquid creamer though. They have a fancy dispenser with all these different types of powdered/partially hydrogenated non-dairy creamers. I could've had hazelnut with my trans-fats! Getting back to the town, it seems that lots of places want to be known for something. I'm sure that They would have a big “G” on a hillside in white like so many other small towns with identity issues, but Granger sits on flat land in the valley. They do, however, have all sorts of dinosaurs roaming around.

      This town is monomaniacally dedicated to dinosaurs. Just driving through of WA 223, one will see about 20 dinos. I admire the idea that they like something so very much, even if it gets mixed up with their identity. To the amusement of a passer-by, there is a park filled with dinosaur ... “statues” (I guess). The one that amuses me is the T-rex standing over a table with jaws open, as if eating some hapless picnicker. They've even named their espresso stand “Dino-Java” just so you get the idea. At last count there are 4 dinosaur “statues” outside the truck stop. I expect that they will start multiplying soon.

      The next leg of my trip brought me back to Portland. I really enjoy Portland as a city. I even like the people there. There has been a campaign going for sometime called “Keep Portland Weird.” It has also been speculated that this motto was lifted from Eugene, Oregon, which in my mind is certainly a stranger place with less hipsters. Which brings me to the gem I saw today. Driving down the freeway, a pick-up with a cap passes me. I'm a bit of a sucker for bumper stickers so I tend to read them, and the one that caught my eye read “Keep Portland Beard.” While I'm not laughing out loud as I did when I read it, it still makes me smile. It kinda plays on the whole hipster thing and the idea that we have to be weird to be special. We're all special. Just like little snow flakes.

      I'm feeling a bit tired and out of it still, so best to wrap this up. I picked up my load, and went to the terminal. My truck has been leaking air for quite some time now, but it hasn't been enough to be a) dangerous or b) illegal. Seeing that I'm going into Canada, I'd rather not have any kind of hassle at the weigh station in BC (since I've still got to pay that $115 ticket). So I pulled into the shop to have that fixed. Turns out that I somehow lost a mudflap. I didn't hear any cars crashing behind me, so I figure that it didn't fly off on the freeway. My best guess is that somebody stole it at the truck stop in Granger, and I failed to notice it was missing this morning. Thank goodness they replaced that! They fixed something else I didn't think was broken. It was odd at first, but I'd gotten used to having my ignition switch turned 90° counter clockwise. I got back in my truck and realized how used to it I had become when it was so bizarre to twist the key a different way, the standard 12 and 6 position. Then off and running up to Pasco, WA. I expect the next few days to be rather busy, but at least I'll likely have internet access at some point, Wednesday at the latest. We'll see how cold it is this time!