More snow fell during the night, but we had sun this morning as we finished packing the truck and rounded up the cats. I won’t go into much detail about the latter except to say it entailed bloodshed (mine) and moving the washing machine/dryer combo.

We left Lynnwood just after noon, a bit apprehensive about the condition of Snoqualmie Pass but glad to see the sun. The drive was beautiful.

We had one delay near the summit of the pass–traffic was halted for about 20 minutes while crews removed a tree from the highway. Many drivers, including my dad, took advantage of the wait to clean ice off their windshield wipers.

By the way, my dad reported that Bishop was an excellent traveler who spent most of the trip curled up on the floor, sleeping. He’s making up for it now, unfortunately. (A no-Bishop-on-the-bed rule has been instituted. Given past behavior, I know that even if I succeed in keeping him off the bed while I’m awake, he’ll just wait until I’m sleeping to curl up on my feet. So he’s in the crate, whining like a manic soprano with Tourette’s syndrome, along with the Sisters of Destruction, who are themselves not particularly happy about being confined.)

After a late lunch in Ellensburg, we continued east with the goal of stopping in Spokane for the night. I was going to try to teach my ESL classes from the hotel, plus we were all pretty exhausted, so we didn’t plan to push too far.

My mom drove until dark, then I took over, behind the wheel for the first time since I drove a moving truck west over the Cascades last February. I was a bit nervous because the roads were mostly okay with patches of ice, and I’m phobic about driving on ice. But I eventually got acclimated enough to enjoy executing a slippery u-turn in Coeur d’Alene.

By the time we got checked into a hotel–in Coeur d’Alene, a bit beyond Spokane–I was even more exhausted. Then I discovered that Sadie had puked all over her crate and was showing UTI symptoms, plus I couldn’t get onto the Internet. So I called my ESL supervisor, who assured me they already had subs lined up. Eventually, I managed to clean Sadie’s crate, force a pill down her throat, get Gorey and Zuli situated, walk Bishop in the single-digit temperature outside (too bad I don’t have ice skates for a reprise of that ill-advised rollerblading-with-Bishop plan, but then, I don’t need another broken finger, or worse!), and figure out the issue that was keeping my computer offline.

When we crossed the state line into Idaho, my mom asked how I felt about leaving Washington.

“Relieved,” I said.

And that’s all for now.