The Road Trip
After much deliberation. I decided I would move to Cambridge Maryland to work for a Hyatt Regency resort there. The job was made available through an internship offer made to foriegn students. As one of my main goals is to travel, I decided to take the oppurtunity because it would give me a foot in the door with the Hyatt Hotel chain, which is global in span. And to move away from home for the first time. This was perfect for me.
We left May 19th. It was the beginning of 4 nights 5 days of mind numbing monotony.
Our first day, we went to the Sumas border crossing. There we got our passports stamped with a J-1 visa stamp. Meaning we were aliens allowed to work in the U.S. From there we navigated our way onto Interstate 90 going east. Going through the outskirts of Seattle. Our first day was pretty uneventful.
Then we hit Montana, the vast endless plains of nothingness (almost worse than saskatchewan) We stopped on the second day, and ate a a Famous Daves Pit BBQ restuarant. While eating, it started to rain, and rain....and rain and rain and rain. We're talking the size of golf balls size rain.
So we're sitting inside eating our better than average bbq dinners. Enjoying the comfortableness of the inside of the restuarant and being glad we weren't out in the rain. When Brenden (one of my fellow canadian interns) comes out of the restrooms, looks at Mike (the other canadian intern we travelled with) and says "We left the sunroof open!"
Brenden tosses the car keys to Mike, who is closer to the exit. Mike makes a one handed grab for the keys while leaping over our table. He sprints for the door, dodging waitresses with drink trays, elderly couples, and a baby carriage. He dashes through the crashing rain, narrowly missing getting hit by a bolt of lightning, with several cars exploding in the background from the mere force of the rain. He dives in through the sunroof and starts the car, closing the sunroof just in time to avoid a deer flying through the air.
ok, so maybe it wasn't that exciting, but I gotta jazz it up somehow.
So Brendan and Mike got to sit in puddles in the front seat for the rest of the day. While I stayed relatively dry in the back. mwahahahahahahahaha
Thus ended the day of day two, and began the night of day two.
All during the trip through washington state and Idaho state. We'd been seeing flashing lightning off in the distance. Well now...we caught up to the storm. I have never seen such frequent and intense lightning in my entire life. If you live on the prairies and you've seen a thunderstorm there. That's nothing compared to this. Every few seconds the sky was lit up and all of us were blinking from blindness. Once or twice the lightning struck the road just a few miles ahead of us. (or at least it looked that way) Mike tried to take a picture of a bolt of lightning, and they were so frequent he'd try to take a picture of one, and the camera would lag just enough for him to almost get the second one. I doubt I'll ever see another storm like it.
After stopping for the night of the second day, we began our morning of the third day.
Good news and bad news. Good news, it's sunny out and the weather is nice. Bad News...we're still in Montana, and heading into Wyoming.....another Saskatchewanesque (say that ten times fast) type of place. Full of nothing. Then...more bad news! the storm that had passed us by during the night, we caught up to again! and it was the second night all over again!
I think it was around this time that Mike and Brenden decided that one or two No-doses would be a good idea to get us farther today than we had been travelling in previous days. And since I was there, they decided I had to take one too....even though I was just sitting in the back of the car trying not to fall asleep. Well....I didn't have to try to fall asleep anymore. And I don't think Brendan or Mike blinked once for 3 hours. We managed to cover 1300 km that day. Woohoo!
On the 4th day we went through the most roadkilly stretch of highway yet, I lost count of how many dismembered, bashed, and eviscerated deer we passed on that day, but it's safe to say it was probably in the 40's or 50's.
Going through Chicago was fun too, we stopped at a Small gas station just off the highway, where the teller was behind bars, it was pump before you pay, and everyone was giving us dirty looks. (Probably cuz we still had a British Columbia license plate) Needless to say we drove as far as we could from that place. ( I think till 1 or 2 in the morning) Then it was only one more day till Cambridge.
Our last day was uneventful, we arrived at the hotel at around 3 in the afternoon. Where the executive sous chef (Micheal Wilks) met us, gave us a tour of the hotel, then took us to his house, were we had a excellent dinner prepared by his girlfriend gabby, who is a chatterbox by the way.
The next day, after crashing at Mikeys, we started work. And thus began our career at Hyatt.
My first day is the subject of another blog.
We left May 19th. It was the beginning of 4 nights 5 days of mind numbing monotony.
Our first day, we went to the Sumas border crossing. There we got our passports stamped with a J-1 visa stamp. Meaning we were aliens allowed to work in the U.S. From there we navigated our way onto Interstate 90 going east. Going through the outskirts of Seattle. Our first day was pretty uneventful.
Then we hit Montana, the vast endless plains of nothingness (almost worse than saskatchewan) We stopped on the second day, and ate a a Famous Daves Pit BBQ restuarant. While eating, it started to rain, and rain....and rain and rain and rain. We're talking the size of golf balls size rain.
So we're sitting inside eating our better than average bbq dinners. Enjoying the comfortableness of the inside of the restuarant and being glad we weren't out in the rain. When Brenden (one of my fellow canadian interns) comes out of the restrooms, looks at Mike (the other canadian intern we travelled with) and says "We left the sunroof open!"
Brenden tosses the car keys to Mike, who is closer to the exit. Mike makes a one handed grab for the keys while leaping over our table. He sprints for the door, dodging waitresses with drink trays, elderly couples, and a baby carriage. He dashes through the crashing rain, narrowly missing getting hit by a bolt of lightning, with several cars exploding in the background from the mere force of the rain. He dives in through the sunroof and starts the car, closing the sunroof just in time to avoid a deer flying through the air.
ok, so maybe it wasn't that exciting, but I gotta jazz it up somehow.
So Brendan and Mike got to sit in puddles in the front seat for the rest of the day. While I stayed relatively dry in the back. mwahahahahahahahaha
Thus ended the day of day two, and began the night of day two.
All during the trip through washington state and Idaho state. We'd been seeing flashing lightning off in the distance. Well now...we caught up to the storm. I have never seen such frequent and intense lightning in my entire life. If you live on the prairies and you've seen a thunderstorm there. That's nothing compared to this. Every few seconds the sky was lit up and all of us were blinking from blindness. Once or twice the lightning struck the road just a few miles ahead of us. (or at least it looked that way) Mike tried to take a picture of a bolt of lightning, and they were so frequent he'd try to take a picture of one, and the camera would lag just enough for him to almost get the second one. I doubt I'll ever see another storm like it.
After stopping for the night of the second day, we began our morning of the third day.
Good news and bad news. Good news, it's sunny out and the weather is nice. Bad News...we're still in Montana, and heading into Wyoming.....another Saskatchewanesque (say that ten times fast) type of place. Full of nothing. Then...more bad news! the storm that had passed us by during the night, we caught up to again! and it was the second night all over again!
I think it was around this time that Mike and Brenden decided that one or two No-doses would be a good idea to get us farther today than we had been travelling in previous days. And since I was there, they decided I had to take one too....even though I was just sitting in the back of the car trying not to fall asleep. Well....I didn't have to try to fall asleep anymore. And I don't think Brendan or Mike blinked once for 3 hours. We managed to cover 1300 km that day. Woohoo!
On the 4th day we went through the most roadkilly stretch of highway yet, I lost count of how many dismembered, bashed, and eviscerated deer we passed on that day, but it's safe to say it was probably in the 40's or 50's.
Going through Chicago was fun too, we stopped at a Small gas station just off the highway, where the teller was behind bars, it was pump before you pay, and everyone was giving us dirty looks. (Probably cuz we still had a British Columbia license plate) Needless to say we drove as far as we could from that place. ( I think till 1 or 2 in the morning) Then it was only one more day till Cambridge.
Our last day was uneventful, we arrived at the hotel at around 3 in the afternoon. Where the executive sous chef (Micheal Wilks) met us, gave us a tour of the hotel, then took us to his house, were we had a excellent dinner prepared by his girlfriend gabby, who is a chatterbox by the way.
The next day, after crashing at Mikeys, we started work. And thus began our career at Hyatt.
My first day is the subject of another blog.
posted by ThePassionateChef at 6:43 PM
3 Comments:
(okay the less a mother knows about your traveling habits the better.) If you caught up to that storm you were driving too fast. Love ya, mom.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
hehe.....
caught!!
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