The big move

Alright, so I’m not going back to New York. Not to live, anyway …

The U-Haul box arrived right on time, lowered onto my dad’s lawn with a forklift. Later that night, my boyfriend rolled up in his new [used] car and we loaded the box with all of our belongings. They barely covered the floor of the 5 x 7 box. Then we sat around the patio with my family for pizza and drinks, not knowing exactly when we’d all see each other again.

Five months ago, we made a mad dash from New York to the Midwest to escape the pandemic (spoiler: It followed all of us, but you know that now). It was March and the beginning of the pandemic when it was especially bad in NYC, and we made an early call to leave. Then, two months ago, we went back for our stuff. He just got a new job and my company is graciously letting me work remotely. So, last weekend, we locked a mostly empty U-Haul box and packed his car with work-from-home and camping gear and started the long drive to Seattle.

It’s always hard to say goodbye when I leave home, but I’ve done it enough times by now to know what to expect. Unlike the other times, though, I was never “supposed” to have spent this much time in St. Paul. I felt grateful for the unexpected time to spend with my family without any of the obligations or busyness I had when I lived here. Yes, it’s been a weird time, but I got to learn things about my hometown that I could only learn during a lockdown and period of social reckoning. I also discovered my family’s neighborhood has an affinity for yard signs, sidewalk chalk art and any form of creative expression they can make with garden statues and masks. Exploring it, and just getting to live presently in it, was a gift. Still, was time to start something new.

Close far west

We drove through southern Minnesota and along endless fields in South Dakota, waiting for the landscape to change. It did not until late in the day, when we crossed the Missouri River and approached the Badlands. “These lands are nasty,” we joked as we piled Pringles and other car snacks into our mouths. We guffawed at the Wall Drug billboards lining the road for hundreds of miles. Then we marveled at the lands themselves. Just a day in, it felt like we were far west of where we’d been. Little did we know it was about to get even more beautiful, and way more strange.

We camped on the dry, packed dirt in Badlands National Park. Our first time camping during Covid, the close-set sites made us feel weirdly surrounded by people. We fell asleep listening to our neighbor offering his group shots of fireball (they all declined). The sun was rising when we got up at 5:30. After climbing on some rocks to stretch our legs, we set off through the park and on to our second day of driving. We passed bighorn sheep grazing along the road (!!!). If we had a bingo card for the wildlife we saw on their trip, this would go on there next to bison and prairie dogs, all of which we saw before leaving the park.

Surprise storm

“Why-oming?” My boyfriend said this pun early on to get it over with, and I let out a dry laugh. Then we drove through Wyoming, which I can’t comment on too much because I fell asleep as the dry hills rolled by. The sky darkened as we reached our second camping destination: Grand Teton National Park. We traded straight, empty roads for rocky hills tinted with red and dense forests. It was beautiful. It was also starting to rain.

We pulled into the park just as the rain turned to sleet. We headed deeper into the woods to scope out a place. Cars crowded the road going in the opposite direction, leaving the park in droves as the sky got darker and the sleet thickened. I got out, covered in layers of thin clothing because I didn’t check the weather because we were moving and also didn’t think it would be SNOWING and thank god I brought a hat — and talked to a park staffer. She said they were advising people to leave the park. Winds were supposed to reach 50 mph and threatened to knock down trees, plus there was a cold front.

I got back in the car and the two of us booked it for Jackson 40 miles south, but not before getting caught in a blizzard. Snow came down thick and heavy on the new car and we cranked up the defroster and hoped that the truck in front of us would stay on the road to help clear the way. It was slow moving and hard to see, but we eventually made it to the town and found a hotel, thankful that not all of the would-be campers had filled them up.

So much for camping. But we enjoyed a hot shower and takeout (and a dose of alarm seeing how many people were sitting, mask-free, in the restaurant). We woke up to snow-capped mountains ringing the town. It was chilly and felt more like we were going skiing than a post-Labor Day hike. The four hours walking in the Tetons were breathtaking, with deep snow to wade through and beautiful views of mountain lakes. Maybe that’s Why-oming.

Ooey gooey

We set off again, driving north through Yellowstone National Park. Only 40 minutes from where we hiked, the scenery changed drastically with gorges and volcanic rock surrounding the road. Some construction re-routed us to Old Faithful, which we hadn’t planned to see but figured, what the heck? We scored a close parking spot in the mall-sized lot and toured the “ooey gooey tar pits” my boyfriend had visited with his family when he was six (he still remembered the path to get there!). Scalding water bubbled over bright orange and blue holes in the rock. They came in all sizes, smelled very eggy, and were the coolest thing we saw in the park. We rounded back to Old Faithful and saw it erupt, running away from the crowd to snag the car before we got caught in middle-of-the-wilderness traffic.

The second-coolest thing we saw was a bison walking right along the side of the highway like a lone hitchhiker. I took a video and shuddered at the sheer size of his face.

We made our way into more wide open spaces after that, crossing into Montana where the sky began to get hazy from distant forest fires. Late in the day, we made it to Missoula, our resting spot for the night where we had actually planned to stay in a hotel. Tired from a third day in the car, we walked up to the front desk where the clerk greeted us with: “I’ve been trying to reach you. Our water main broke. We can lower your price by 50% and get you a bucket to help flush the toilet.”

We’d been through 50-mph winds and a snowstorm. We’d endured 200 cheesy Wall Drug billboards. Now this. “No thank you!” we responded and once again got lucky finding another hotel nearby.

Into the smoke

After exploring downtown Missoula and the University of Montana campus the next morning, we drove through the forested mountains into Idaho, stopping in the idyllic lake town Coeur d’Alene for lunch. We got back into the car and crossed into Washington for the last leg of the drive, and the closer we got to Seattle, the hazier the air became. Crossing from Spokane into the open plains again, we spotted dust devils whipping up dirt in the fields like baby twisters. We crossed a river; it was getting harder to see the view. The smoke thickened as the landscape re-populated with trees and we neared the Snoqualmie Pass, the site of the closest forest fires. We had checked the DNR site and everything around there was contained, but the air was still thick.

Signs for Seattle started to appear. After driving for four days, it seemed so close. The smoke dissipated a bit and the traffic grew heavier. We spotted Teslas zooming past us in late afternoon traffic. Soon we were crossing bridges and going through tunnels. Signs for Bellevue appeared. A city bus with one masked rider joined thousands of cars on their commute. And we were one of them, though our ride was a bit longer.

Finally, we crossed Lake Washington and Mercer Island. Then we were in the city. Darting straight uphill, we left the freeway and found ourselves on busy restaurant-lined Madison Street. Signs for Teriyaki, dry cleaning, co-ops and cannabis shops traded places with the pine trees, smoke clouds and mountains.

All that was left was to find a parking spot.