The Road to Shasta (Day 2)

23 October 2010

Day 2 was a heavy driving day, but just because I spent most of it in the car it didn't preclude God from speaking to me through various means. I left Great Falls as soon as it was light outside and continued down the 15 to Helena, the capital of Montana. On my way out of the city I stopped at a gas station and refuelled, seeing as I was way too exhausted and overwhelmed to do it the preceding evening. I also bought some salted almonds for the trip. (Got to have protein, baby!) I asked the gentleman cashier how long it would take me to get to Spokane, and he quoted a time and then told me not to pronounce a hard A in the second syllable because it made me sound like I was from the east. I smiled and told him that I was an easterner. It was a pleasant dialogue, though. I should also mention that, except perhaps for two people, everyone I encountered on my trip was nice and genuine. Some people in Canada have a stigma about Americans that simply doesn't reflect the truth. They are a very industrious and welcoming people, but, like everyone, they need Jesus.

Anyway, the road to Helena was a very special drive for me, during which I fell in love with this state. Being from the east coast, a lot of the Midwestern and western states seemed to mesh together in all cognitive images I'd seen from this part of the continent, but I can honestly say I would not lament if the Lord ever calls me to live and minister in Montana. The drive was pleasant all the way to Helena, but very mountainous. I imagined to myself that I would hate do travel that way during winter, seeing as there were many slopes with steep inclines.

As I approached the town of Helena, I decided that I would stop for a quick break, not that it was late in the day by any means. I tended to avoid cities, but since it was Saturday the traffic was quite thin, so I didn't think there would be any bumper to bumper action that would just leech time away from interstate travel. The road from the north seemed to run along the eastern perimeter of the city, and the first part I beheld was mostly residential. I was very encouraged to see a billboard with John 14:6 just outside the first exit into the city core.

When I got to Helena I followed a commercial street until I saw a little coffee hut that was not quite the size of my dorm room. They seem to have these throughout the states I visited, and it's cool that you can just drive up to them and get specialty coffees. I purchased an Americano with a flavour shot of white chocolate and asked the friendly girls who worked there how to get to Spokane (I pronounced properly this time!). They told me how to get to "malfunction junction" and how to get onto the 12/287, which saved me from having to dip south into Butte. From there I headed west on the I-90 toward Spokane, eating my almonds and drinking my Americano and praising God in song and prayer.

I stopped in Missoula for lunch because I didn't want to fall into the habit of missing meals while I was driving for such extended periods. There was this quaint little restaurant near a truck stop of the highway, so I went in and had a turkey and swiss sandwich with fries. It came with some pretty sweet apricot dipping sauce, and the waitresses were very nice and helpful in terms of suggesting which route to follow to get to Mount Shasta. I wound up not taking their advice and continuing toward Spokane instead of backtracking to Helena and heading south (though I would use this route to get back home).

En route to Spokane I passed through a town called Coeur d'Alene. I noticed an electric sign that paraphrased a few verses from Psalm 112, "The man who fears the Lord never fears bad news." I thought to myself that I hoped it wasn't an omen that foreshadowed some calamity ahead.

Spokane was very busy but seemed like a beautiful city. I drove through it and stopped at a Shell station just outside the western limit of the city. I consulted my map and decided to continue toward a city called Ellensburg, which seemed to intersect the 97 (a highway that went right to Mount Shasta). There was a man with a backpack who was wandering about the store, and he asked me if I could take him into the city, adding that he had barely missed the bus into town. I told him that I wished I could help but I was actually headed to California, and he replied that he didn't want to take me so far out of my way and hoped to go there too some day. In hindsight I kind of wonder if I shouldn't have been in such a rush to move to my destinations (cf. Heb 13:2), but I really didn't want to end up in the middle of Spokane and have to retrace my steps. Still, had I not been travelling alone I think I would have been more open to random detours. I know these are all excuses, but it's too late to change what happened, so I digress.

I felt led to stop again before getting to Ellensburg, so I pulled into a town called Ritzville, where I bought a banana, some protein bars, and some sesame seed crackers (trying to eat somewhat healthy in light of all the energy drinks I'd been consuming). I asked the woman at the counter for her opinion as to how I should get to the 97, and she indicated that she usually went south on the 395 down to "the tri-city area," which didn't interest me at all. It was nigh dinnertime and I figured that a cluster of cities would yield nothing but rush hour traffic to contend with. I continued west on the I-90 and felt convicted to stop again at a town called Quincy. There the Lord directed me to someone who advised me to take a certain road that allowed me to bypass Ellensburg, which seemed sizeable enough to slow me down. I drove through the city of Yakima, trying to read the signs and watch the road, which proved difficult because the sun was setting fast. Just outside of Yakima there was a weird junction that I missed and wound up heading east instead of south. I caught on to this fact maybe 10 miles down the road and pulled a U-turn in a two-lane highway that was flanked by cornfields, retreated back to the junction and finally found myself on the road to Mount Shasta.

The Lord deserves a special praise note here. He had encouraged me to gas up in Quincy, and I discovered by the end of the night that if I had not done so I might not have had enough in my tank to reach my destination for the evening. It was a weird situation when I got onto the 97 because the only services available were over 50 miles apart. And I was driving this mountainous highway in the dark. Oh yeah, and it was raining so the asphalt was reflecting and refracting every light to the point that they were almost blinding. Anyway, the signs kept suggesting that a town called Goldendale would be a suitable place to bunk up for the night, so when I finally reached this town I pulled off the highway and stopped at the first motel I could find.

I went up to my room and ate some of the items I had bought in Ritzville (I had been too focused on the road to eat anything in transit). It was a nice evening, but I was feeling the weight of the two days I'd been on the road. I went to bed quite early, after reading a chapter in Mounce about demonstrative pronouns, which didn't register at all.

I was reminded of this passage several times on day 2: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight" (Prov 3:5-6). He had. Many times.

Mileage: 1932 km