A Beautiful and Stormy Drive from Seattle to Pullman: A Photo (and Video) Essay
The lightning was incessant, but I'm surprised I was able to actually capture a bolt.
A straight line in the middle of nothingness on the GPS -- for hundreds of miles!
"Cougar Country" (that is Washington State University -- WAZZU -- fans) encompasses pretty much all of Eastern Washington. This building is a good hundred miles from campus.)
With Aleks at the helm, both Kat and I snapped away.
At one point Kat asked if I thought Pioneer Woman lives in country like this. (Yeah, we're both fans; she loves PW's photography tips and we both love her recipes.) Hmmm -- I'll bet she does!
The sky just kept changing! One minute it was light, the suddenly...
...darkness!
Dorothy? Wake up!
We even captured a few minutes of video -- but only after we'd passed through the worst of the storm. Aleks had asked to drive back when it was totally calm and the road consisted of miles on end of straight-aways... but as it turned out he was the best one to have driven through the storm because he was able to maintain a completely cool exterior (although he admitted to me later that he was clutching pretty tightly to the wheel!)! The wind gusts were freaky, blowing huge tumbleweeds at and directly in front of the car, and the torrential rain made it difficult to see. Once we got to Pullman, we heard that the storm had been all over the news!
3 comments:
I drove that route a number of times back in the mid-1970s to visit various Wazzu friends, but it was always such an incredibly BORING drive. You "lucked out" with a truly beautiful and dramatic trip!
One exception to my boring excursions to Cougar Country: in 1975 I was paced throughout the pass by a VW Bug driven by a well-dressed man. He was on my tail, alongside my car, passing me then slowing way down so I'd have to pass him, and the dance would begin again. I tried to ignore him, but he followed me into a gas station at Vantage. Stood at an island and watched me as I filled my tank (without filling his). He then headed toward Spokane as I headed toward Pullman. I'm 99.9% convinced it was Ted Bundy. But I didn't have long straight hair parted in the middle, so I wasn't his "type."
Tonya, Bundy left Washington (and started murdering in Utah and Colorado) as of mid-1974. He's documented as being in UT and CO from 1974-1975 when he was arrested in SLC on 8/16/75. Maybe your VW stalker was a Bundy wannabee. That sounds like a freaky experience though. I was a HS junior living in Burien in 1974... with long hair parted in the middle, and he abducted a woman on 6/1/74 in Burien! My mom was totally freaked and I suddenly got a curfew!
I agree on the otherwise boring drive from Seattle/Pullman, which I did many times as a WSU student. There were a few snowstormy Christmas vacations though, where the drive was more scary (not as scary as thinking Bundy was following me, though!)
ah yikes, storms are so difficult and scary to drive through...very very stressfull that is! Glad you guys made it safe at your destination!!!!!!!!!!!!
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