runtovote2008's blog

on the road again...

 abuse

Hello all!

Well, for those of you that didn't hear, we had our first big "challenge."  On the way from Portland to Spokane we stopped at a gas station, and when we tried to leave we realized that the van wouldn't go in reverse.  Ian, Jordan, and I pushed it back far enough that Mr. Williams could manuver out of the parking lot in drive, but after talking to a couple of people we realized that our transmission was probably going out.  Angel started calling places in the closest town, Richland, WA and found a towing guy who said he would look at it for us if we brought it in (which was awesome because it was Sunday.) Mr. Williams masterfully drove on another hour or so with a faulty transmission and got us to Dale's shop.  He and his entire family ended up being awesomely nice people...Dale called around until he found us a rebuilt transmission for $750 just an hour away, volunteered to put the transmission in for us for free, paid for lunch for us and put us up in a hotel for the night.  His apprentice Heather and Mr. Williams went the next day to get the transmission while the kids and I did a voter drive in the park, which turned out to be awesome.  Two news stations came and interviewed us (one of the links is below.)  Dale tried to get the transmission put it that day, but he had been up all night the night before towing people who needed his help, so Rebecca Yates graciously paid for us to stay in the hotel one more night.  We were finally able to resume our expedition late afternoon on Tuesday.  That put us off schedule, but we are adjusting a few things as we go to get back on schedule by this weekend.  We drove through Spokane and on into Idaho yesterday and did a quick voting drive in a park Coeur d'Alene, which was beautiful! Then we continued driving to Helena, MT where Blair Williams of Urban Mountain Develoment waited up for us until we arrived at about 11:15pm to let us in to the condo that she is letting us stay in.  Helena is a great town, we had a very successful voting drive this afternoon and Blair and her husband bought us lunch and dinner and have been so hospitable to us!  We are going to sleep here again tonight and leave around 4:00am to head to Salt Lake City, do a voting drive there, and drive on to Denver, CO where my college friend Cassie will be waiting to greet us and squeeze us into her apartment for the night. 

I have updated the pictures part way through California, and hope to get more up today.  Check the website soon for an update of our route too since we are having to adjust a little. 

Today marks the half way point...we've been gone 3 and a half weeks and have 3 and a half weeks left to go.  It's all downhill from here, right?

News links:

http://www.kvewtv.com/news/?sect_rank=2&section_id=3&story_id=6128

We also got interviewed in LA by an International Spanish Newspaper called El Mundo.  We think that story will come out on Sun July 13, I'll try to get a hold of a link to it.

Love,
Diane

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