Detours

On the road back from California to where I live in Seattle, one can make assumptions often due to repetition. I travel this route on average every six months due to the day work I do, which in a nutshell is art handling. I've done this trip for Artech now for a couple of years, and thus know about how long it will average in time, probable gas stops, where I might have to sleep along the route, eat, etc. Well this time back, there was a slew of variables. One was construction, the other was graduation. One meant traveling on roads less frequented, the other meant no available motel or hotel rooms. The first meant seeing sites like the picture above, a lumber mill steaming thru the night. The latter meant sleeping with a pillow on the steering wheel at an available rest stop, or in the back of the truck wrapped in padded blankets, which I found out offer no warmth[by the way when did hotels and motels stop putting out VACANCY/NO VACANCY signs, which now entails one to go into the lobby of every possible hotel/motel, and ask if there is an available room for the night?]. 25 Hours later, due to all variations of odd routes and sleeping in the manger, I returned to Seattle, art safe, co-worker and I safe, and a detour that resulted in a rather long day, and night, and day and a few observations that shook up a semi-annual routine.