On Sunday, August 16th, we checked into a lovely AirBnB near our house in Seattle with the cats. On Monday, we went back to our house and supervised while the movers loaded all our crap into two U-Haul pods. On Tuesday, we packed up everything we needed to bring with us for a week and a half before the pods made it to St. Paul, stuffed it in the car, and started driving along I-90 starting at the western end.
By Apple Maps directions, that’s just under 1,700 miles. We did it in a tight three and a half days — could have been faster if we weren’t driving an EV. That makes it the second longest move we’ve ever done; the Austin to Palo Alto trip was around 1,850 miles, since we stopped in Las Vegas to get married. I don’t recall how many days we took for that one, although we spent an extra day or so in Vegas to breathe. Baltimore to Austin would have been an 1,550 mile drive but we flew. Anyhow, this was a long one.
Day One
The cats were pretty calm. We got some gabapentin into Jacques; Agnes was more resistant to being pilled but didn’t turn out to be very yowly. I’d always wanted to see the drive out to Spokane, but I’d never had a good reason to, so it was nice checking out Eastern Washington. We stopped right after the Columbia River to scope out “Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies,” aka the Wild Horses Monument. I love that kind of neat personal art project and the view of the Columbia was also striking, as you can see.
My general rule was that we had time for a few 15 minute stops along the way. Since I didn’t want to hike up to the actual statues, this fit in well. We stretched our legs and kept on going to Moses Lake, where we charged for the first time. Neither you or I need the detailed breakdown of how we charged (although, because I’m me, I preserved the record) so I’ll just note the lessons learned: it’s way better to do stretches of 100-150 miles and plan on charging to 80%; that means you’re stopping for 30-40 minutes instead of 60-80 minutes. Also less stress about running on empty, particularly when you’re crossing mountains.
The Tesla charger adapter worked really well the three or so times we had to use it. Tesla has a better charging network for sure, but the chargers feel lower rent: they infamously have much shorter cables — and yeah, we did have to use two parking spaces a couple of times — and there are no screens on the chargers which left me feeling a little in the dark. But they worked, which is what you need, and they’re fast.
Anyhow, back to day one. We kept on through Spokane, which as of the time of passage was absolutely enveloped in smoke from the nearby wildfires. If we’d had more time we’d have gone down to the river; under the circumstances it wasn’t much of a loss. From there it’s a hop, skip, and a jump into Idaho. We paused again a bit after Coeur d’Alene to check out the Cataldo Mission which was interesting enough for a quick pause. The Rocky Mountain scenery was more interesting; neither S. or I had ever been through this way.
I actually legitimately wanted to detour north a ways to scope out the old location of the Aryan Nations compound, but that would have burned almost an hour and there isn’t anything there any more. Still, I was quite aware that we were driving through the heart of the Pacific Northwest’s white supremacist history.
Idaho goes pretty quickly on I-90. Soon after crossing into Montana, we charged up in St. Regis and had a surprisingly good takeout dinner at this place called Winki’s Diner. Literally the best, juiciest chicken tenders I’ve had in ages. The era of solid family-owned roadside diners hasn’t ended. There was also a cool roadside sculpture stand with an amazingly pink bear right by the charger.
We finally pulled off for the night in Missoula, lugged two cats and a ton of bags plus our valuables into the hotel, and slept really well.
Day 2
I planned breakfast as our big relaxed meal for each day, since I didn’t map the driving down to the hour and we weren’t going to be leaving the cats in the car to have sit-down meals anyhow. Apologies to the hotels with policies about leaving pets unattended in the room. Missoula treated us very well breakfast-wise; we ate at Cafe Mimosa, a truly lovely Art Deco place in the middle of downtown. Not spectacular food but plenty tasty. In general Missoula impressed us; it felt laid back.
Unfortunately since they didn’t open till 9, plus we had to charge, we didn’t get on the road until 10. This wound up being our really long day. We skipped over seeing the Berkeley Pit, which fascinates me but again would have been too long a stop. We did pause at the Greycliff Prairie Dog Town State Park, which is barely the size of a rest stop. No facilities. Lots of prairie dogs! Worth the ten minutes.
By that time, obviously, you’re well out of the Rockies and into Big Sky territory. Montana is legitimately gorgeous. Takes forever. In Billings, we abandoned I-90 for I-94, and kept on going until we pulled into Glendive around 10 PM. Lugged all the stuff into the hotel, and fell asleep within minutes.
Did I mention the battery/portable fridge setup we were using to keep our Zepbound cold because you can’t let it stay at room temperature too long? We had to move that into each hotel too for the sake of recharging the battery. I think this trip we used luggage carts more, in aggregate, than in the sum total of our lives previously.
Day 3
We got an earlier start, having learned our lesson. We even had time to stop to see Glendisaurus before charging up. He’s way cooler than the creationist dinosaur museum nearby, which you can look up yourself if you’re curious. Breakfast was deeply unexceptional and soon afterwards we were driving through North Dakota.
A mutual on Bluesky mentioned the Badlands casually, which excited me because I think of those as a South Dakota thing. Shows what us coastal types know. After some quick searching I realized we were going right past the Theodore Roosevelt National Park (South Unit) so why not pull into the Painted Canyon Visitor Center? Best decision we made all trip; it’s jaw-droppingly amazing. We’re gonna drive back out there sometime fairly soon to spend more time on it.
From there we just kept going till we reached Fargo, with a few more charging stops along the way. North Dakota is pretty flat. We elected not to bother seeing the Bank of North Dakota despite its illustrious socialist history; there’s a possible tour of Nonpartisan League history but I’m not sure it’d be interesting other than sentimental value. Maybe someday.
Anyhow yeah. We got into Fargo refreshingly early, around 6 PM, and actually went out to sit down at a fern bar kind of a place within walking distance of the hotel for dinner. Slept like logs. The cats showed every sign of being resigned to a new, nomadic life. We knew the end was very near.
Day Four
Breakfast was a huge family breakfast place right off a typical urban stroad. Nothing much to say about it one way or the other. At this point we just wanted to get there, and there was nothing but a single stop midway to charge preventing us from arriving. I didn’t even bother looking for things to see along the Minnesota stretch of the drive; we were close enough so that anything interesting was no more than a day trip away from our new home.
We were driving again by 9, and arrived in St. Paul by 2, half an hour ahead of schedule. I should note that “we” is inaccurate: S. literally did all the driving, since she enjoys it more and that leaves me free to handle directions and stops and all that jazz. She’s a beast.
We worked through the inevitable paperwork, got our keys and key fobs, and hauled everything but a night’s worth of gear into the apartment. The cats got to spend the night by themselves, which was a little bit sad (“no, kids, this isn’t where we leave you alone forever”) but I think preferable to lugging them into yet another temporary room and figuring out how to get them out from under the bed the next morning. After that, we had one more night in a hotel before coming back home and dealing with… well, all the stuff. Getting a bed, getting supplies, buying some groceries, and a million other things which in the end have nothing to do with the drive.