Caravan Blog

After leaving Seattle, we drove all night across Washington, Oregon, and through Idaho. We stayed up until 2:30am setting up our "office" in the RV so we can update the trip blog and send emails from the road. Oliver and Maya took the graveyard shift driving, while the rest of us bounced around in our beds trying to sleep. We woke up at 9am in Bliss, Idaho at the "Stinker" truck stop.

An energetic older man named Bob, who owns the rock shop across the street saw our shrink-wrapped RVs and walked across the road to greet us. "You folks are talking about some serious issues here," he said,"Are you sure you want to do that?"

Bob's rock shop had a huge concrete dinosaur out front along with tables filled with rocks and marbles. We also met Bob's friend Roy, who sells used tractors, trucks, and fire engines next to the rock shop.

Beth, our film maker, did an interview with Bob who said that he voted for Clinton, then voted against Clinton, and then voted Independent. Now he's voting against President Bush because the economy is so bad in Idaho and nobody has any money. Bob said that he's been selling a lot of marbles because they're cheaper than the rocks in his museum. He said that if it weren't for the marbles he wouldn't be able to make ends meet. Bob thinks the only people making money in Idaho are the corporations.

I had a chance to talk to Bob's friend Roy, who is a warm, down-to-earth, grandpa-type guy. Roy said that in Idaho if Jesus Christ ran against George Bush, people would still vote for Bush. I didn't know whether Roy was a Democrat or a Republican and I asked him what he thought of the upcoming election. Roy said he's tired of Bush and he's going to vote for Kerry, mainly because of the economy.

Roy also said that his grandkids are doing well and are in college. But he doesn't like the fact that college is so expensive that they're all going to graduate with debt in a state with very few jobs. I remember that Kerry focused on making college more affordable, and it was interesting to hear an elderly fellow in Bliss, Idaho saying that the cost of college was important to him.

We left Bliss, Idaho and headed into Utah. Later on, we had a small party to celebrate our first full day on the road with beer, wine, and Coleen dancing up a storm in the kitchen of the RV. For dinner, we stopped to watch the sunset in Wyoming and eat quesadillas. Then we drove through Colorado and into Kansas where we are now, writing this late at night from the road.

We'll be arriving at my parents' house at around 9:30am in Lawrence, Kansas. We're meeting the Driving Votes chapters from Chicago and St. Louis there and then we head off to Kansas City, Missouri for a day of door-to-door canvassing and voter registration.