Mount Rainier Photo Courtesy of Jay Brower
Lisa Twining and Jim Marlowe II left Ogden, Utah a couple hours ago, so I expect they’re near Twin Falls right now, which is about 715 miles away. This last leg of their journey will end here in Tacoma hopefully sometime tonight, but 715 miles is a helluva long way to go in a single day. And it has already been a very long journey for them.
They’ve driven from NJ/PA during the past six days, having great luck as far as weather goes, and it looks like they’ll have good luck the rest of the way, too, because Snoqualmie Pass is just wet and slushy, not snowy and icy. Traction tires are advised, which I presume Jim has on his vehicle.
I’ve been watching their progress. Jim has been taking photos and joking mercilessly all along the way. It sounds like they’re having fun! Lisa has driven the whole way and says she’s very ready to get home now. (Boy howdy, I would be, too!) Driving wouldn’t be safe for Jim except for short distances, like around town, I presume. He has recently been in the hospital and isn’t quite up to par yet, and I want them BOTH to arrive alive!
I don’t reckon I’ll see them until at least Friday, and maybe even later than that. Lisa works Saturday and Sunday and she plans to sleep all day Friday (and maybe Thursday, too, if she doesn’t have to work tomorrow). I expect I’ll see them Tuesday or Wednesday next week, earliest.
Jim says he didn’t truly realize how wide the U.S. is before taking this journey. Nor did I before I drove it several decades ago.
I crossed the US two or three different times in the 1970’s. I traveled with Mom and Dad while working with them as they built and remodeled restaurans across the country. Dad has this evil “knack” of landing constuction projects at the worst possible times — mid-winter in Colorado, mid-summer in Georgia and Bakersfield CA. So I either froze or nearly died of heat whenever I served as their go-fer and laborer — especially because at that time I weighed about 260 pounds. (I didn’t have my intestinal bypass surgery until 7/11/77 in Las Vegas, Nevada.)
ELVIS
Which reminds me. 1977 was the year Elvis died. I remember it well because I had my intestinal bypass surgery at Sunrise Hospital in Vegas. I was in a sort of community room with four other patients, one of whom (a Vegas show girl) had survived a suicide attempt, as I recall. Her doctor was Dr. Nick, who was also Elvis’s doctor at the time.
Dr. Nick came into our room , saw to her, and then bragged about the diamond ring Elvis had given him.
One month later, Elvis died. And as the weeks passed, the news came out that Dr. Nick had been providing the drugs that Elvis was misusing/abusing, which may have contributed to his death.
I always wondered if he stopped bragging about that diamond ring after that news came out… If he was susceptible to shame, he almost certainly did.
I’m have no doubt that Dr. Conrad Murray stopped mentioning being Michael Jackson’s physician after he was convicted of “involuntary manslaughter” following Michael’s tragic death.
