Vacation Highlights: Washington to Minnesota

"Civil informationing" in action, Washington


Somewhere under the rainbow in Montana




Snowdrifts near Snoq or Snog


We experienced another funky coincidence in Washington state. Our GPS informed us the fastest route to Minnesota was via Seattle (taking the ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, and another from Kingston to Seattle), and we arrived at the Kingston ferry dock in the early evening. It so happens that Richard's fellow Truther and co-blogger Robin Hordon lives there, so he rang him en route to the dock only to learn that Robin had just arrived at the dock himself, to do his weekly "civil informationing" with a big PVC-framed banner and leaflets full of 9/11 factoids. He stands in the middle of the weekend ferry-boarding traffic as each boat arrives, handing out leaflets to anyone who shows the slightest interest. Then, as each ferry unloads, he picks up his huge banner and trots across a long parking lot to another street corner that each car must pass as it exits the dock area. So, between hopping back and forth to catch the traffic, we had a nice chat with Robin. He's a very optimistic, very committed fellow with an interesting background: air-traffic controller, peace activist, comedy talent manager, and now a dedicated Truther. (His work was discussed in an Utne Reader article; google "civil information") He's very reluctant to work with Truthers in his area, fearing COINTELPRO-style infiltration, but he and Richard and their friend Wayne work together to spread the message of "CI", an alternative to civil disobedience.

Anyway, we drove through Seattle after dark (very nice, woodier and smaller than I imagined), then stopped for the night at a creepy lodge in snow-laden "Snoq" (which I mistakenly thought was called Snog). There were lots of cars in the parking lot, but all the lights were out and the whole place was eerily silent. On the up side, there was a great movie on TV about the 2000 election recount debacle.

Finally free of the east coast rain and the Washington snowdrifts, we zipped across Idaho and Montana (where we saw dazzling full-sky rainbows for hours), camped at a KOA and listened to Jordan Maxwell's weird paranoid rambling on Coast to Coast AM, then headed into North Dakota. I love Montana, but their rest stops are bizarre. They're lit by artificial windows, making it look like daytime in the middle of the night, and the brick-and-stainless-steel motif makes the bathrooms feel like DHARMA Project bunkers. In one rest stop there was a strangely muffled weather forecast playing on a continuous loop. Did David Lynch design these things?