Roadtrip: The Chair
“Don’t come home without it,” were the last words my wife said as I left Portland a week ago for Missoula, where The Chair my wife and her mother had custom-ordered was waiting patiently to be delivered back to our home for wife’s mother to sit in, comfortably, and all during the 540-mile drive I worried that The Chair would not fit in the Subaru and I was goddamn relieved when I was able to jam it in, but instead of then heading back to Portland, The Chair and I proceeded on to collect a close friend and deliver him home to Laurel, since he was unable to drive per doctor’s orders due to suffering a seizure recently while visiting family in Missoula, and we talked about life and death and aging and upholstery and what it’s like to have a seizure (you don’t get a warning) and after dropping him off and spending the night at his mother’s home (six bedrooms to choose from!), I drove The Chair to Big Sky where some of my kin had gathered and we brought The Chair inside to keep it warm and avoid being stolen, and we all got along well, and then a few days later it was zero degrees when we left, The Chair and I journeying on through Idaho into Oregon to Baker City, where I got a hotel room and took my laptop inside and checked email and watched ESPN about an hour and then went out to unload more and found the Subaru tailgate WIDE OPEN, and gasping, fearing The Chair was gone, I ran to the car and found The Chair sitting impassively (pouting?) in the back, along with skis, boots and other gear, and I swore at myself and apologized to The Chair, and then left it alone the next day while skiing at Anthony Lakes Resort, 30 miles south of Baker City, a wayward son-in-law taking an extra day for himself, deviating from the schedule, making wife and mother-in-law wait one more day, and now I lie in bed in the hotel room and contemplate our return to Portland where, if all goes well, The Chair and I will arrive later today with open arms, unless something insane happens and we take off for the Grand Canyon or Mexico, but let’s not go there.
POSTSCRIPT: The Chair and I left Baker City intending to head straight for Portland but the town of La Grande roped us in and we parked on Main Street for a walk and soon found a place called The Longbranch Bar, where I sidled in to see if Miss Kitty was around, but she was not and I decided to have a red beer (Pabst and tomato juice), then ventured on down the Oregon Trail (I-84) before making one more stop in Pendleton for lunch at the Prodigal Son Brewery, and it was here I thought that if I were to do something crazy and head south, to the Grand Canyon or Mexico, kidnapping The Chair so to speak, the best way to go would be to turn south from Pendleton and take Highway 395 to Burns where it becomes Highway 95 and drops down into Nevada, California, and Arizona, before ending at the Mexican border, assuredly one of the most pleasing back-road drives on the planet as this witness can attest, but I flinched at the prospect of my wife and mother-in-law forming a posse and hightailing it after me, so I got back on I-84 and pointed my eyes straight ahead and drove pell-mell to Portland, where The Chair now rests in our home, my mother-in-law settled into it and smiling, my wife telling her posse to stand down, for now.
I like how you gave The Chair it's proper respect by capitalizing ' The Chair'
Long live The Chair, Viva La Silla!
Love this Tom. Far better than a string of photos of The Chair in front of various waypoints along the way would have been.