When a blogger doesn’t post for a while, I get all belligerent and angry, like she’s an ex who owes me something from his apartment. And when she comes back, I expect her to post a long and detailed entry, and quite possibly include a shout out to my cats and a coupon for a free cone at DQ. I promise none of the above.

[An aside: Clinton and Stacy just told this poor glitter Earth girl that her clothes (i.e., fairy wings and what not) make her look like a Hobbit. I’m so not touching that one.]

I have driven just shy of 1,000 miles in the past week. I did so on a coast different than my own, which makes me feel I should get some sort of EZ Pass trophy and a photo with the Governor’s pregnant daughter. I’d like to say that I traveled with ease, put a Washington State stamp in my U.S. Passport and felt not an ounce of jet lag, but truth be told I’m so tired I could cry, and almost did cry twice today, for no reason other than sheer fatigue. And also because I’m old enough to remember the first 90210.

I began the trip in Seattle, where upon landing I stopped by the Asian Art Museum. It was clearly an overly ambitious move, and I required both a cookie some sort of minty chocolate drink to get through the small space. A good pick, on all fronts, actually. I made it to my appointment in Seattle on Monday morning and then hit the road, with lots of Oohs and Aahs when I got into the mountains, because apparently I haven’t seen evergreens before, and all the trees where I’m from are deciduous and decidedly naked. Because you know in DC we decorate oak trees for Christmas. It was truly beautiful. I’ll never forget it.

I’d write an open letter to Google Maps if I wasn’t so focused on lying on the couch all night, but it takes a sane person a little longer than their estimate to drive from Seattle to Walla Walla. It’s a lovely drive, to be sure, and there were at least 10 times that I thought to Twitter or text or call but wasn’t sure I could focus on all that open road. I did stop to take pictures of a Burger King sign against a mountain range and also fell for one of those lying “Wi-Fi Hotspot!!!” rest stop signs, but other than that it was straight through. Me and my Kia SUV-like automobile and my Sirius radio. Which? Note to E!? None of the twosomes you profiled on your hottest couples show is together anymore, or has been since the first Bush presidency. Seriously.

Walla Walla is a little bit of sunshine, not just for the adorable small-town feel and lovely people and incredible number of drive thru espresso huts, but for the onions, people! The SWEET WALLA WALLA ONIONS! The sweet Walla2 onions, which I put on every delicious moose and cow and llama burger eaten in the two days I was there, right after rubbing them all over my face. And there was something else I really liked, if I could only remember, something involving grapes and liquid and both of them going down my gullet. Walla Walla boasts more than 100 wineries, and when I wasn’t working, I made it to one of them. And it was all things wonderful, and it even had a gorgeous putting green, which I admired from a seated position in the shade. I bought a wonderful bottle of Grenache, paired it with a KFC combo, and drank it out of a Dixie cup in my room at the La Quinta. Which, it should be noted, had a fridge, and was on the larger side.

Next up was an appointment in Oregon, an amazing state that was a beautiful shade of yellow, one I can’t put my finger on. It wasn’t maize, because I’ve seen that before, what with having had corn once in the motherland. It definitely wasn’t mustard. Or blonde. Suffice it to say it was a golden hair surprise. Loved it.

And on Wednesday afternoon, between Walla Walla and Spokane, I saw tumbleweed. It wasn’t appropriate to take a photo while driving just below the legal, law-established speed limit, but I did yell out. WEED! THAT’S TUMBLING! Because despite the wind almost taking my Kia SUV-like automobile right off the road, that was pretty fun for me. It’s in the little things.

I’m moving to Spokane. I loved that city so much, with it’s huge sky and the river running through it, and the homes built into the mountains much like I remember them being in Austin. I loved how so much of that city is above where you stand, and so much below, how cosmopolitan it is without being dirty, and how busy it felt without being overwhelming. There must have been a city like this in the northeast at one point, clean and fresh and hopeful, before all the Jets fans moved in.

Friday? Friday I was back in Seattle. I met Sizzle, which was a little bit surreal, given that my complete social awe/phobia kicked in and nearly made me drink before our lunch. But I didn’t, because even in the InterWorld you can tell that she is a woman you’ll hug on the spot – right before hitting her over the head and running off with her kick ass glasses – and also because I had also consumed every drop of the wine I bought from a Shell station the night prior. Because nothing made Obama feel more supported during his speech than me drinking a Snoqualmie table red. Sizzle and I gabbed, we ate yummy food in her very cool neighborhood, and I left wishing so much that I got to know her more in real life, because trust me, this is a woman you want to know in real life.

Friday night meant reuniting with an old friend, and sharing Thai food and the aftermath of my father’s death and an Obama bobblehead with the friend I’ve known the longest in this world. It’s the kind of friendship that doesn’t involve maintenance, and once again we proved it was so, gabbing until we literally closed the place. And then, because it’s how the cool kids do it, or maybe just the rickety and foolish ones, we drank a bottle of Tuscan wine at my Seatac hotel and gossiped and giggled until 2 am. And when I woke up three hours later to catch my flight, I hit a very worthwhile wall of headache and fatigue and seemingly never-ending nausea. Ever green, I think I’ll call it.