Today, I do my last load of cross-country-laundry! This is good because it means I won’t have to visit a Laundromat again for, well, a long time. It’s complicated for me to plan on doing laundry at specific times. I realize some of you do this naturally, even if you own a washer and dryer, but having a laundry schedule is not really my thing. Actually, any chore schedule doesn’t really work for me. What if I don’t want to do laundry on Saturday morning or vacuum on Wednesday evening? Somehow, I can always find something more entertaining to do than whatever chore I’ve scheduled for that block of time. I tend to do these sorts of things when they need to get done. Or a day or two later. Take laundry, for instance, I do it when I want to wear something and it happens to be dirty. Or, when I’m in mortal danger of running out of clean underwear. Whichever comes first. I’m not picky.
However, during my six-week stint as a semi-homeless person, I’ve discovered two benefits of doing laundry at the Laundromat. First, everything gets done in one hour. One hour! Second, I actually fold all of my clothes while I’m there. I should probably explain as this is a concept that I’m pretty sure has never occurred to most of you. When you, my lovely readers, do laundry, you fold and hang the clothes as they come out of the dryer, right? But, there’s no law that says you actually have to do it right then and there. Trust me on this, if there were such a law, I would be in constant violation of it. By now there would have been fines. Lots of fines. But, at the Laundromat, I am a model laundress.
We eat our breakfast in the car while the clothes are washing. I’ve promised him that I will sit down and watch an entire Scooby Doo movie with him. I know some of you will disown me for saying this, but I have to be honest, there are many things I’d rather do than watch Scooby Doo. So, I’ve put this off until our designated laundry hour. I set a timer on my phone so that I can run in and out to check on the clothes. Let me tell you, I’ve never watched a timer so diligently. I spring out of the car a full minute before the timer is set to go off. I wouldn’t want my freshly washed or dried clothing to sit in the machine. Not even for one second. It may be ok if it sits on my couch for days at a time at home, but as previously mentioned, I am on my game when dropping coins into a washing machine or dryer.
As I’m, err, watching the movie, a man brings his impeccably folded laundry out to his car. I know he’s a fellow adventurer because he’s got a flat bike rack on his tow hitch that actually holds a bike (we’re in Sturgis so let me clarify that I’m talking bicycle, not motorcycle), but also sports a couple of suitcases. What a concept! If I had one of these we could have brought more junk along for the ride! Anyway, that’s not my focus. I watch as he makes multiple trips to and fro carrying his stacks of shirts and pants folded into perfect squares. If it had been me I would have tried to do it in one trip and would have tipped the towers of folded clothes onto the baked asphalt on my way to the car.
Then, he does something completely mind blowing. He takes hangers out of the backseat of his car and unfolds the carefully folded t-shirts and hangs them up. In his car! My jaw is on the floor. If he knew he was going to hang them up from the beginning, why didn’t he just take the hangers into the building and hang the dang clothes up there? Why fold them at all? In my eyes, he is either the dumbest person I’ve ever met or a role model worthy of my admiration. A thought occurs to me. Maybe, for him, folding clothes is a form of meditation, like cooking is for me. Is this even possible? Hmmm, something to ponder the next time I’m driving for endless hours in a row.
After Laundryman leaves, a big, white pickup parks in front of us. We’ve been playing the license plate game for weeks now so I automatically check the plate. California. My home state. I know it’s one of the biggest in the country, but I can’t help but wonder where they might be from. So, I do some vehicular investigating while continuing to pretend to watch Scooby Doo. I immediately discover that they have a red, white and blue SD decal on their back window. As in, San Diego, my home town? I inspect the plate frame and it says La Mesa. That’s all the confirmation I need. I decide to talk to these people when I go back inside.
The mom tells me they are from Lakeside, which is a town just east of San Diego and about 5 minutes from where I bought my first house with Husband Number One. She also says that no one else has noticed that they are San Diegans based on the clues on their truck. I am secretly proud of my sleuthing skills. They are traveling to Colorado to visit their eldest daughter and making some fun stops along the way. Today they are visiting Mount Rushmore and Custer State Park, just like we did yesterday. So, we exchange tips and talk for about twenty minutes. It’s fun to connect with someone from the place where I came from. It feels a little like a quick trip home. Even if I left that home behind for good years ago, I still love it.
Speaking of the license plate game, we are down to one missing plate. One! Washington, D.C. This wouldn’t have been a problem if we’d started paying attention when we were still on the East Coast, but we didn’t start keeping track until after we left Philadelphia. So it’s missing and neither one of us is convinced we’ll find it before our trip is over. I don’t know how many people actually live in the District, but our odds are not good.
But, they’re getting better. Just yesterday we were still missing three plates: D.C., Vermont and Hawaii. If you are ever crossing the country and are in need of specific plates take a quick drive through the parking lot of a national park or monument and you’ll find them fast enough. We picked up Hawaii at Mount Rushmore and Vermont at Crazy Horse. We even saw Guam yesterday. It’s not on our board, but it was exciting nonetheless. Even with one missing plate, we’re happy. Six years ago, when we cross-countried, we were still missing three when we returned to Seattle. It took a month before we finally got them all. We still have just under a week to find D.C. Keep your fingers crossed…
And, yes people, that is George Washington’s profile on the rocks above. One of my favorite viewpoints!
I am loving taking this trip with you vicariously. You’ve saved me lots of time and money! Hahaha