- Then Steinbeck reached the "The Great Divide"—the continental divide, that is. Apparently, it wasn't super-impressive.
- He kept then driving on through Idaho.
- Somewhere along their route, Charley fell ill with some kind of bathroom-related complaint, so Steinbeck had to let him out frequently and keep an eye on him.
- Stopping for gas, he noticed some cabins at the rest stop. So, in addition to fuel, he asked if he could stay overnight and get a bath and a meal. The proprietor, who seemed to be on the surly side, agreed.
- As he was settling into his cabin, the proprietor's son, who was about twenty, came in with the hot water for Steinbeck's bath. They got to talking about New York (a place that, as it turns out, the kid was obsessed with). The boy indicated that he and his father had some, er, tensions, and the father was always yelling at him (Steinbeck had heard as much when he first walked into the place).
- When Steinbeck joined them for dinner, the proprietor was disgruntled that Steinbeck was from New York, since it had gotten his son talking about that place again.
- The proprietor then told Steinbeck that his son (whose name was Robbie) was interested in hairdressing and tried to get Steinbeck to agree that the profession was ridiculous. Steinbeck took the opposite view, though, and talked up how important hairdressers are to their customers, serving as psychologists and priests.
- Once Steinbeck had made the proprietor feel better about his son's career aspirations, the guy got friendlier, offering Steinbeck a drink, volunteering Robbie to set up a reading light for him in his room, and just generally being accommodating.
- Robbie, for his part, also seemed grateful for Steinbeck's words, privately thanking the author when he came to set up the reading light. Steinbeck indicated to him that he thought most of what he'd said about hairdressing was true.
- Meanwhile, Charley wasn't doing that well and woke up in the middle of the night in distress. To help him out, Steinbeck gave him some sleeping pills to relax him (and relax the muscles that appeared to be preventing Charley from heeding the call of nature effectively).
- Apparently that worked marginally well, in that Charley was able to do his potty business, but he still needed a vet. Unfortunately, the vet they found wasn't really able to tell Steinbeck what was wrong, though he did give him some meds to help flush out Charley's kidneys.
- Then we get more reflections on dogs and dog owners generally, as well as Charley's unique qualities.
- After that, we get Steinbeck's reflections as he drove into Seattle, which was apparently much changed since he had last seen it.
- Driving in Oregon, Steinbeck ended up in quite a pickle: one of his tires blew out, thanks to the huge load he was carrying. After a huge effort, he managed to replace the tire—only to realize that there was another tire about to blow as well.
- He drove as carefully as possible until he reached a small town, where (since it was Sunday) almost everything was closed. However, he found a small service station where a guy was willing to help him. He called around and eventually found the heavy-duty tires Steinbeck needed to get on his merry way. Steinbeck was obviously thrilled that he'd found such a helpful dude.