The pair next stopped briefly at the Great Divide in the Rocky Mountains before continuing on to Seattle. Steinbeck reflected on seeing the Columbia River and how the American explorers Lewis and Clark must have felt when they came west for the first time. He noted the changes the West Coast had undergone in the last 20 years (p. 180): "It was only as I approached Seattle that the unbelievable change became apparent...I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction." (181) Steinbeck then drove down the Pacific Coast through Oregon and California. On the way, Rocinante, Steinbeck's overloaded truck, had a flat tire and he had to change it in a rainstorm. In Steinbeck's retelling of the event, he wrote, "It was obvious that the other tire might go at any minute, and it was Sunday and it was raining and it was Oregon." (185) Though the specialized tires were hard to come by, the problem was resolved in mere hours by the unexpected generosity of a gas station attendant.