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I didn’t need the boot physically in my butt to get the picture. I left the place and reported my failure to Josh outside, as we walked on from the shop. He said, “Well, you didn’t tell them about your journey. That’s why they didn’t listen.”

“I want them to care,” I said. “Without the gimmick.”

“They don’t care without the gimmick.”

Of course they don’t, I thought darkly. I would revisit this exchange with my friend Frank the next day, during a stymied attempt at the Space Needle. Shouldn’t they care that there’s a mistake, even without the funny story? I’d ask. And Frank’s reply: They need the story as a reason to care. Otherwise, you’re just a guy pointing out a mistake.

But that was supposed to be the important part. The ridiculous acronym, the animated map with its bouncing cartoon heads, the florid words of the blog, even the crossing of thousands of miles in the name of punctuation—those were all trappings, frosting, not the point itself. In each moment, I was just a guy pointing out a mistake. The point of the mission was to inspire other ordinary people to speak out when they see mistakes. The prospect of that actually happening had never looked so dim.

TYPO TRIP TALLY

Total found: 213

Total corrected: 123

* The restaurant closed its doors the following year—though probably our note didn’t have anything to do with it. Portland experienced what alt-weekly Willamette Week called a “Restaurant Apocalypse” starting in late 2008 and lost many great independent spots, thanks to the economy tanking.

13 | Run-Time Errors

April 22–25, 2008 (Cataldo, ID, to Rapid City, SD)

At long last, the romantic reunion of our Champion and his demure, computer-literate Sweetheart. They turn Eastward and begin the long course home. If only she didn’t believe his mission was utterly Pointless.

The afternoon should have been perfect. Underneath my feet, green grass struggled into spring. Snow-crowned, evergreen-carpeted mountains speared a blue sky studded with clouds, and Jane was at my side, tresses fluttering in the breeze. A thawed pond lay beyond bare trees preparing to bloom. It still wasn’t warm enough to shed our winter coats, but we could at least leave them open. The undulating landscape had been nothing short of stunning on the drive here. I could enjoy all this with the girl I’d waited so long to see, so what was the problem?

“Issac I. Stevens,” that was what.

“Hey, Jeffbear,” said Jane. “You’re squeezing my hand.”

Josh and Jane and I had spent the weekend in Seattle, temporarily joining forces for typo hunting. Yesterday Josh had caught a plane home to New York, and Jane and I had struck east, stopping last night at the dubious way station known as Spokane. She brought a much different vibe to TEAL than had her predecessors, and not only because she was my girlfriend. At corrective crossroads where Josh would have been unyielding, and Benjamin kinetically aggressive, Jane chose to be accommodating. She grew up as the middle child in her family, consequently becoming well versed in mediation and compromise. Her chief objective in any given situation was for everyone to get along and not feel unhappy. Obviously, typo hunting ran rather against these conditions, so Jane preferred not to do the aggravating of others herself, instead standing back and offering conciliatory suggestions when my observations ignited somebody’s ire. Often she ended up performing a valuable function missing from the heretofore testosterone-dominated League: a voice of reason.

The sign featuring the seemingly odious name “Issac I. Stevens” stood along one of the paths through the grounds at the Cataldo historic site, a mission house used long ago for the Christianizing of native peoples in the area. I’d gotten a vague hint from a guy at a gas station back in Coeur d’Alene that this would be a fine place for Jane and me to stop and eat our sandwiches, before pressing on to the day’s destination across the Montana border, Missoula. The site had turned out to be a fine diversion, but I