ROAD TRIP!! - Vancouver to Washington & Oregon - part 2

Hi,

Next destination, Portland, Oregon - a nice 120mile, 2 1/2 hour drive - if I was to go straight down the I-5. But that would be too easy, and too boring, especially when I had the coastal Highway 101 option.

So this is what I did. For a measly US$1.50, I jumped on the intercity bus to Aberdeen, just 50 miles west of Olympia. I did have an ulterior motive to hit this town as well tho, I must confess. Aberdeen is Kurt Cobain's hometown. It's been described in books about him, that it is a depressing logging and lumber mill town, and a haven for rednecks. I couldn't confirm or deny much of this as I was only there for an hour or so, but I did see a lot of enormous tree logs being carted about on backs of trucks. While riding the 40miles or so out there, I thought it appropriate to stick Nirvana's 'Greatest Hits' cdee into my Discman as theme music for the journey.



What I did see tho was the bridge that Kurt once upon a time lived under, and took a few pics of "The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah" River, before getting on another local bus to a tiny wee town named Cosmopolis.





Here, at around 1pm, I joined up with Highway 101 to recommence the hitching lark. Altho, from here, it wasn't quite such a lark. Being a much less travelled highway, the traffic was very light, and it was some 30-40minutes before I got a ride. But man, what a ride this was!!



Ken was an ageing hippie, mid 50's, driving a huge van with a surfboard in the back. He was also, if he was to be believed, a US Army Drill sergeant for 15 years who served in Vietnam, a lumber mill logger, co-owned a boat that ran medical supplies between Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, lived in Australia for a bit, took surfing photography for magazines, all the while surfing every inch of the West Coast of the States. On this ride, he was driving down the coast to Newport, Oregon to meet up with a dozen of his grandkids to take them on a surfing holiday camp for 2 weeks.

No matter, he was friendly, and entertaining as hell. For every story I had, he had one that was 10 times bigger, better, more dramatic, and funnier. The ride he offered originally was to Seaside, which then extended all the way down to Tillamook. All the while, he offered to stop at several points along the way so that I could take touristy snaps.

I've been advised several times that "if you ever head south, you HAVE to check out the Washington-Oregon coast, it's out of this world beautiful". They're right! If I wasn't heading back inland to Portland, I would have stayed on the ride all the to Newport. As it was I was sad to leave it at Tillamook. A couple of the most memorable bits were:

* Driving over the bridge at the mouth of the Columbia River that separates Washington and Oregon. This is an incredibly wide mouth, leading as it does out to the Pacific Ocean, the bridge spanning some 4.1 miles.



* Stopping at the viewpoints at Cannon Beach and seeing the beach stretch down the coast for miles, with rocky outcrops jutting out of the sea, semi-reminiscent of the Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road back home in Oz.

(I've since been reliably informed, that this particular rock formation below is called "Haystack Rock")





Ride Distance: 150 miles

We were having such fun on this journey that the 3 hours this stretch should take actually took us 5 1/2 hours! And so it was well after 6pm when I got dropped off, still quite a ways away from my end destination. I sat at the edge of town of Tillamook, on the Highway 6 beginning for close to an hour, and was about to concede to the idea of getting a B&B here. "15 minutes more" I said to myself. 10 minutes of that 15 passed when I got my next ride, all the way into Portland.





Jerome was mid 30's, an ex-con, having spent time in jail when he was 'young and stupid, partying hard and thinking little', but these days doing odd construction jobs and looking after his twin 13-year old boy and girl. A bit of a redneck whose furtherest venture from home was to Montana. He was one of those folk who believed that "I have everything I want here in my own backyard, why would I want to leave?"



Ride Distance - 70miles

There was somewhat of a pattern forming here with my rides. They were all kind of down -at-heel, working low-paying blue-collar jobs or somewhere towards the fringe of society. None drove especially nice cars. Another thing was that they all said they'd hitched before at some point in their life. Many said they no longer picked up hitch-hikers, because of 'society these days', but made an exception for me "because there was just something about you that made me stop". I don't know what that something is, but it seems to be working. Maybe, its because I'm a skinny white boy who poses absolutely no threat to them, who knows.

My plan for Portland was 2 nights, not nearly enough for a city like this, one that's up there with Seattle in vibe, attitude, hip and cool culture and amazing music scene. Another Pacific NorthWest city with an edgy, left-leaning, counter-cultural groove. Among other things, Portland is the bike capital of the country, something you may guess is held in pretty high importance in my book. But 2 nights was all that I could manage on this trip.

So, Jerome drops me in Portland at the edge of the University district with the sun rapidly dropping, and I realise that I don't have the phone number of my contacts in Portland on me. They are in an email on my Yahoo account. Okay, so lets find an internet cafe in town. I don't know why, but there seems to be an absolute dearth of net cafe's in Portland. Loads of cafe's that have wi-fi set up for laptops, but no proper net cafe's. I asked 3 different locals for directions to one, all of which were bogus. Finally, it was suggested I check out Powell's Books, one of a number of amazing bookshops in town, got the numbers and met up with Livi, the first of my two Portland hosts, altho by this time it was pushing 10pm, I was knackered and went straight to bed.

I had every intention of spending as much time checking out Portland that evening, and was kinda bummed I didn't get to spend more time hanging with Livi and her gorgeous Dalmation pup, Kelp.



As it was, the next morning we had breakfast and a good chat at a cool newly opened cafe in the east end of town, and then unfortunately had to part ways, Livi to work, and I to my 2nd Portland host. En route to my new temporary home, I got chatting to the bus driver, who got my #1 vote for kind deed of the day by giving me an all-day transit pass for free. Nice!

You know, there is one small thing that sucks about travelling like this, passing thru quickly and meeting new friends in new towns, mid-week - everyone else has to work! These people I meet, that are putting me up in their homes, well, I mean, I know I'm dropping into their daily lives, but I'd just like to spend more time with them, and get to know them somewhat. Case in point being Tabitha and Jon, my 2nd Portland hosts, and two of the nicest people you could meet. I had just enough time to drop my stuff off before Jon had to scoot to work at Starbucks. They wouldn't be home again until 9-10pm.

Thankfully, there's a load to do in Portland, and I made full use of the awesome 30-something degree weather, my free transit pass, as well as walking all over the city. Hawthorne Boulevard is like Commercial Drive in Vancouver, a boho, studenty strip full of bars, cafe's, bookshops, record stores and the like, a street I completely adored.











The Columbia River cuts thru the centre of the city, spanned by 9 bridges, all architecturally different, which provides an interesting vista, and is also lined by pretty, grass-lined esplanades along its banks.





Then there's the cities numerous downtown parks, with numerous small but very interesting museums. As a respite in the heat of the day, I headed to Washington Park where the Japanese Garden is located, a cool retreat of zen-like calm and serenity, replete with waterfalls and bonsai collections.









In short, Portland has everything I could possibly want in a city, from the vibe and attitude to sights and scenery. It's also known as the Rose of Oregon for its beauty. i couldn't agree more. Before I knew it, it was almost 9pm, time to head back, and I'd also realised I hadn't eaten since lunch. Just so happens that Jon & Tabitha live about 30 seconds away from a neat little cafe with an awesome creole spicy spaghetti dish...Mmmmmm.

This trip is moving too quickly. Time to move again! Hop the #12 into town to get another bus to the southside of the city, only to realise after I got off, that I should have stayed on the #12 coz that took me exactly where I needed to go! D'oh! But then I eventually get there, and am told I need one more bus (thankfully free) to get to Wilsonville, where I would recommence the sticking-out-of-the-thumb routine. End Destination, Eugene.

Luck is on my side again. Twenty minutes wait gets me a ride with Anthony and Crystal. As it turns out, I could stay with them all the way thru to Eugene, but I had to stop in Salem, about 1/2 way there, Portland's capital, and home of the Rose of Salem, Rose Barker, another couchsurfing host who i had originally planned to stay with, and also a friend of Tabitha's. I only had 2 hours in Salem, lunching and swapping stories with Rose and two of her friends, also couchsurfers, Manny and Greg.



Sushi lunch done, I was dropped off at South Salem. My luck finally ran out here. 102 degrees on the American Fahrenheit scale (about 38 Celsius), and I got stuck out on the I-5. I waited in one spot for an hour or so without success, noted on my map another on-ramp a mile down the road and decided to hit that. It was worse than the first. I then hit upon a routine of walking a mile, waiting 15 minutes, walking another mile, waiting 15 minutes and so on. About 3 hours in and one guy responded to my waving arms and stuck out thumb. His name was Steve, and all I could get out of him conversation wise was "I can take you as far as Albany", "I work for the military" and "I do maintenance". Up to this point on the trip, I had been asking nicely if I could photograph my rides for a souvenir of sorts, with most folk saying 'Yeah sure!". I was too afraid to ask this guy!

Two more rides in quick succession took me 5 miles down the road to Lebanon, from Tricia - the only single female to pick me up, and two blokes whose names I didn't get, in a ute, who said I could ride in the back all the way into Eugene. This was the most fun ride, screaming down the freeway at 70miles per hour, wind rushing thru my (rapidly thinning) hair, speeding past farmlands with distant mountain ranges silhouetted in the background and the sun approaching the horizon.



Eventually, I hooked up with my Eugene host, Ethan, who took me along to a friends barbecue. Little did I know that Ethan and co were fervent Christians, and while everyone was super friendly, there was always that hardcore religious overtones that flowed thru every conversation that made me feel just a tad uncomfortable. Most of the group were guys and gals in the mid to late-20's, a seemingly normal bunch talking about football and politics and so on, the usual standard BBQ (minus any alcohol whatsoever). Some had played soccer professionally while travelling the world and spreading "The Word", others had worked Tsunami Relief in Indonesia, while spreading "The Word". I didn't quite know how to fit in to conversations, and felt really guilty if I slipped out an expletive. Odd.



At the end of the night, someone suggested a 'prayer circle', and the 20 or so folks at the gathering huddled together as if in a rugby scrum, inviting me in to the circle to offer thanks and prayers and goodwill etc, and to "God Bless our new friend Tony on his travels, and may the Lord look over him and keep him safe wherever he may roam. Amen." or something to that effect. Granted, a nice gesture, by nice people, but I was kinda creeped out by it a bit. I just smiled and said "Thanks".

Getting back to Ethan's gaff, I was confronted by a life-size Jesus painting, with a mirror in place where his face would be. Whoa. Next morning I asked if there was somewhere I could check my email, and was driven to his church where he had an office, and used it there.

Eugene is a neat little college town, altho being out of semester, the place seemed kinda slow.



I had been told of a bus out to the east of town was at 2pm-ish, so I had 3 hours to check the place out. I opted to wander on foot and spent quite a bit of time at the 5th Street Public Market (markets are always good value), then scuttled to Skinner Butte Hill for a view over the whole town, and on the way back down bumped into Eugene's oldest building, built in 1888 - not that old really, I suppose.



With an extra couple of hours I would've liked to have checked out the University of Oregon's Museums of Art and Natural History - whose main claim to fame is owning the world oldest pair of running shoes, dated at 10,000 years old (the things you learn!!).

more to come...