Road Trip. Part 2: Oregon

Southern Oregon is the sort of place that time has forgotten, but nature remembers frequently and vividly. There's not much to the areas habituated by humans: numerous towns in valleys or wood clearings whose populations number between a couple of hundred and a couple of thousand. Everyone's white and every adult owns at least 1 truck. I'd guess the population is ageing. Gratifying our prior expectations, we saw a lot of lumber trucks, with men wearing red and black checked thick cotton shirts and hats padded at the front and ventilated copiously at the back. Backs were sweaty, and necks were on the thick and red side, for the most part. The sheriffs wore shiny badges and trousers with a very linear geometry. The towns are refreshingly uncommercialised, with lots of small independent gas stations and restaurants. We drove several hours before seeing signs for Chevron and Denny's, etc. the drive was spectacular. I can still smell the pine, the sea salt, and Maria's lip balm. It was magical: sunny, but not hot. The waves were so big, they'd crash into the rocks turning straight into clouds and move up over the trees. When we rose up onto high ground and caught a glimpse of the coast below, we saw this process a thousand times over, exactly the same like it had been drawn by a cartoonist.



We stopped off at a few places when the road straightened out near the coast, not of particular note, just to take it all in. The drive was easier than the previous day because of the light, the lack of rain, and the conveyor belt of snacks from Maria's hand to my mouth. The drive was a similar mix of sea cliffs, beaches, and mountain forest. The only gross difference was the smaller and quainter towns, and the quieter roads. I couldn't help but think the trees, the climbs, and the cliffs, were slightly bigger. The sand dunes certainly were - the dunes near Florence were amongst the biggest I've seen, and gave everything a wonderful dusty feel, like only big dunes can. Southern Oregon is not as affluent or flashy as northern California, but not as diverse either, in people or scenery.



We stopped off about half way in Coos Bay for a bite to eat and some gas. An unremarkable place in a, by the standards of the trip so far, unremarkable setting. But friendly enough. We ate in a 'German and fish' restaurant, possibly just because of the weird combination. It was in a mock-Bavarian style building, and the man who ran it and served us was in his late 70s or 80s. After a quick mooch around the rather dilapidated downtown, and some scary antique stores (the sort, I half expected, to have a Nazi memorabilia section in the back for the locals and other freaks), we departed.



A feature of the whole trip was how mobile we were (relative to our easy-going, never-rushed personalities that is). I think that happened just because there was always something cool to see around the corner. Maria spent a lot of the day watching far out to sea, when she could, in the hope that she might spot a migrating grey whale. This was the time of year to do it, she said, because they were making their annual migration back north from Mexico. I wasn't really that bothered - not because I wouldn't like to see a whale tail a mile out, but because I knew I would never see one, even if it was painted bright pink. I was satisfied to Maria watch (she's so cute when she's excitedly looking for something - so much so last year she persuaded me to come shark spotting with her, which involved sitting on a cliff in the freezing cold for 3 days. It was worth it just for her delighted agitation every time she saw something).





We rolled into Newport, just north of central Oregon, around 6 or 7pm. Set in beautiful Yaquina Bay, Newport is by far the biggest urban centre on the Oregon coast. We had driven around for a good while in order for Maria to photograph the sunset, and we were feeling happy and content, our eyes full of epic scenery and our bellies ready to receive. We checked in (the hotel counter clerk reliably informing us that we were in North America now - Maria dryly informed him that we'd been in North America for days), threw our stuff in the room, suited and booted and went to the beach. It didn't take long, the hotel was on the beach and even provided us with floodlights so we could stroll without walking into pools or mammal carcasses. I amused myself by running in and out of the shadows, so Maria kept losing me. She retaliated by picking up long stalks of mouldy seaweed and chasing me with them.



I had printed a list of likely eateries for every stop we made. The selection in Newport offered us perhaps the scantiest choice out of everywhere we visited: it was either fish restaurant near the beach, or fish restaurant away from the beach. We chose the latter - Quimbys - probably for no reason at all. As soon as we wandered in, however, we both regretted the decision. Our waiter had a very strange demeanour, a cross between bumbling idiot, and martial arts instructor. He was big and brawny, and had evidently traded his brain for lots of protein powder as a youth. Everything came with long pauses and bows, and we were both 'weirded out' by him. We ordered wine, which he brought to the table and spent 2 minutes trying to balance the unpulled cork on its end upon the table. The food was dreadful. We shared a starter - beans and tomatoes on bruschetta, ruined by excessive amounts of oil and vinegar. My main course was, basically, a selection of battered fried fish. Everything had been battered and fried, including the lemon garnish. Maria had something equally as hideous. He was overly attentive whilst we ate, then completely absent when we wanted to pay. We ended up trying to find him so we could settle the bill, and we found him sitting at the empty bar watching a boxing match on tv. As we left, Maria quizzed him about the battered lemon - was that an Oregon speciality, she asked, her face a mixture of disgust and mirth. Yes, its very common he replied with the slow drawl of a man who had been punched too many times. He was totally incongruous with his setting, and also a complete (excuse me) a**hole.



The next day was just as bright and fresh as the previous. We breakfasted in Mo's Annex, a small seafood restaurant I had read about in my guide. It was inland a little way up the estuary, and was built over the water, so views were to be had from every side. I was attracted to it because it was meant to be a bit of an institution, serving up the same recipes for 30 years. The food was incredible and cheap, the views great, and the waitress very friendly. The place was busy but not overbearing. We left satisfied, both telling each other that's exactly how we'd run a restaurant if we owned one.

We said goodbye to the 101 now, and cut across via Corvallis, a small college town similar in size and demographic to santa cruz, but dissimilar in almost every other way. No one here cared more about their appearance than their abilities to string sentences together actually worth saying. The road had been another through beautiful wooded mountain - we saw men on horses (yes, men - a rare sight in the UK) and elks. The bright light made the glades and snow-capped mountains we could see to the east sparkle.




As we joined the interstate 5 (equivalent to our motorways, but busier but also bigger so you don't notice so much), we entered a different world. We would have liked to stay on the 101 all the way up to Seattle, but that would have involved travelling through Olympic National Park and unfortunately our itinerary just didn't allow for such a huge detour. So we found ourselves driving for a couple of hours up to Portland, through endless strips of chain stores and retail parks, drive in Burger Kings and the like. Awful, but necessary. Around Portland the road got a little complicated - five lanes turned into seven, and the freeway split into two versions of the same thing - one which bypassed the upcoming city Portland (the largest and capital of Oregon, separated from Washington state by the Columbia River), and the other which zipped one through it with lanes joining and leaving with alarming regularity. Absolutely the only tricky thing about driving in the usa - let's face it, its easy and large and infinitely accommodating for drivers - is that one can leave a freeway from either left or right, which sometimes forces to cross about 5 lanes of traffic with very little warning in order for you to make your exit. You guessed, I missed my exit and ending driving straight into the heart of Portland. I was developing a little bit of a habit of driving straight through big cities - something that I wouldn't do in the UK. After about, erm, 2 minutes of driving to search for the way back out again and on the road to Seattle, our destination that night (we know our limitations), we pulled over and parked and decided to go for a coffee. I had already put several hours of driving since leaving Newport and whilst Portland was a mistake, it turned out to be a well-timed one. We got directions and were soon on the road. We didn't see much of Portland, but we saw enough of it to get the impression that it was bigger, and more grown up (business-oriented) than I expected to be. That the whole of Oregon was a much more conservative place than California was my lasting impression. We eventually cleared the suburbs of Portland, driving in the carpool lane past 4 lanes of stationary traffic filled with single occupancy cars, all new, all containing white men in suits. I'm no hippy, by any stretch of the imagination, but I couldn't help but feel a little free against those ruddy-faced chaps; self-righteous and self-congratulatory that I didn't fall into the horrible trap of the suit, the boot, and the commute. We passed into Washington looking forward to arriving in Seattle.