Partridge in a Pear Tree

So this is a bit over due, but I got distracted when I got home. I left Portland for the final drive home about a week ago. Well I’m hoping it wasn’t the final drive. I don’t think stopping will be that easy. I’ll have to take some side trip while I’m home.

I decided to drive east along the mighty Columbia River gorge and then track back west. I wanted to drive roads I haven’t ever driven to get home. That proved kind of hard. But it was interesting to go from west to east along the river. This is the western side of the state along the river – lots of trees and evergreen hills. But that soon gave way to the dry brown cliffs of desert east. Kind of neat to see the change. The whole drive along the river was dotted with Lewis and Clark historic markers. I stopped at quite a few of them to read about their trek and read the diary excerpts. I stopped to read about the Native American trading hub and waterfalls where they could catch salmon with nets as they jumped the falls to swim up stream…except there were no falls visible. How does that happen? Even if the river is damned and lowered in level, wouldn’t the water still have to flow over the rocks that created the falls to begin with. But no falls in sight…hmmm.


From the river I cut back west and drove through the Cascade Mountains and Mt. Rainier National Park. It was a pretty easy drive given that they had a massive flood last fall that wiped out most of the roads. The only evidence I saw were many downed trees clogging the streams. The one thing I did notice driving over the mountains were that they were the greenest darn mountains I had seen yet. Score one for copious rain.


I made it home and the first thing I did was give Chester (my car) a decent and proper bath inside and out. It had acquired quite a distinct smell. Then I had one great long sleep.




So looking back – this is how it sums up.

62 days on the road
10,430 miles driven
298 gallons of gas
1,083 pictures taken
21 states
30 National Forests
14 National Parks
2 oil changes
2 parking tickets
1 heck of good time
0 speeding tickets (yeah!)

I learned that good driving is free of competition and absent of pride. I happen to have a healthy dose of both, so…learning to swallow them was necessary at times. It also helped to drive back roads where there were no people. That probably also helped with the no speeding tickets.

So what’s next? I’ll keep you posted.

Crazy Scenic Roads

The play in Ashland was a grand time. I do love outdoor theaters…even when there was a bird that kept swooping down just a little too close (and for me that’s saying something).

Now I’ve driven some winding, narrow, two-lane roads that twist around some steep cliffs on this trip. Those roads are ambling streets in a Sunday park compared to the one I drove out of Ashland to the coast. I turned onto this road and there was a giant sign in red and white. It read: Warning! Remote road. Watch for log trucks and ice slides. It was a sentiment echoed by my map, which had a stamp across the road – closed in winter. I thought well, one it’s Sunday so the logging trucks shouldn’t be a problem and two it’s summer. So I started up the road. It narrowed very quickly to a one-lane road.


“Road” is being generous. It was more like a paved strip that wound around rocks and trees. Although some of the rocks and trees were in the road or caressing its edges so that the one-lane road was more like a half-lane road. And calling it paved is also being generous. There were places where the road had fallen away down the hillside – no guardrails of course. Other places there were pot holes/sink holes or places were the right side of the road was a good three inches higher than the left side. Although can't I really complain when all these obstacles were pointed out to me? All the gaps, rims of holes, and exposed edges where the road had disappeared were outlined in white spray paint. Helpful...really…. I passed a few signs that said rough road ahead. These meant the pavement disappeared altogether. It just stopped…thunk, thunk…and picked up again 30 feet down the road. Through this whole trip I have never been scared on the road, but this one had me sweating. Especially when other cars were coming at me and wanted to pass and animals were not running across the road they were coming up through cracks in the road. There is no warning for that. I could go only about 20 mph…20 mph for 72 miles. It did have an excellent view. I’m just not sure it was enough compensation for the road.


From that insanity, I made it to the Oregon coast, which is indeed a unique and great place. I stopped at this overlook where there was a spout. I spent forever trying to get a good picture of the water eruptinig from the hole in the rock. I drove up the coast and ended in Portland where I am staying with a friend. Yesterday, we went to see Body Works 3. It blew my mind. If you ever get a chance to go don’t even think – just go. Today we are heading to the art museum to see artist renditions of the human body. It will be interesting to see how they compare.

The Northwest

Leaving Yosemite, I drove across central CA back to the coast. I passed through rolling hills of toasty golden brown (otherwise known as extraordinarily dry) dappled with green trees. They looked almost polk-a-dotted. I kept trying to snap a picture while I was driving. It’s a problem when all the best views of the hills are in fleeting glimpses from the tops of a rise in the road. Unwilling to actually stop and take a good picture (that and any place to pull over had no view), I kept trying to grab a shot. I took many pictures of blurred guardrails and streaks of green. Obviously I eventually succeeded – not great but you can see the polk-a-dot hills.

It took me a day to get to the coast. I went from upper 90s hot, hot, hot to foggy misty and in a relative sense – freezing. What is it about the CA coast in the summer that it is perpetually foggy? I wonder if it’s like this in the winter. I have a hunch it’s not…so perhaps I’ll have to come back and check it out.

The next stop up the coast was Redwoods National Park…and again it was foggy. But then I suppose it is always foggy there. It is what helps the trees grow so big or at least that is what the video at the visitor’s center said. On days I’ve been going into national parks, I’ve been trying to get up early. I got to the Redwoods about 8:45am. Two things make that a great decision – one I beat the hoards. Waiting in lines and driving in traffic is not my idea of nature viewing. Second, I get to see things like this – the sun beginning to break through the early morning fog. I went a little picture happy. You can feel like a great photographer when there’s no bad scene in view and the misty fog adds a sense of the dramatic to everything. I had a hard time deciding what picture(s) to post.




I took few short hikes while in the Redwoods. One hike was up to this small falls –Trillium Falls. I had my first sense, on that hike that I was getting close to the northwest when I spotted a banana slug. For those who have never seen one, they’re long, thick, gelatinous things that happen to be bright yellow. My communing with wild animals continued when I spotted these elk just off the road. Boy are they big up close – good thing they seemed completely unconcerned by me. Which was unlike the group of five mountain goats that would not get off the road for me in Zion. Those goats turned their heads toward me, about six feet from my car, and gave me a nasty look, if that’s possible. These elk were slightly farther away and much nicer.

From the Redwoods, I crossed the Oregon border and am now officially in the northwest. A fact I kind of liked when I flicked on the TV last night and the Mariner’s game was playing. I am in Ashland, OR – a very quaint town in southern Oregon. It’s home to the Oregon Shakespeare festival. And as one of the last stops on the trip where I will be alone, I’m living it up. This morning I went to see if I could get tickets to a play for tonight. Last night, they told me everything was sold out, but I thought I’d try again. I met this very nice woman whose friend wasn’t going to be able make it. So I bought her extra ticket, front row center, to see Taming of the Shrew in the outside Elizabethan replica of the Globe Theatre. As my last solo stop things are working out nicely.

CA good times

So I think my stop in San Jose to visit my friend Rochelle was a very good stop – one of the best. But before I get there….

I took a day trip to LA to visit my college freshman roommate who works at DreamWorks Studio. All I can say is that my last job didn’t have a lunch area with waterfalls and a lagoon. It sure didn’t look like this and we had to pay for our lunch.



I then drove Highway 1 up the coast. This is what I saw. Nice huh? I saw a white wall, which made driving the twisty, windy road a bit tricky. From afar it looked like a thick white blanket tucked up to the chin of CA. Still pretty neat – better from afar than stuck underneath.




I did make a stop to see some elephant seals along the coast. They may look like a loving couple, but again they were fighting…or maybe it just looks the same.






So San Jose began with a wine tasting. The way any good stop should start. And from there it just went up hill. Of course there are no photos of the rest of the weekend. Funny how that happens when you’re having fun. And I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t get any pictures from my motorcycle ride! On Monday, I got to go for a ride and for anyone who knows me, knows that it was…hmmm…the best. Thanks again Greg.


So from San Jose, I drove east to Yosemite National Park. It was an amazing park. In comparison to other parks I’ve been to on this trip, Yosemite was like Zion on steroids. Every turn of the road was another amazing view. When I got up to this view, I thought – this looks familiar. It’s on the California state quarter. So very pretty!


Driving out of the park, heading west again, I passed a sign for a Mark Twain historic marker. Now I thought that was a little odd out in California. Then I passed a sign for the Calaveras county line. Then I got it! It’s my favorite Mark Twain short story. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. And just incase I doubted it when I got to the town of Angels Camp there was a large frog painted on the road.