Back in Ashland

When I look back to my last post, I feel like I've traveled hundreds of miles, both physically and mentally. I've been in Oregon for 3 weeks now, weaving a web back and forth and sideways across this gorgeous, often magical (and I use that word sparingly) place. I've never seen so much sheer physical beauty in one square on a map. Oregon dazzles me on an hourly basis.

Today I sit wi-fing in Ashland's Lithia Park on a picnic table in front of a creek with lots of old trees and rocks strewn along the banks. Children, and often adults, wade in the waters. To my right is a Japanese garden with a lovely reflecting pond. To my left, an open field where moms feed babies, teens play Frisbee, hippies get some sun on their dreads, and it's all a big happy mishmosh of recreating humanity, much as I imagine Golden Gate Park of the 60s might have been. Last night I stumbled onto a labyrinth, walked it, then headed toward the main drag, where I saw a young woman pedaling down the street on a bicycle completely naked. What a fine place to be.

I drove up here yesterday afternoon, after spending the day yesterday in my favorite Mt. Shasta-area town, Dunsmuir. No Cal is still extremely smoke-choked, and Shasta seems a bit down-at-the-heels with all those rings of brown dust obscuring her. But it was great to be back in the funky little town I love and see it still standing, like a hamlet straight out of the 1930s, beautifully preserved, but not prettied up by developers' notions of gentrification.

I was, admittedly, running on a major case of sleep deprivation. Someone could have told me that there was a black bear in a lavendar tutu ready to chauffeur me around town, and I would have said, "Fabulous." The night before, I'd camped at Lake Siskyou camping city, for which the words "unqualified disaster" spring to mind. (Or is it "unmitigated"?) Truly the worst camping experience I've ever had...enough to send me crawling back to another cheap motel. I've never seen such a massive campground in my entire life. Not unlike a massive heart attack. They had an onsite movie theater, arcade, pizzeria, grocery store...need I go on? It was a circus in the wilderness.

Unfortunately, my tent site seemed to be right at the epicenter of the action--and sound travels like quicksilver in the wild. So, just as the bambini and babies stopped screaming, the preadolescents started up, and when they were through, the young adults decided to have campfire chats about their philosophical views on such deep subjects as truck wheel rims...this at 1:30 in the morning. Then there were the young women who began blow-drying their hair at 1:45 am... Meanwhile, I'm in my tent doing all I can to practice acceptance...trying to realize that they're just engaging in age-appropriate behaviors...and quickly losing my equanimity with the passing hours of insomnia.

Finally, a deep, primitive sound began rumbling in my gut, and I was powerless to stop its exodus. "QUIET!!!" I bellowed through my tent. And, by some over miracle, I was heard, and a stillness fell over the entire campground. It was the sound of peace, of children not doing anything remotely childlike, that I hadn't heard in, oh, 3 weeks. I admit, it was among the loveliest sounds I have heard all summer. It left me to my own sweet reverie and a new meditative state: my back against the hard earth.

At 4 a.m., I slept.

At 6 a.m., they woke.

For all the skeptics out there, it truly is possible to break camp alone on 2 hours sleep with 5 little kids watching you in 20 minutes.

Bend

The previous 2 days--which I know have names...but I've been traveling too long to remember what they are--I spent driving down from Mt. Hood, into the fun town of Hood River, through some blazing views of Mt. Hood, into forests so deep that the cell goes away, over high mountains, then down into desert that greatly resembles the New Mexican landscape, then into farmland, and finally into Bend, which seems to be the Cuisinart version of all of that. I spent two days there trying to avoid getting hit by mountain bikes, marveling at testosterone in all of its variegated manifestations, and chastising myself for not having the proper footwear for anything more than the stairclimb to my hotel room. My former compatriots at Outside magazine would be shocked at the disrepair I've fallen into. Bend, it seems, shares much in common with SLO: lots of active young people, some historical buildings, a liking for good clean fun, lots of athletic possibilities, a downtown with plenty of upscale shops and restaurants, a nice body of water running through downtown. It's sort of a remote hotspot in Central Oregon--the only place you'll find for many miles with a Target, a Home Depot, and a Trader Joe's. Oregon has not embraced the big box with the same fervor that other places have, thankfully. However, it was nice to find somewhere I could buy a can opener.

Greetings from Western Oregon

I guess I've been on the road a week now. Time does funny things when you're in funny places. I've been in funny places. Not funny ha-ha. But sehr interessant, as my favorite German teacher used to say. My departure from SLO commenced with a drive through hell, beginning in Livermore, CA, where it had been 109 degrees at 6:00 in the evening, and up Route 5 North, through a landscape that looked like any good Fundamentalist’s idea of Apocalypse (sans Jesus). Hours and hours of thick smoke blankets (2000+ fires burning in CA, most in the northern third of the state) conspired against even keeping my car vents open. Just at the point when the oxygen had completely exited my body, the sun came out, the sky turned blue, and Mt. Shasta exerted its presence like a barroom hussy. Ah, so this is what all the fuss is about. Northern CA mecca.

After a very cool few hours in the town of Mt. Shasta, where I dined at the Billy Goat Tavern and had an extremely fun conversation about the state of the artist with the proprietor of the Velvet Elephant art supply store, I stumbled around the corner to Dunsmuir, possibly one of the funkiest towns I’ve ever been to. Ever, ever. Part of the State of Jefferson, once a historical district comprising northern CA’s Mt. Shasta area and southern Oregon. The funky folk who live there still retain a certain hardcore segregationist mentality, much like what I imagine Southerners hanging on to the Confederacy continue to propound. I’d never been to the Pacific Northwest before, so excuse my wide-eyed oohing and ahhing. I really thought Northern Exposure was simply FICTION. Then I bump into Dunsmuir, a former logging village…and Yreka, an old mining town, very much retired, and now I feel like I’ve been to Alaska without ever having had a trip in a bush plane. (more about my imminent trip to Alaska to come) I spent hours taking photos, which I'll post soon, in this area, and that night, met two folks named Danielle and Kit, who encouraged me to come see the band at the local bar. A few hours later, everyone in the bar was dancing to this German blues band--I guess that's not an oxymoron ( in fact, some days, I'd say it's utterly redundant).

Next, I headed to Ashland, OR, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and scene of the crime for 5 plays/day, and lots and lots of thespian types, earnestly creative kids, cultural tourists, people tossing on vaguely Shakespearean garb...and...to my English-majoring despair...one young man who was typing a letter home and couldn't figure out how to spell Shakespeare. Ah, well...Spell check ate the spelling-bee star... I liked Ashland a lot. Passed a nice evening at the Black Sheep Pub, as authentic a British pub as you're likely to find in North America, then wandered around and drooled at some of the historical buildings. Ashland has an excellent health food co-op, many potential Obama voters, metaphysical stores (the kind that don't exist in SLO), and my new favorite bumper sticker: "One Nation Under Canada."

After 2 sweet nights, I decided to fulfill a lifelong dream, and stayed in a yurt. It was the perfect "gnome home," right on the Rogue River in southern OR, and I took several hikes along the river and explored nearby Grants Pass, which may well be the kids-on-meth capital of southeastern Oregon, otherwise undistinguished.

The next day, I decided to continue the places with kids on bad drugs theme, and headed for urban Eugene, OR, where I stayed at a "guy drinking Bud on the bed"-type motel right on Broadway and got accosted approximately every 45 seconds by the progeny of the Grunge generation, who apparently are majoring in panhandling at Southern Oregon University. I don't think I've ever encountered a city I've despised more than Eugene--and I've been to some good ones in my day, let me tell you. I hated it more than Newark and Clifton, NJ, combined. I walked around for 3 hours looking for photo ops and took all of 3 pictures! Couldn't wait to get the heck out of there.

Going for the study-in-contrasts effect, I then proceeded north and west to Silver Falls State Park, where I've rented a cabin for 3 nights in the midst of total paradise: incredible old-growth forest with trees higher than you've ever seen and a trail with 10 different waterfalls. It's in farm country (aka, the middle of nowhere), about 25 miles from Salem, not too far from Corvallis, and close to the teeny-tiny town of Silverton, where you can plunk a dime in the meter and get 2 hours of parking time. Yesterday I stopped in to an old-fashioned coffee house right on the river, where I felt like a total geek for pulling out my laptop and wi-fi-ing. (The realization that the alternative would be no Internet or cell access for 3 nights helped me bag the Thoreau trip.) The guy behind the bar was talking about going swimming in the swimming hole after work. It's a different world here. The kids who aren't on crystal meth are just so...dare I say it?...seemingly innocent. Incredibly refreshing.

Today, I did my camp chores, then drove into Salem, which is a completely different town from Eugene--very civilized and fun, with good photo potential, which we LOVE. Here, I've purchased my Alaska Milepost, helping me start planning my trip WAYYY up north. (I told you I was traveling!!)

On Friday, I head to Portland, to explore the big city that everyone tells me is just perfect for me, with Margot, who is being a hugely good sport and meeting me there for 6 days of Oregon travel.