Greetings from Oregon

End of the Tour

2008-11-29T02:02:00.000-08:00

The trip comes full circle, ending much like it began, on a drizzly
warm night in Portland.

More of Jared's photos

2008-11-24T23:55:00.000-08:00

Chronologically, from oldest to newest. Enjoy

In Tillamook; look at that precise Helvetica font!

Astoria, Oregon with Washington in the distance

The flooded Tualatin Valley

Tillamook cheese factory

It always rains in Seattle

2008-11-24T20:32:00.000-08:00

See, it all started early Friday night in the city's university district, home to college’s football’s only 0-11 team. We started by drinking beer from three-liter glass boots at this place called Shultzy’s not far from campus. You can imagine.

It was raining outside on our drive into the city and walk to the bar. Pouring, actually. Rain soaked through our shoes and raincoats. But we made the most of it while getting pretty sloppy.

I saw Mark Brennan on TV at Schultzy’s as we were leaving for the College Inn. Now that I think about it…Brennan's latest 15 minutes of fame was happening early in the morning on Saturday, before the Nittany Lions won the Big Ten Championship with a win over Michigan State. Good on ya all back home in PA. Outside, it had stopped raining.

Saturday was bright and shiny and a balmy 58 degrees, so we scattered and hung out around town. By Saturday evening I had made it from Wallingford to downtown, and I almost caught a good sunset at the market. (Read: sunshine).

Then a few of us got in a car and drove northwest out of Seattle, reached the Puget Sound, drove and parked the car on a boat (!), got out of the car and walked all through the boat and to the front of the boat and checked out the skyline and hills of north Seattle(!), then 15 minutes later we got back in the car and drove onto Whidbey Island(!).*

We met up with a friend, a politically-active progressive farmer, drank a beer at a hundred year old bar and watched The Raggedy Anns rip through a few tunes in a cozy room in nearby Bayview. It was damn brisk on the boat and on the island, due to wind and a vast amount of water completely circling the land...but it didn’t rain a drop.

Sunday morning the weather was so warm and sunny, we decided to eat a hearty breakfast to prepare for criss-crossing Seattle on foot. My photos of the beautiful landscapes we saw don’t do them justice – I hope Jared posts some of his, which are great.

We visited Kerry Park and Volunteer Park, poked around inside a conservancy's greenhouses, and climbed the hills to see Mount Rainier, the Cascade Mountains, the Space Needle, fab stadiums and the UW campus from some of the highest lookout points in the city. We ate a peanut butter bacon burger at The Twilight Exit and shot some very, very pathetic lazy pool at the Canterbury before calling it a night.

After three great days of weather, Seattle this morning was sunny and cool, with no breeze and people in a festive mood to welcome the annual Pike Market Holiday Tree.

We poked around the Market again on our way out of town, this time as a big happy family.

None of my photos of that damn sign came out this weekend because of the position of the sun (read: sunny all weekend). This one was at noontime. 'Dems da breaks with a camera phone.

We got back to Rockaway just in time to see another sun(←)set from the cliffs near Manzanita. Bini climbed the rocks and tinkered with exposures on his camera to get some great shots. You better hope he posts some of his. Here's one of mine.

And now we’re relaxing in our big warm house at the shore. As far as big events for this vacation, it's all over but the bird.

*Yes it was my first time on a ferry boat.

Weirdo facial hair

2008-11-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

From the top

2008-11-21T18:31:00.000-08:00

Multnomah Falls

2008-11-21T16:04:00.000-08:00

All 620 feet of her. Yeah, we hiked up to the top!

Mo's, again

2008-11-19T12:43:00.000-08:00

With Gorski and Jay hard at work back at the Hermit Crab, Bini and I ventured into civilization to run some errands, read: buy axes. (No, your eyes aren't deceiving you, Chuck Bini is indeed on the scene. Seems the farm he was working on convinced him to stick around an extra week to help prepare the goats and sheep for market. If you know anything about our agrarian friend you know he can't turn down the chance to satisfy his blood lust with a good backstrapping.)

Neither Jay or Bini were at Mo's last week when Gorski and I braved the elements so we decided to meet for a late lunch. Kevin the Upselling Waiter talked Bini and me into a plate of oysters while we waited, though we didn't need much pushing. Later he convinced us all a basket of fries was a much better option than a puny side order. As we finished lunch he inquired about dessert, an endeavor I wasn't prepared to undertake until my chowder-addled brain heard Peanut Butter Snickers pie. Turns out they a peanut butter pie AND a Snickers pie, but K.U.W. didn't earn his nickname by being complacent. It was his brilliant idea to de-crust the peanut butter pie, place said crust on a plate, top with the Snickers pie, slap the crustless PB pie on top of that, and dump chocolate sauce, caramel and whip cream over the whole ungodly concotion, producing the picture that gave you Diabetes two posts ago.

Between the Tillamook factory on Monday and this gut-busting fiasco, my intestines will most likely withold lactase for the rest of the year.

Wow, right?

2008-11-18T18:07:00.000-08:00

Holy dessert

2008-11-18T15:52:00.000-08:00

It took three of us to take this mother down.

I love the sunshine

2008-11-18T15:06:00.000-08:00

If there are words to describe the physical beauty of this place, I
haven't learned them yet.

Another beautiful evening

2008-11-17T15:30:00.000-08:00

We're lucky to be having nice weather. We haven't been near our
computers so we're really behind with posts.

Special apologies to Joanies weenie wagon - I'll get those pics up soon!

Jared & Tyler

2008-11-17T15:27:00.000-08:00

Another reason I haven't opened my pc today

2008-11-15T18:33:00.000-08:00

Jared built a bonfire

Another sunny day at the shoreline

2008-11-15T18:27:00.000-08:00

Ducks win a nailbiter

2008-11-15T18:24:00.000-08:00

It IS the Goonies Rock!

2008-11-13T19:02:00.000-08:00

Standing on the beach to take photos, Tyler said "hey, that looks like the Goonies rock!"

Thursday's sunset at Rockaway Beach

He's right...of course. Turns out part of the film "Goonies" was filmed here; the offshore rock structure with the oval hole was used at the end of the film and is now called "Goonies Rock."

A little Wikipediaing later, I am reminded that Goonies is a story about a group of teenage friends living in Astoria, Oregon who go on a quest to find forgotten buried pirate treasure in the area. Our 'hood!

Tyler also says the kid who plays Chunk in the movie is now a lawyer who operates a local practice. I smell interview.

For what it's worth

2008-11-13T18:37:00.000-08:00

Today was bright and warm so we took a short trip into Rockaway proper to mingle with the locals.

We dipped in and out of thrift stores dressed like unemployed bums (all sporting weirdo facial hair) and scoped out the menus of every diner, cafe, bar, tavern and restaurant on the HWY 101 strip before deciding to duck into Rick's Roadhouse for some sort of fried/fish/local delicious.

Rick himself eyed us suspiciously for a moment but gave us menus. The burgers and fried oysters sounded perfect until he told us his deep fryer blew a fan overnight (I dunno) and wasn't operational. He was waiting on an electrician to bring him a replacement engine, but no one really seemed to be in too much of a hurry.

He served us a plate of tasty nachos and a pitcher of Drop Top beer, mmmm, an Oregon original. We watched a few minutes of the Virginia Tech game on his massive flatscreen and split.

Local Yokel

2008-11-13T00:10:00.000-08:00

Shortly after we successfully forded the somewhat-sudden high-waters south of Seaside, our second Oregon Trail-like adventure of the trip*, Jared and I cut into Mo's Chowder, an oceanside joint on Cannon Beach, for respite from rain's steady hammer. The eponymous chowder came with lofty praise from an Oklahoma Sooners fan we met at Cactus Jack's and I make it a point to trust a lady that orders Wild Turkey and water before noon. Over a bowl of Mo's and a righteous grilled cheese we got taken for locals; our opinion suddenly expert on the situation between mile markers 23 and 24. "Oh no, your Prius certainly won't get through that." What about us implies a sense of knowledge, you ask? Mustaches.

I've grown comfortable with my 'stache, comfort that comes with extended wear of the most noble facial hair. I think comfort waits for a ride at the crossroads of Tom Selleck Road and Sex Offender Way. Go confidently with comfort riding shotgun and you travel the former, but leave comfort on the side of the road with its thumb in the air and you become a walking ad for Megan's Law.

Perhaps this will serve us well if we need local know-how in case of emergency. Like if the area just north of us was under water and Tillamook, just south, was in the midst of mudslides. Oh, wait...

*Jay shot a buffalo, but we could only carry 500 lbs. with us.

No joke

2008-11-12T23:04:00.001-08:00

So I guess the rising water out on Highway 101 that Jared drove through earlier was no laughing matter.

On the 11 o'clock news, NBC 8 in Portland had none other than Sheriff Todd Anderson live via telephone, and he told his loyal constituents that virtually every town near ours was flooded, with the worst being 25 miles north of us in Astoria, where Jared had to drive to visit his bank. Waters there are reportedly now three feet above flood-level but receding.

All good here, where it isn't even raining. Though, now I take these friendly neighborhood reminders a little more seriously:

2008-11-12T19:03:00.000-08:00

VIDEO: TYLER, JARED SURVIVE FLOODED ROADS....developing (watch the videos in order)

#1

#2

#3

2008-11-12T17:12:00.001-08:00

BREAKING: TYLER, JARED ENCOUNTER TREACHEROUS, FLOODED ROADS

haha always wanted to do that. more to come.

Speaking of reading

2008-11-11T16:51:00.000-08:00

Here are the books I brought to Oregon. I intend to read them all. We'll see.

In case you don't feel like craning your neck and squinting to see the titles on the spines, they are, in the order I'm reading them, from right to left:

"The Witch of Portobello," by Paulo Coelho
"Snuff," by Chuck Palahniuk
"Liberty," by Garrison Keillor
"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," by Michael Chabon
"The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt," by Edmund Morris
"The Reach of a Chef," by Michael Rulhman
"The Audacity of Hope," by Barack Obama
"Good Benito" by Alan Lightman
"The Sirens of Titan," by Kurt Vonnegut
"Downtown Owl," by Chuck Klosterman

bold = finished

Rainy day

2008-11-11T16:23:00.001-08:00

Perfect day to just sit and drink coffee...and spill coffee all over the futon cover, and then use Resolve to clean it up and wait hours for it to dry before exhaling...and read.

Proof

2008-11-11T16:14:00.000-08:00

Re-Elect Sherriff Todd Anderson

2008-11-10T16:15:00.000-08:00

Obama and Merkley had offices and signs up here in Rockaway Beach, Tillamook, Bay City, Garibaldi...but no one has more signs, placards, banners or fliers up than Sheriff Todd Anderson.

Anderson began his law enforcement career with the Washington County Sheriff's Office as an Explorer in 1975 and worked as a Marine Patrol Assistant, Dispatcher and Corrections Deputy before leaving to work the road with Rockaway Police Department in 1985.

Hired with the Tillamook County Sheriff's Office in January 1986, Anderson served as a Patrol Deputy, Detective, Detective Sergeant, Patrol Sergeant, and Jail Commander, before being elected Sherriff in 2000 and re-elected in 2004 and 2008.