Week 2/3: Oregon

On Monday we arrived in Ashland and spent Tuesday wandering around. It was a nice little town that boasted the Shakespeare Festival. We had a great lunch at a place called Geppetto’s. I had the 2x baked potato du jour and Diane had a Parmesan eggplant sandwich. After taking in all of the sites to see in Ashland, including the public library, Lithia Park and making an old hippie angry (pictured) with our California driving, we moved on to Medford because lodging was a bit cheaper. From there we went to go see The Dark Knight which was great. It was also nice to sit in a theater that could have been anywhere in the US, creating a nice little bubble of familiarity for road-weary travelers.


After Medford, we continued on to Eugene, which is a small college town. We stayed in a somewhat dodgy part of town, but the next day we went to the University to visit the library and look around. It seemed like a cool college, and there’s a little cemetery next to the library, which we thought was odd.


After we left Eugene, we drove out in the wilderness a bit to a campground called Olallie. I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce this. We had a beautiful spot surrounded by trees and ferns, and just below us was the McKenzie River, which lulled us to sleep that night.


In the morning, we headed for Bend, where we stayed for the night. Not much to report about Bend, except the crazy right wing nut in the Laundromat that kept Obama bashing and was lucky I didn’t bash him in return. The ignorance and lack of any factual information was breathtaking.


After Bend, we drove the three or so hours over Mt. Hood and through the Deschutes National Forest to Portland. Portland rules. We stayed with Sterling and Carrie, who showed us all the cool stuff. Right after we rolled in to town, we went to the Screen Door, an awesome Southern restaurant. We ate so much good food! Then we walked around and visited Movie Madness, a crazy video store that had tons of movies arranged in all sorts of awesome ways, with sections including demented childrens' films, movies from New Zealand, movies directed by Roger Corman, and Nazi erotica. They also had tons of movie paraphernalia including one of the miniature sets from Bladerunner and the prop knife from Psycho. After that, we decided to kill some time with a hookah, a fancy drink called Kava, and some tea at the Pied Cow Coffee House (see stolen picture to the left), which is a beautiful, colorful old Victorian house, with a garden that’s lit and super pretty at night. We then went to the Bagdad theatre, which is an old opera house that looks Arabian and was converted into a movie theater. There’s balcony seating and pizza and beer, and the best part is the tickets are only $3. We saw the Incredible Hulk, which was incredible suck, but we still had fun.


The next day we took the light rail into downtown Portland where we visited Powell’s Books, which was HUGE, and ate lunch at Voodoo Doughnut, a hip doughnut shop that has a jelly filled voodoo doll doughnut, tons of cereal covered glazes, and the one everyone talks about, a phallic cream filled monstrosity. We then walked around in a sugary haze and ran into Carrie, who showed us the waterfront, which used to be the 5 freeway. The Red Bull Flugtag starts on the waterfront on Saturday, which we are considering milling around the general Oregon area to catch. After a bit of time crossing and re-crossing a bridge to check out the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, we went to Jack’s Crawfish, a famous restaurant and bar which has been open since the late 1800’s where we hung around for Happy Hour. After a little more walking and some resting in the park, we grabbed some cheap candy and soda and went to go see Stepbrothers. Sterling and Carrie were somewhat hesitant due to a low score on Rotten Tomatoes, but we were all pleasantly surprised with how much we laughed.


The next day we slept in and went to a café called the Tin Shed, which I’m convinced has the best breakfasts in the world. This was supported by the fact that we had to wait 20 minutes on a Tuesday at 2:00pm for breakfast. I think this town might just be the hipster/slacker capital of the world. We then walked around the Alberta district, and stopped by the Kennedy School (pictured) , another McMennamin’s theatre/bar like the Bagdad, but instead of an opera house it was a converted elementary school. They had Honors Room and Detention Room bars among other school themed areas for drinking and carousing. Carrie then made us a delicious mushroom burger dinner, and the next morning a pancake and scrambled egg breakfast.


Later that afternoon we went out to Multnomah Falls, which was extremely pretty but crowded. So we moved on down the road to get a campsite at Ainsworth State Park and hiked to a waterfall that was even prettier with no one around. After we got back from our hike Sterling and Carrie left our company. They were just about the best hosts you could ask for.


Today, Thursday, we headed to the coast. It was a great drive and we stopped off for a lovely walk on the beach in Lincoln City. We also took a self guided tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory. There was a lot of cheese! We also had grilled cheese sandwiches and ice cream. Yummers! We traveled a little further down the road to Seaside, and after getting some unfair prices on rooms decided to move on down the road to Astoria, where we are now at the Rivershore Hotel.