Oregon / Washington, Part 4

I am in Eugene, at the Best Western New Oregon Motel.  Looks more like the old Oregon motel; a low structure, single rooms around a central parking lot.  Updated in that they are all painted sort of a charcoal gray with maroon doors.  I can also see it, in my mind's eye, in flaking white (or pink) stucco with brown (or white) doors.  They actually have outdoor carpet on the sidewalk, which will be nice to muffle suitcase wheels tomorrow morning, but there is nothing muffling the family group next door, which seems to be comprised of college-age guys, at least one teenage girl, one deaf geezer, and a screaming baby.  I might have even heard a dog.   I think it's going to be a long night.  The room is small, as befits an older motel, and they didn't have "accessible" rooms but supposedly this one has a walk-in shower.  Suits me; that's the big thing, anyway.  I can deal with all the rest.  No, I haven't seen it -- I walked in the door and found they had the same type of armchair as Astoria, so I sat down and have seen no reason to get up.  One nice thing is that since they don't have room for a desk, the armchair has a swiveling little oval tabletop on one arm.  Good for drinks and snacks, or a laptop.

The only other Best Western in Eugene is right next door.  How do they plan these things?

I did next to nothing yesterday. Just the laundry, basically, and of course the laundry room was in the other wing of the hotel.  I thought the Tide packets I had in my stash were regular detergent, but they were hand-laundry sizes, so I ripped open all six of them for the load.  Seemed to do okay.  But that's another thing for the "Must Include This Next Time" list:  individual laundry soap packets.  I was wearing my jeans since I needed to wash the black polyester pants that were the only ones I had otherwise, and I felt like a bag lady every time I walked down the hallway, keeping one hand in my pocket so I could grab the pocket lining and hold my pants up, and walking on the hems anyway because I'm 2" shorter now than I used to be.  I decided to dry everything (a risk) and after starting it up, I asked at the desk how long the dryer took.  The girl apologetically told me that they ran for an hour because it was hard to get things dry.  An hour?  So an hour later I went back down to find that the laundry room was a sauna (now I know why nothing dries), the dryer had finished and my polyester pants were now a mass of wrinkles. So I dutifully got the ironing board and iron out and steam-pressed the wrinkles out of the pants.  Then I decided that it was about time I quit faffing around and got a belt for my jeans.  I left early for dinner and went to Fashion Bug only to find it was closed permanently and being remodeled for something else, and I went to Catherine's and they don't carry belts.  The woman told me she didn't even know where I could find one.  So much for that idea.

I had dinner with my friend and former co-worker, Cathy.  It's probably been 15 years since we've seen each other.  I'd forgotten, until she reminded me, that she visited me in Coach Cottage, and helped me move a big chair up to the loft.  (I do remember her sitting on the loft stairs and saying, "There's got to be a way to do this.  I'm a math major; I should be able to figure something out."  And she did.  But I still think we cheated.)  She got married six years ago, and when we first made plans for the evening she said something about having stuffed peppers in the freezer and I thought, "Oh, good, I won't feel guilty about not bringing a hostess gift, since that's just family fare."  I got there and Andrew, her husband, was making roast lamb and twice-baked potato pots, with peas-and-onions as a side.  It was DELICIOUS and the cabernet he chose was spectacular -- I don't even like cabernet and this was wonderful.  I guess most of it is served way too young.  I'm glad I didn't bring a bottle of wine, or I would have proven how little I know about it!  And Andrew didn't even get to share in it, as he had to go to a meeting immediately.  He wasn't back when I left, so I didn't get a chance to tell him how great it was.  I also didn't get a chance to meet Charley, their cat, but he left a couple muddy paw prints on my windshield, so I know I was investigated _in_absentia_.  Cathy reminds me of my friend Cindy Wyckoff, in that she buys furniture off Craigslist (Cindy goes to the auctions in England), gets something and puts in place, takes a few weeks to decide if she likes it, and if she doesn't, it goes back on Craigslist.  Andrew and his father have refinished a number of the pieces so that they look beautiful; I didn't get a chance to ask if sometimes they do it before she's decided she doesn't approve of it.  It makes for an interestingly eclectic furniture arrangement.  And her dining chairs were the most comfy ones I've sat on for a long time.

Coralee told me to eat at an Original Pancake House, so I went to the one in Portland on my way out of town today, and it turned out it was a split-level place and although they had handicapped parking, I could see no way to avoid using stairs at some point.  I tried to call to ask them, and the phone rang ten times and no one answered.  I told TomTom to find the next nearest one and he said it was in Salem, so I said "Okay!" and drove south to Salem (since it was on the way to Eugene) and the one there was a plain old coffee-shop type.  I had a sturdy blonde young waitress by name of Taushia (I think) who was terrific and rated a tip that was just under 50%.  I didn't know whether to order the Apple Pancake or the Dutch Baby, so Taushia said they were probably BEST known for the Apple pancake, but it would take about 30 minutes as they baked it.  I said that was fine, I had lots of time to kill and an Ellery Queen magazine with me.  I drank coffee (really good coffee) and read and just as I was wondering where my (by that time) lunch was,  Taushia popped back around the corner holding a plate that looked like it contained the angel-food cake from hell.  It honestly was the size of an angel-food cake, and it steamed and smoked and the caramel bubbled like the La Brea tar pits.  Luckily, it deflates into something much more manageable, although it did stay so hot that even after eating 3/4 of it, I was still having to suck air when I took a bite.  I had been thinking about ordering a side of bacon and I'm glad I didn't.  The price was reasonable -- $11.25 for the pancake and something like $2.50 for the coffee.  And I impressed Taushia by eating the entire thing, although for a while I wondered if that was such a smart idea.  I didn't like the idea of taking it with me as I didn't know what it would taste like cold, so I soldiered through.  *burp*

The drive from Portland to Eugene (via Salem) was interesting.  Because of my out-of-state plates, I try to stay at the speed limit or just under.  At one point I noticed I was being passed by everything:  cars, SUV's, VW vans, semi's… so I checked and the speed limit had gone from 50MPH to 65MPH at some point and I didn't notice.  Whoops.  The driving was comparable to what I encounter in Silicon Valley, which is to say aggressive and scary and fast, so when I saw interesting things, I couldn't take my hands off the wheel to take photos.  In Portland, a car got on the freeway behind me that I was so hoping would pass me.  It looked like a boxy little early-1960s something or other, with a metal chrome bumper held on by ropes on either side, and the body was spray-painted all the colors of the rainbow, but with no real pattern to it, as if they had just grabbed the nearest can and used it to cover the latest rust spot.  It was beautiful in its Bohemian way.  And a little farther on, I passed a pickup truck hauling a small flatbed with a plane on it.  The wings had been detached and placed under the body, and the propeller was missing entirely.  I told Jim it reminded me of a Spitfire, and he said it might have been a homebuilt RV-3.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van%27s_Aircraft_RV-3)  That looks enough like it that I think that's what it was.  But I've never seen a PLANE being towed on a trailer before!

So here I am, it's 6:30 PM and I'm not even remotely hungry.  I think there's a coffee shop next door (between us and the other Best Western) that I may try to hike to later on, or I may just wait until brunch with Janet tomorrow morning.  (In case you're wondering why I don't nosh on some of that Tillamook cheese, it's because I realized soon after I arrived here that I had left it in the fridge in Portland.  The Inn at the Meadows will be mailing it home to me in Los Altos and charging me accordingly.)

This has been a great trip, making connections with people I haven't seen in years.  I'll have to do this more often… although I do miss my cats something dreadful.  I think if they were with me, I wouldn't want to go home at all.

Oregon / Washington, Part 3

I'm in Portland tonight, staying at the Best Western "Inn at the Meadows", a motel between the airport and Interstate 5.  Nice enough place.  I do wish that motels had bellhops, though.  Something I'm carrying makes my suitcase too heavy to lift and it's getting to be hard to work up the strength to schlep it in and out of the car.  I feel like I need a down day, so I may opt for a second night here and just spend tomorrow reading, watching TV, and doing laundry.

I spent two days in Astoria, getting scenic tours and good food from Marina and Tom.  It's a lovely town, but it didn't take me long to feel waterlogged.  I need rain, but I'm not sure I need all the rain that the Oregon coast gets.  On the other hand, it gets HOT inland, and I do need coolness.  I did get a small surprise today -- Marina was going to take me to lunch at the Bosnian restaurant, and even though their sign said they would be open today, they weren't.  I guess, from what Marina said, they're a bit "bohemian" about their opening hours, and don't open if they don't feel like it.  We had lunch at T. Paul's Urban Cafe instead, which presented me with a quesadilla the size of my largest dinner plate at home.  Even better, it was delicious.  I ordered a praline sundae for dessert, which was also delicious.  Diets start when I get back home.  Last night we had fish and chips at the local pub, only I ordered "squid and chips" and got a hot hot hot meal of the most tender squid fingers (squids have fingers? I hear you ask) I've ever had. Wonderful.  Unfortunately the coconut cream pie was commercial.  They advertised that they made their own pies, but maybe it's just the berry pies that are theirs, because this one was definitely mass produced.  Too bad.  Still worth the trip.  And the pizza joint in Cannon Beach (nice town) the day before was WONDERFUL.  Marina said they got rated as one of the top 50 places in the United States for pizza, and I believe it.  I'm not a pizza person normally but I think I may be changing my mind, between this place and the one in Waldport.  Astoria desperately needs a good breakfast restaurant, though.  Even Yelp can only find three stars for the best one, and it's more of a coffee house.

Cannon Beach was a tourist town, but I'd like to come back and poke around if I can ever walk again.  One of the things I want to do is start replacing my generic white dishes with individual, hand-cast pottery ones.  I could see a store across the street that carried just the thing I was looking for, but I knew I couldn't stand up long enough to cross the street and then wander around the store.  This is doing wonders for my wallet, but it's starting to make me a bit unhappy that I don't have a souvenir of this trip other than the Tillamook cheese I bought on the way up from Waldport.  World's fastest trip by a mobility-challenged individual:  blasting into their shop, making a quick circuit to get what I wanted, pay for it, and back out to the car.  Might have taken me ten minutes, but I think I did it in less.  Maybe I should go for the record next time.

The Astoria motel was the Best Western Lincoln Inn.  My room had a lovely view of a working waterfront (lots of slimy, mossy, weed-choked piles of debris) but the bathroom was such an improvement over Bayshore's that I forgave it a lot.  They had tiled it in those dark, rough tiles for traction and it was a truly roll-in shower, not that slippery plastic thing that Bayshore had.  The towels were still over the toilet but I'm getting used to that.  They had a leather bench against the wall in the bedroom for an unknown purpose, so I pulled it around to be in front of the mirror.  I could just get my chin over the edge of the counter, but at least I could see what I was doing in the mirror while drying my hair.  The armchair looked small and flimsy and was neither.  I got a good snooze in it one afternoon when Marina and I both figured a nap was a better option than more sightseeing.  When I walked back into the room, I was a bit surprised to find out that housekeeping hadn't been there yet, so I chose the chair and put my coat around me and waited for them to show up.  I woke up at 4:45 and called the front desk and found out that they had all gone home -- I'd been forgotten.  The young guy's response was sort of offhand, although he did volunteer to run towels or anything down to my room.  I had plenty of everything so said no, but when I got my bill the next day, they charged me the full price for the room.  I'm going to write to the manager and complain.  They should have given me SOME kind of discount for that.  And they had been doing so well, too.

I drove east on Highway 30 after lunch today, intending to stay in Longview, WA (just to say I got to Washington State on this trip) but somewhere along the way I hit the wall, burned out, whatever.  I cruised around Longview, sort of shrugged my shoulders (I was not in a mood to find it interesting), discovered that the part of it I did like was actually a different town named Kelso, and decided to bag it and go to Portland.  On my way out of town, I passed a sign for the Amtrak station, and as soon as I got on Interstate 5 south I drove past the Three Rivers Mall, so I decided to go back someday and give Kelso / Longview a closer look when I felt more like giving it a fair chance.  When I got to Portland, I got off the freeway and just told TomTom to take me to the nearest Best Western, and that is where I am now.

I told Marina that the bad thing about this trip was that it was making me used to eating three meals a day again.  I had cut down to two, or sometimes even one, but I have discovered that breakfast is a Big Deal for me on this trip, more so than dinner.  Tonight I'm going to be happy with my Tillamook cheese and crackers and the occasional incredibly expensive bottle of Snapple from the machine.  Life is not without its thrills:  the vending machine says it will give you one flavor of Snapple, and what actually drops may not be what's advertised.  I hate diet drinks so specifically chose the one that wasn't, and got diet raspberry tea anyway.  Bleah.  Don't like aspartame, don't like raspberry.  Maybe I'll trot out and see if I can find a 7-11 and get a six-pack of something.

Tomorrow may be a blank.  I've made contact with my friend who lives here and we're (hopefully) getting together for dinner.  Otherwise I think I'll just veg.  See you later!

Oregon / Washington, Part 2

It is Sunday night. 

One thing that was lovely about my stay in Eureka was waking up around 2:00 AM to the sound of pouring rain.  I looked out the window of my room, and it was pelting down.  I nearly went out and danced in it.  Saturday dawned crystal clear and cool and sunny, and as I left I remember thinking that when I was in college, that was the sign that it would be raining by noon.  Sure enough, I drove into a cloud bank right around Coos Bay, OR.  It rained off and on all the way up the coast and there have been heavy showers here and there while I've been in Waldport.  I love rain.  I've missed it terribly.  The PT Cruiser did remember what those rubber things on its windshield were for and I've had no trouble with it.

The drive up from Eureka yesterday was fairly uneventful.  I had breakfast at the Samoa Cookhouse, which was a lot better than last time.  I was surprised it wasn't more crowded on a Saturday morning -- they were doing a good business but I remember the times when it was standing room only in the entrance.  The food is still good, and they've changed so that breakfast is now the cheapest meal, with lunch next and dinner the most expensive.  They started me off with a biscuit and gravy, and they must make their own gravy because it was wonderful.  Big chunks of sausage and it didn't have that floury/mealy taste to it.  I had about half of it left over after the biscuit, so when my actual breakfast came I spread the rest of the gravy on the eggs.  Yum.  I think they still bake their own bread so there was French toast.  And the sausages were good, too.  Coffee and orange juice and as much as you wanted of everything.

I took the back road north from Samoa around the west side of the bay to Arcata in the north, where it joined up with Highway 101.  I drove through Arcata a bit.  It didn't look too much the worse for wear after Halloween, and they had a farmer's market going gangbusters.  It looked like all the lampposts were still standing in the square, so Dave and his buddies evidently did well.  I didn't tour the HSU campus this time because it has changed so much from when I was there.  It's not what I remember at all, and I feel no draw to it any more.  Eureka feels better than it did when I was last there -- it's gentrifying in a good way -- but Arcata has a kind of arrogant studenty grunge feel to it.  (I was happy to see Fabric Temptations is still there, in the same place.  I bought some very nice stuff there over the years.)

I went up to McKinleyville, not having heard from the cousins, and found the mobile home park (thank you, Suzanne) but the office had a big "SORRY We are closed" sign on the window, so I didn't stick around.  I don't carry an address book because Apple's Contacts won't print one out for me, and although I've imported everything into Outlook on the iMac, I can't get MS Office to load onto the MacBook.  Contacts won't sync between the iMac and the MacBook, either, so I'm kinda up a creek.  So without an address or phone number, I had to give up.  I did hear from Pat today, so I know everyone's okay.  Sorry I missed you!

The only excitement on the drive up to Waldport was near the end.  Northbound traffic was all stopped by a flagman right above Reedsport.  There had been a wreck and there was only one lane for traffic.  I got a few photos but I have no idea how they turned out.  I didn't see any bodies or any ambulance, just fire trucks and paramedics and a lot of people standing around and talking about how a white pickup truck came to rest with its back end up against the guard rail, blocking the entire southbound lane.  Its front was all smashed as well, but I didn't see another car with any damage.  I didn't see any police or ambulance; the fire guys were directing the traffic.  But the other side of the guard rail from the truck was a pretty significant cliff, and if that guard rail hadn't held there probably would have been a coroner's van there, too.  Slowed my butt down a bit.  I normally do the speed limit or just under it here because of my California plates, but I was extra careful after that.  And I remembered my promise to myself to never drive the coast route going south again; those cliffs are just a little too close to the edge of the road for my peace of mind.  So I'll probably come home inland.

My time with Jim has been nothing but TV and eating, which is actually pretty good.  He makes ice cream as a hobby, and likes to perfect his recipes, so he always has a vat of some flavor or other sitting around.  This time, he had taken a bunch of flavors to a Halloween party the day before I arrived, so I've been sampling some of the leftovers:  Lemon Meringue Pie ice cream, "Napolean" (chocolate and coffee) ice cream, mint chip, and he also made rum raisin and pumpkin, both of which I've had before.  I say "sampling" but Jim's samples would overflow a Haagen Dazs carton.  Someone else brought cookies to make ice cream sandwiches with, so she gave him a load of those to go with the leftover ice cream, and those are good too, although I prefer crunchier cookies and these are soft.  But the flavors are still good.  I'm particularly partial to the ice cream he calls "Lime-on Meringue Pie".  He used "seedless lemons" and got a distinctly strong lime taste that he doesn't care for but I think is amazing.  I thought he might have accidentally bought yellow limes but the ones he had left look like unripe lemons to me, so no idea where that lime flavor comes from.  This morning we had the obligatory breakfast at Fish Tails, which was everything I thought it would be.  Marionberry stuffed French toast, bacon, coffee... ah me.  I have to go by it on my way out of town tomorrow, so I'll probably do it again.  I may succumb and have the chicken-fried steak and eggs.  I love chicken-fried steak but I know how deadly it is and haven't had it in years.  But if anyone can do it right, it will be Fish Tails.  Tonight's dinner was a pizza from the local place in Waldport, and it's the very first time I've tasted pepperoni and liked it.  Theirs is a softer, less salty brand than what I'm used to, and actually adds some flavor to the slice, almost like soft-cooked bacon.  I still hate pepperoni pizzas but I'll make an exception for any place that uses this type.

Oh -- I forgot to mention the raisins.  Jim soaks the raisins in about a pint of dark rum a minimum of 48 hours before making the rum raisin ice cream.  This time he somehow had a bunch left over, so as another experiment, he chocolate-coated them and took them to the party.  Somehow they weren't completely demolished at the party, so he brought them out for me to munch on while we watched TV.  Oh.  My.  God.  Like tiny chocolate-covered cherries:  bite into them and get an explosion of liquid.  And because he uses a high-quality rum, it was delicious.  I had about 20 and then stopped because the last time I indulged in hard liquor, my INR reading was off the charts.  (I'm on warfarin to thin my blood, and alcohol affects the readings.)  I still probably did some damage, but putting a stop on it early probably saved me from a vicious hangover as well as a lecture from the clinician.

Tomorrow I will go farther north to Marina and Tom in Astoria, with a possible stop at Tillamook on the way.  But it's only 4 hours so I don't feel the need to leave very early.  I've had two more "Oh sh*t" moments.  I brought the wrong pair of jeans -- they don't fit very well and I need a belt to wear them, so of course I don't have a belt, and this means my ONLY pair of trousers is the one I'm wearing.  And I forgot Jim's birthday/Christmas present (and I even know where it is in the apartment). 

See you tomorrow.



Anne

Oregon / Washington, Part 1

(I'm sending this BCC to a lot of people, whether you want it or not, so I apologize if you hear me talking about you in the third person.)

I'm in Eureka for the second night, and I just got back to the motel after a lovely dinner with Suzanne.  I saw her new place and it's really nice, very roomy.  She still has the most comfortable furniture in the world (and I still think you should offer to buy back the matching chair, Sooz!).  I reacquainted myself with Yma the dog, who loved me at once, and Fearless the cat, who thought about it for a while and then decided I would be allowed to scratch his ears and pet him.  We went for Chinese and were entertained by all the Halloween costumes in the restaurant.  And I nearly drove off without presenting her with the "witches' broom" I'd been hauling around for I think nearly ten years.  I bought it on one of my German Christmas market trips and somehow it never got mailed or brought home until it came back in my packed goods.  It's a twig broom with decorations.  I finally remembered to put it with the "things to go north" and had it in the car, and forgot about it entirely until she was walking away tonight.  I yelled "I almost forgot!!" and stopped her, and reached in the back seat and pulled on it and of course the darned thing was stuck and separated into two parts, the handle and the wrapped twigs.  If I'd known it could do that, I would have mailed it AGES ago!  Anyway, she finally has it, minus a few baubles that fell off during the move but which I wrapped in the bag that "protected" the twigs.  Housewarming present.  Enjoy.

So far the trip has been a success.  Before I saw Suzanne, my friend Dave and I had breakfast and drove around a bit.  Dave is a newly-retired cop who seems to know everyone.  If he hadn't had to go home and get a rest before work, we'd probably still be talking. He's still a reserve officer and tonight is going to be when the students at Humboldt State U. all come into Arcata and tear up the town center, so it's all hands on deck.  (He said "You know what happened at Keene a few weeks ago and was all over the news?  That happened last year in Arcata, and it's going to happen again tonight.")  When was it that destroying things became a fun thing to do?  He also gave me "the other side" of legalizing marijuana, which is that the stuff available nowadays is infinitely stronger than what our generation is familiar with. I said I remembered a former police chief saying he was in favor of it because "I was never called out to break up a pot-fueled brawl," and Dave replied, "I have been."  Plus, pot is never the only drug; it's pot and LSD, pot and cocaine, pot and...  So there really is another side to it. I always have something on the Oh $@#$!, I Completely Forgot list for every trip I take, and this conversation made me realize that this time it was that I forgot to fill out and mail my absentee ballot.  So I lose for this year.

Dave gave me a life lesson.  A guy in the restaurant came up behind him and wrapped him in an enormous hug.  I thought that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do to a guy who was a police officer for so many years, but Dave had evidently seen me react to the guy's approach and knew something was coming up before it happened.  After a brief chat and a couple of "nice to meet yous" he went back to his table.  Dave and I went on talking about houses and downsizing and retirement and how one's life can be entirely what one does for a living.  I mentioned my fabric stash, which will either go to a friend or to the local junior college's fashion design department.  I'm never going to sew my own clothes again, and certainly nothing with brocade or silk or velvet or even fine wool, so it's silly to have all of this lying around.  He's started doing it too, with some of his collections.  He said, "I finally realized that I don't need 'things'; I have people who walk up to me in restaurants and hug me."  My first thought was:  I don't.  And that's been on my mind all day, the differences between his life and mine.  Much thought will go into this.

Marie, that reminds me: why don't we aim for 18 November, which will avoid Monday traffic, but still allow us to slip it a day or two if something comes up?  And don't forget to clean out your car beforehand!

Tomorrow I think I'll be leaving to go farther north, to my friend Jim in Waldport, OR, and the only thing that will stop that is if I hear from my cousins who live north of here in McKinleyville.  Suzanne suggested I stop by the mobile home park office (she nearly bought a home in the same park, so she knows where it is) and ask if the Lewises still live there.  Good idea.  If I get up and moving at a reasonable hour, I may do that.  I know I want to stop for breakfast at the Samoa Cookhouse, and being as it's a Saturday I'll try to get there early.  Yikes, I just looked it up and they open at 7:00 AM.  Well, not THAT early.  It's not that the food is great (although it used to be), it's kind of a tradition.  I ate here occasionally when I was in college, and always when the parents came to visit, because dads love unlimited food.  I don't know if the practice is still the same but you could get seconds (and thirds and fourths and...) on anything except the pie, and even then certain dads (I'm not pointing fingers) could always schmooze an extra half pie out of the waitress.  Their breakfasts and dinners are what most people go for, so they're kind of expensive, and lunch tends to be the most affordable meal.

The Best Western Bayshore Inn here in Eureka is definitely feeling the pinch -- I'd say they were more a three-star place now than a four-star.  The rooms have been remodeled and I smiled when I saw them, as they're in the same shades of aqua and brown that they were when I first started staying here years ago.  The aqua is a bit more intense but basically it's the same scheme.  (I love the colors.)  There are a few things they could have thought through a bit better for a supposedly "accessible" room.  They told me it was a "wheel-in" shower, and it's not -- it's a small step up, but it's enough to block a wheelchair.  The shower floor is slick plastic and I kept finding myself standing in the drain, as I would slide slowly down the floor toward it.  The washcloths are completely across the bathroom from the shower, but there's a towel rail right outside it -- you'd think they could put the washcloths on those towels rather than on the disgusting towel shelf that is directly over the toilet!  There's no seating at the bathroom counter, so the hair dryer is useless for me, since I can't stand for long enough to dry my hair. (That's probably for wheelchair access, but hey, a bench stuck under the counter could be moved out of the way if they didn't need it.)  The chairs in the main room all have arms, which inconveniences me because I'm enormous in the beam, but makes them completely unusable for a wheelchair-bound person because they can't just slide into them sideways.  And the real killer is that a lot of hotels now have these enormously thick mattresses, and friends, I'm 5'7" (down from 5'9") and I have to practically take a running leap to get into bed.  Anyone in a wheelchair would need to ratchet it up about six inches to be able to slide across.

The PT Cruiser has been better on this trip than I have (I had to make three potty stops yesterday, whereas only one of those was to put gas in the car), so I'm beginning to relax and enjoy the scenery.  And I had to laugh today.  I got a wire sculpture repaired that I bought here in Eureka years ago but was flattened in the move back to the USA.  The artist is still in business and happily stood by my car and reshaped it back into its former beauty (for free!) while chatting with Dave and me.  I was wondering how I was going to get it home without it crushing again and then realized that I didn't have to mail it or pack it -- I could put it on the back shelf of the Cruiser and LEAVE IT THERE.  What a concept -- a vacation where I can fill my car with stuff and not have to worry about taking half a day to pack it all and find a post office!  The last time I had that realization was when I was visiting Lisa Swenson in Ireland -- because I was taking the ferry, I could pack my car with all sorts of things and not worry about mailing it back.  How wonderful.  How deadly to my wallet.  (Jim, I was going to return your cookie mailing box to you, but it's the perfect size to hold the wire sculpture, so if I can't find a cardboard box of that size, you may end up not getting it this time.)

Still no plans beyond a couple nights in Waldport and then making my way to Astoria.  If I have enough time, I'll hit Portland; if not, I'll save that for another trip.  I was hoping to make it into Washington State, but I don't think I'd be able to get back in time. 


I will report more anon. Let me know if you don't want to be on the list for the rest of it.