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.

17 May: Pacifica / Half Moon Bay

17 May 2014

Why is it that everything turns into such a major drama?

On Thursday, I had to take someone over to the hospital for a procedure, and stay there until they were finished and drive them home.  The Cruiser has a low front apron on it that glides nearly soundlessly over the top of concrete bumpers but then catches on them when I try to back out and scrapes horribly.  I didn't realize they'd be taking Nick to a different entrance than the one we came in, so I had to go get the car and move it to the other entrance.  When I backed out, it scraped more horribly than usual, and a woman who was walking by looked at me and said accusingly, "It's BROKEN.  Your car is BROKEN!" like I had done it deliberately.  I said "Thank you," and she made some kind of nasty comment in return.  Beats me.  I got out and looked, and sure enough, the passenger's side of the apron/bumper had broken and was flapping.  It wasn't scraping the ground, so I figured I could still drive it if I was careful.  (Famous last words!)

I got Nick home and called the Chrysler dealer, and we agreed I could bring it in today.  I had a 10:00 appointment to drop my cleaning supplies at the Sunnyvale recycling center, and Enterprise rental cars closed at noon, so we agreed that I would bring it in as close to 9:00 as possible, get the rental, load the cleaning stuff into it, and I would continue on to my appointment.  (Chrysler no longer provides their own loaners; they have a deal with Enterprise.  "We sell them our cars, and they rent them back to us," was how the guy put it.)

Naturally, it's never that easy.

I got out of the apartment in plenty of time, which should have told me right there that it was going to be a bad day.  I got everything into the Cruiser and drove out, but I forgot about the damned apron and hit the first of our two speed bumps faster than I should.  The apron dropped off and started scraping.  I got out, pushed it back into place, and drove off again.  Although I went gently over the next one, the apron dropped off again, so I went into the side parking for the condo units on Homestead and tried to put it back in place again, but this time it had bent or something and I couldn't get it into place.  I called the Chrysler dealer.  He said to have it towed in.  I called AAA and they said it would be anywhere between "now" and 45 minutes.  I figured it would be an hour.  After 20 minutes, I got an automated call that AAA would be with me in 20-30 minutes.  20 minutes later, a flatbed showed up.  Unfortunately, when he pressed the remote control button that would drop the flatbed so he could load the car, it refused to budge.  He called his buddy and ended up apologetically informing me he would go back to Mountain View and get another truck and be back in 20 minutes.  I figured it would be more like 40 since it takes about 20 minutes just to get to Mountain View from my place.  One full hour later, a standard tow truck shows up and a different guy gets out.  He asked what was wrong -- evidently the first guy had moved it back into place so well it didn't look broken.  I told him, and he said, "Did he try to tie it up with zip ties?"  I said, "No," and he said, "Well, maybe he didn't have any. Would it be okay with you if I did that?  Maybe you could drive it to the dealer yourself if it works."  I said, "Sure!" so he got out a zip tie and proceeded to tie the thing in place so well it didn't look broken any more.  Five minutes of work and the car was drivable.  I hope the 2nd guy told the 1st one how to do it.  I probably could have driven the car indefinitely with it like that, but I don't like the idea of driving yet another old car held together by baling wire and zip ties, plus the Chrysler dealer was going to replace the clutch as well.  It was in need of it, getting worse every week, and although I could

I drove over to the dealer, arriving there well after 10:00.  (Oh yeah, I had tried to call the recycling center to tell them I would miss my appointment, but the only number Directory Assistance could find didn't answer.)  Filling out all the paperwork went well, and Joe told me that Enterprise was bringing over a Dodge Journey, as I had asked for a "small SUV" since I don't get up out of normal-height cars any more.  Imagine our surprise when the Enterprise guy showed up in a bright red Dodge Caravan.  Joe asked him if that was going to be the same price as the Journey, and it turned out that this was merely my "taxi" back to the Enterprise office.  Joe agreed not to move my car so I could transfer all my stuff into the Journey when I got it.

While I was sitting in the Enterprise office, I happened to look across the street and saw an old Chevy pickup truck with what looked like an Airstream camper shell on it.  Naturally, since I have a bazillion computer cables, I never have the one handy that I need, so until I can download the one from my camera, here's another one that looks astonishingly like it:

I went back later and discovered that the camper shell is an "Avion", manufactured sometime in the mid to late 1960's.  Very nice.  It was probably the same age as the truck but in a lot better shape.

I love all the weird cars I see around here.  While I was waiting for the tow truck(s), someone with a beautiful brand-new powder-blue convertible VW Beetle drove past, so silently that I thought something was wrong with the car.  It's not a Bug if it doesn't make that ringing noise that sounds like it's dragging a couple of chains.  Later someone with a new one that wasn't a convertible also drove by, but that one sounded like, well, the only description I could think of was "an asthmatic box fan."  It definitely had a noisy wheeze, so my faith in Beetles is restored.

And here's a picture of a Dodge Journey like I got from Enterprise, only I got one in a lovely sexy black:

It doesn't look like much but it's really a nice car.  And for $5 a day out of my pocket, I'm not going to complain.  It's lighter than the Cruiser, and it's got better acceleration and brakes, but I miss the heavy feel of my "pickup truck".  And I have to admit it's nice to have a car where the turning radius isn't measured in nautical miles!  The seats aren't as comfy -- there's a major console in the center that prevents me from sitting dead center in the seat -- and since they haven't flattened, every time I drop something, it slides down between the seat and the center console, requiring a major effort to retrieve whatever it is.

From the Enterprise office, I tootled north on Lawrence Expressway.  The Sunnyvale reclamation center where I was supposed to drop my cleaning stuff is off Lawrence after it curves around and becomes Caribbean Drive.  I stopped for lunch along the way and got one of Coco's San Francisco Sourdough burgers, a heavenly greasy mess as I recalled it. I splurged and had a piece of chocolate cream pie for dessert.  It took me about 20 minutes to eat it, it was so rich, and the chocolate so mesmerizing.  I thought it might be Hershey, because it reminded me of the Hershey chocolate syrup of long ago, but the waitress said they made their own pies from bricks of milk chocolate and she didn't know what brand it was except that it wasn't Hershey.  Well, whatever it was, it was incredibly good, and very dark for a milk chocolate.

I continued on to the reclamation site.  Although it's blocked from sight by a large earthworks next to the road, the unmistakeable smell of swamp gas announces its presence.  I drove in and flagged down the woman working at the gate for the commercial trucks, and asked about the household waste area.  "That's all over.  It's LONG over," she told me.  I said I was aware of it and I just wondered if I had come to the right place.  She said that when they hold the household cleaning products day, they have it marked off with cones and signs, and it was every third Saturday.  Well heck.  That means I drive around with the junk in my car until I can transfer it back to the Cruiser.  And THEN I drive around with it until I can get back down there on the 3rd Saturday of whenever.

So.  I decided it was a nice day, and with nothing to do and a good car, I'd take one of my drives.  I wanted some cool ocean air, but I know that on a nice Saturday, Santa Cruz and Highway 17 would be impossible, so I just drove right back up Lawrence and got on Highway 280 and drove north.  It was amazing.  It got noticeably cooler as I drove north up the Peninsula.  Right at the Highway 92 interchange in Belmont, there was a sudden change in the air.  I'd been watching the fog fingers creep over the hills from the ocean, but suddenly I could *taste* the moisture in the air.  It was so sweet I found myself taking big breaths of it and nearly hyperventilating.  It's been dry down where I am, everything full of static, but I never realized how dry until today.  I drove all the way up to where Highway 1 joins up with 280.  I was going to go across 280 to the East Bay and back south, but I couldn't remember if that was a toll or not, and I couldn't find my FasTrak in the bucket of stuff I'd retrieved from the Cruiser, so instead I turned off on Highway 1 south to Pacifica.  By that time I was close enough to the ocean that it was completely overcast.  I had the passenger windows down, front and back, and kept them that way the entire trip until I thought my teeth would chatter.  That damp foggy chillness across the back of my neck was a nice change from the heat of the last week or so.

I pulled off the highway just at the south end of Pacifica to find my FasTrak (I did) and drove around a bit.  Pacifica is about ten times larger than when I last saw it.  All I remembered was a stack of apartment buildings jammed into a hillside, barely visible in the fog.  But I found an older version of it today, one that was decidedly downmarket and vaguely familiar.  I thought maybe I was reminded of Eureka/Arcata, but it didn't have the right ambience.  But somewhere I've been in a place very much like it.  It looks like it might even be affordable.  Lots of ethnic restaurants and old guys in flannel shirts lugging a bag of groceries back to their flats.  Weeds growing up between cracks in the tarmac in the parking lots.  Apartment buildings of that vaguely 1960's motel style, with the outside staircases of concrete steps.  Vacant lots, for heaven's sake.  I didn't think there was a vacant lot anywhere between Marin County and Gilroy.

South of Pacifica, I encountered the "Tom Lantos Tunnels."  I knew these were new (well, since I'd last been there) and figured they must have been built to accommodate a slide.  I got it right in spades; it's the bypass for the notorious Devil's Slide area, where a slide closed Highway 1 for five months some years ago.  These are two of the longest tunnels in California:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lantos_Tunnels
Check it out on Google Maps, in the satellite view.  You can see why they would want to bypass that slide area.  Some of those treeless areas start well east of the highway.

I continued south to the area of Montara Beach.  My word, is that lovely.  As gray as the fog overhead, Mother Pacific was surging quietly against the rock wall, and where there was sand, the waves were small and nearly silent.  I had to laugh when I saw a couple of guys with surfboards going down the beach.  I have no idea what waves they thought they would be catching.

I kept driving south, getting more and more into the weekend tourist traffic.  At one signal some fool couple on a motorcycle passed everyone on the right shoulder and cut in ahead of me.  The girl made some odd gestures while I followed them, and I finally realized that they had their helmets together and were having a conversation.  She'd wave her right hand, and he'd wave his left one, and the bike weaved all over the lane.  I was watching them carefully when the inevitable happened, although thankfully not to them or me.  The traffic had been stop and go, occasionally getting up to a good speed before coming to a complete halt with no warning, so between that and the crazy couple, I was keeping a good distance.  The guy ahead of THEM wasn't.  There was a sudden short shriek of rubber and a bang, and the red Mini solidly rear-ended the big Ford SUV in front of him.  The motorcycle zipped quickly around the cars and disappeared.  I stopped, the SUV moved to the shoulder, but the Mini didn't move.  Since I hadn't really seen anything (I'd been focused on the bike, and missed the lead-up to the bang), I figured that if I didn't get my car around the site, I might be hemmed in.  I got around the Mini, avoiding the pile of splintered plastic and miscellaneous parts, and continued on.  As I passed the Mini, I heard him start his car, so I figured it was still drivable enough to get over to the side.  I sure didn't envy anyone about half a mile back, though.  It was going to be a long trip home.  Even longer for the Mini driver, though.  The SUV might have had a dent, but I'm not sure.

I turned left in Half Moon Bay at Highway 92 to go back to I-280, but thought I'd pay my traditional visit to my old cherry trees, and went down Main Street.  Unfortunately, there was a street party in progress, so I turned off early to go find the house where they are (actually one block off Main) and they'd blocked the cross street where the house is, and even parked an enormous fire truck in front of it so I couldn't even see my trees.  I went around the next block (scraping the Journey's apron on a dip in the road; why do they make these damned things to hang down like that?!), back out to Highway 92, and followed the long, slow trail of cars out of Half Moon Bay.  It was kind of nice doing only 15 MPH, as it allowed me to see things I don't normally see, like the Odd Fellows' Cemetery on the north side of the road, all overgrown with weeds and some interesting monuments here and there.  I didn't see any parking but it must be an interesting place to visit.  There is a small forest of eucalyptus just as you leave the last vestiges of civilization.  There is a place just before it that advertises "surplus lumber" and has a bunch of life-size wood carvings of rampant, roaring bears.  As you drive past, you realize that there's a section of the acreage that has nothing but piles of what looks like different types of firewood, neatly trimmed, and then you're in the forest.  The smell of the damp eucalyptus was mixed with the heady aroma of a wood fire (some of that "surplus lumber", perhaps?).  I don't know what it was, but something about the combination of smells, the damp cold day, and the afternoon light took me right back to the days we used to camp out with our travel trailer.  The wood smoke overlaying the eucalyptus was so delicious I wanted to just take a bite out of it.  I nearly bayed out the window.  What the heck burns with that heady incense-like fragrance?!

The rest of the trip home was uneventful; got over to I-280 and back home without incident.  The reservoir looks comfortingly full, and the hills along Highway 1 are still green.  The hills on I-280 are golden, the golden brown of the usual summer die-off and not that horrible burnt-brown that I saw in Central California earlier this year.  It looked DEAD.  This only looks pretty.

So, supposedly I hear on Tuesday about the Cruiser.  We shall see what they say about the clutch and the apron.

20 April 2014

A group email from yesterday, 19 April, to start things off.

It is a spectacularly beautiful day here.  It was warm, about 80 degrees or so, but a brisk ocean breeze has sprung up and it's absolutely stellar.  This is when I remember how much I loved living here before.  I think the parade of interesting cars I saw today was a result of the fine weather, as well as the Easter weekend.  I saw an early-1970's Chrysler Imperial (land yacht, driven by an elderly Asian couple who probably owned it from new); a turbocharged convertible VW Beetle (I didn't know they made turbo Bugs!); and a brand-new, bright orange Fiat 500 electric, owned by a mom who waxed poetic about it as a great "tooling-around" car.  I've never found a Fiat 500 owner who didn't gush happily when asked how they liked their car.  I saw a Hyundai Veloster (never heard of it before today).  I also saw a big 1930's something, a Packard or maybe even a Rolls Royce, that turned left across my path in downtown Los Altos.  Lots of Leafs out but no Teslas that I could see (rare; usually they are equally represented with the Leafs).  And when I got home, there was another VW bug in the parking lot, powder blue convertible.  Gorgeous.  And of course, my own lovely Boudicca, which is still apparently the only PT Cruiser GT north of Salinas (well, except for Marie's Infernal).  Salinas is the only place I ever saw another one.  (Jim, I know you're going to ask:  there were a million Priuses out there, but there always are.  And I know I said it was a Chrysler New Yorker, but the 1970 Imperial is the only thing I can find that looks like it.)

Ran a lot of my errands, came home with only two quarts of milk and a dozen eggs (which was what I set out to get).  I went to Dittmer's and got all my knives professionally sharpened for the first time, and the two I thought he would say weren't worth it, he raved about.  Evidently I have good taste in knives.  The one I thought was too old to keep turns out to be high-carbon steel -- "They used to make swords like this!" -- and is the best of the bunch.  He told me to oil it as soon as I got home because putting a new edge on it exposed the metal and it would immediately try to rust.  So I have done so.  I don't use it very often because I know it rusts and I have to dry it off immediately after washing it, but now I can't wait to try it on a big tough beefsteak tomato.  Which, of course, I don't have.

I was going to give away a couple of duffle bags to a thrift store, but just happened to see an ad in the Los Altos Freecycle for someone who wanted some, so I took them over to her place.  Because of the nice weather, everyone's gardens are screaming with color, and she had a bunch of rose bushes in her front yard that looked like fireworks going off.  I might go by again with the camera and take a photo.  She gave me a card for a free Peet's coffee, which was very nice of her.  I am gradually making a square route (ha ha) of Mountain View for my Errands Day.  North up the 85 to Moffett and turn south (it's the Bay Area, remember, where all directions are relative), turn left (east) on Middlefield, get coffee at Clocktower and breakfast at Roger's next door.  (Yes, it backtracks me a bit, but I end up on the correct side of the road for Clocktower.)  Trot west back down Middlefield to San Antonio and gas up at the Arco right there on the corner.  Continue south on San Antonio to California Street and hit the Milk Pail ("We are a European style open air market" said their sign today; they used to be a drive-thru dairy back in the 1960s when such things existed).  The Milk Pail is right on the edge of the San Antonio Shopping Center, and I go there for milk and cream in bottles, fancy cheese, deli meats, homemade frozen take-and-bake goods, and any veg or fruits I forgot to order from Safeway.  Today I also went around the back of the San Antonio Center to the T-Mobile dealer to reload the "car phone."  I also asked them if they had another old-style flip phone since I really dislike that Samsung that I'm using, and they do (it's an Alcatel, whoever they are), but it's $90 and I'm not paying that for a phone I'm just going to leave in the car.  I should probably find another Motorola RAZR V3.  The girl said a lot of people still use their RAZRs because they like the phone so much (yeah, honey, and I just told you that I'm one of them!).  I forgot to ask her if iPads have a jack where you can plug in a headset and use them as phones.  I'd rather buy an iPad as it's more all-purpose than an iPhone (and probably easier to read) but I don't know if I can use it as a phone.  I can look it up.  They have a lot to learn in that T-Mobile store about customer service.  I was over inspecting the iPhones and one of the employees started restocking the accessories rack on the other side of the store.  Wow, if you have someone looking at the high-end phones, you DON'T do restocking instead of helping them.

From the T-Mobile place, I went kitty-corner across San Antonio Road and El Camino Real, from San Antonio Center to Dittmer's (in their new location) and got the knives sharpened.  Interesting guy.  A bit younger than me, Jamaican by ethnicity, but he and his brothers grew up on the Apache reservation in Arizona.  He got started sharpening knives when he was about 10. His older brother (who, as a 14-year-old, used to leave home with his buddies and live off the land for two or three weeks) would sharpen the home knives as well as all his friends' bowie and hunting knives.  Then the brother went off to war. (And evidently taught the instructors a thing or two about tracking and knife work.)  When he came home on leave from Viet Nam, he asked his mother who had been sharpening the knives while he was gone because they were all so dull.  She said, "No one."  So he got his little bro, about age 10 at the time, out in the yard and showed him how to do it, and little bro has been doing it ever since.  He seemed to think that every six months to a year is good for having them resharpened.  I probably don't use them near as much as some, so I'll put it on the calendar for next Easter.  I did cruise through Dittmer's while I was waiting, and found that they have the closest thing to the mortadella that I like, which is the kind with pistachios and green olives.  Theirs has the olives, but not the pistachios.  I will keep searching.  I didn't buy any because (a) the line was out the door and (b) I still have a pound of the yacky stuff that Safeway sent me.  Naturally, because it's awful, they sent me double the amount I asked for.

So, from there I went south down San Antonio Road and delivered the duffle bags to the nice lady with the roses, and went on to Foothill Expressway and then to I-280 "south" (actually east) and 85 South and immediately off on Stevens Creek to my closest Post Office to mail some letters (and one overdue bill).  Went back east on Stevens Creek to the car wash and had an external wash done on ol' Boudicca, who has been looking a right dirty cow lately.  Came back to my local Togo's because I thought I had a coupon for money off on a hot pastrami, but couldn't find it.  Damn, and I'd been doing so well, remembering the bottles and the knives and the duffle bags. So instead I drove another couple miles back down to Sunnyvale and had one of Coco's Cobb salads, and brought a slice of their award-winning cherry pie home for breakfast tomorrow, to start the festivities.  And here I am.

Yes, tomorrow I have reserved for my sugar coma.  I have been without sweets for 40 days.  Well, sort of.  I didn't add sugar to anything and I didn't eat anything that was specifically sweet, like candy or doughnuts.  I blew it a few times right at the start, but all in all I did a lot better than I thought I would.  My compulsive spending went into overdrive as a result, and I bought candy by the bucketload off Amazon, even though I couldn't eat it, and Jo Ellen was completely scandalized when she opened all the boxes by the front door.  I'd said "mm hmm, sure" unthinkingly when she asked if she could open them so she could take the cardboard down to the recycling area.  Maybe tomorrow morning I'll take some of the Cadbury Cream Eggs over to work.  Or maybe I'll just hoard them until they grow fuzz.  Whatever.

The latest on the story at work, by the way, is that despite all our protests, they are definitely going to close the "West Lobby", which is the exterior door right outside our new work area, and make us use 156A (about a hundred miles away) or 156E (almost as far).  The only alternative they have for me is that they will leave a wheelchair permanently in the 156E lobby with my name on it, and I can wheel down to the work area.  I said that was acceptable (although I expect I'll be taking a long time to get there until my biceps build up).  They're going to see if there's another entrance that's better suited to our work area, because other people would use it as well, and that would be the preferable alternative.  Well, leaving the West Lobby open would be the preferable alternative, but they won't listen to me.  I'd tell you to go to Google Maps and look, but evidently Lockheed has requested that they use old photos, because the satellite view is about ten years out of date, and the West Lobby doesn't exist.  Anyway, it's back in their court for now.  Jo Ellen is trying to convince me to get my knees replaced NOW and I'm starting to seriously consider it.  I miss being able to walk where I need to go.  There are some work issues where I don't want to bug out for eight weeks, but maybe they can do without me.  Who am I kidding?  Of course they can do without me, I just need to time it right.  I'll talk to Dave when I'm on day shift in a couple weeks.

And, sadly, my old building, the Blue Cube, is gone, or nearly so.  It appears, from the word being passed around Facebook, that the walls have come tumbling down in the last few days (I don't normally go near Lockheed on my breaks).  A piece of Silicon Valley history is no more.  I was too young to realize how good we had it there, how we dealt with NASA launches and one-off experimental satellites of all shapes and sizes and capabilities and orbits.  I watch the NASA channel at work now and I'm surprised how much I understand about the Space Station because of what I learned back in the 1970's and 1980's in MCC-F. Good times, good people.

I think I need to bug-bomb my bedroom.  I haven't had to do that since I had Tatty, who used to get awful flea infestations. These two don't have fleas (no cat since Tatty has ever had them, probably because every place I lived in England was cold enough to kill them off) but something is biting me at night.  I start to itch on the back of my head or neck, or sometimes even my forearm, and it's a big welt that takes about 24 hours to go away.  It's been going on for months, and the only thing that seems to stop it is when I change the sheets.  Then I can have 48 hours or sometimes even 96 hours without a problem, then it starts up again.  I thought it was spiders, but I don't see any evidence of them, and in fact, I don't see any evidence of anything at all.   So:  a bug bomb, to get anything that's there.  I'll have to take the bed apart so the poison gets to all the pieces, and maybe take the cats out for a drive for a couple hours while everything is going through their death throes.

Anyway, after my day out in the sun today, getting things done, I feel a nap coming on.  Tell me how life is with you.  Go into great and glorious detail because I don't want to be the only person who bores their friends to tears.