You know you are landing in Oregon by two things: out the plane window you can see nothing but
conifers and Air Alaska planes with the giant Eskimo on the tail.
We’ve arrived in Oregon during the build-up of
Eclipseomania, Eclipsapalooza, Eclipsicon.
Whatever you want to call it, the state is buzzing about the impending
dark. Our Leader is alternating between
excitement about the whole adventure and angst about things like traffic and
toilet paper. The rest of us are just
tired from having gotten up at 3:30 a.m.
We know ahead of time that this trip is going to involve a
lot of driving, so we are prepared to do things to entertain ourselves like
note the funny town names – Boring, Tangent – and play Hangman, which Izzy sets
up. It quickly becomes apparent that her
favorite hangmans are all song titles from her pre-game pump-up mix, which
means I can guess them almost instantly since Izzy’s pre-game pump-up mix is simply
a distillation of my 80s-vintage workout mix plus some Lady Gaga. Rock on.
Our drive to the coast is broken up by lunch in Corvallis with Bill’s medical school classmate Stefan, his girlfriend Serena, and Stefan’s
poised and charming children Nick and Grace.
We thrill to Stefan and Serena’s tales of quitting their jobs and sailing
the world, which they are actually doing in a few weeks (well, not the kids –
they have actual jobs and real school) but S and S will be on a 49-foot
catamaran that sleeps 10 and might make it to the Galapagos next year. At least, most of us do – Izzy thrills to the
best mac and cheese ever by her account. Lunch is at the Sky High Brewery and here’s
another way you know you are in Oregon:
there is beer, good beer, excellent beer, all kinds of excellent beers,
everywhere here, even in the mac and cheese which is probably why it tasted so
good.
The end of the day finds us on the coast in Newport,
marveling at the coastal vistas. The
beach here is enormous and wide and slightly cratered like at Normandy but of
course not for the same reasons. The
waves roll in beautifully but here the water is more Atlantic green-gray than
Pacific blue. There is a lot of ocean
mist and some impossibly hardy families in BATHING SUITS who are apparently
impervious to the cool. Nobody really
swims here – it is too cold in the water – but they walk and play and dig and
throw sticks and make great designs in the sand like HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA that
you can see from our bluff-top hotel.
Newport is a fishing and touristic community that has a
lighthouse and a big fancy bridge and a 'historic bayfront' that feels more
like a downmarket Cannery Row (and that is saying something because Cannery Row
is not exactly the Champs Elysée).
The main attraction at the historic bayfront seems to be the enormous sea lions
that upholster some floats, roaring and barking at each other and keeping a few
apparent loser-sea lions from climbing up on their rafts. Some of them are branded or something for
research purposes, while others are just sleekly furry. Everyone hangs on the pier watching them loll
about and roar.
Dinner is at the Roadfood-recommended Shark's where we eat
enormous bowls of cioppino (Bill actually finishes his and the lady rings a
bell and shouts "another super bowl bites the dust!"). We also have local oysters which are not
awesome – we’ll learn they are better fried than raw – and salted caramel hazelnut
ice cream from Tillamook, OR which is famous for its dairy cows who produce
approximately eleventy billion gallons of milk a year, that is made into cheese
and really really really good ice cream.
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