2003-11-08-Oregon

Saturday, November 8

Debra couldn't get Monday off work, and Matt and Brenda had too much homework, so it was just me, Katie, and Dusit on the trip. We left my place in Vancouver just a bit later than the planned 8:30 departure. The wait at the Peach Arch border crossing was not too bad, and we had a relatively easy time getting past the interrogation; the official did very smoothly slip in the question "how do you know Andre?" to Dusit.

We made a detour to Flaming Geyser State Park on our way down, and stopped in Auburn for lunch. Kat drove us to the park so that Dusit could take a nap. Parking for the day at the park cost $5, which seemed like an awful lot for a fifteen minute stop, so we just acted like we dropped our parking fee into the box at the lot. It was just as well that we did that, since the flaming geyser itself was pretty lame; there was a pit in the ground with a concrete cylinder in the centre and a small flaming emerging from the top. Apparently the flame used to reach several feet in the air, but the pressure has fallen and it's not even a foot high now.

A couple of hundred of metres past the flaming geyser was the bubbling geyser. It was just a pool of water that occassionally bubbled. The water was not warm, and the bed of the pool was all gray; there was no water spraying into the air or anything, but it was less of a letdown than the flaming geyser. The rest of the park looked quite beautiful though, and there were trails that ran into the woods; the rest of the park seemed well worth the $5 parking if we actually had time to enjoy it.

Our first meal of the trip	Dusit taking a picture of me taking a picture of Dusit ...	Katie driving in Auburn	Dusit asleep
An inviting cave for bugs to crawl into	The flaming geyser was pretty lame	The bubbing geyser was marginally better	Dusit and Kat
Stream in Flaming Geyser State Park	Dusit pointing at a bug on the windshield (darn focusing on automatic cameras!)

I drove from the park to somewhere in Oregon on highway 26 where we stopped so Kat could call her aunt and warn her that we would be a bit late. We did not to fill up at the gas station there because it was not a Chevron. Dusit took over the driving just in time to enter the mountain passes, and it was snowing a little, but we didn't run into any problems. Except for the little light in the instrument cluster that signalled a lack of fuel. The fuel indicator slowly dropped as we made our way through the dark mountain highway. Descending into Warm Springs, there was a Texaco to greet us. But Dusit passed, thinking that there would be a Chevron in town. It was not the case, and we held our breath until we got to Madras where Dusit broke down and we filled up at the Safeway there.

It was about dinner time, and we got a coupon from filling up for 10% off groceries, so we went in and picked up some chips and a bag of mini Reese's peanut butter cups left over from Halloween. As we were leaving the checkout, an employee drove by on a little motorised cart. We remarked that it was cool, and she offered us a ride, so Dusit jumped in. Not thinking that there would be anything to take pictures of in Safeway, I had to run out to the car to get a camera. Fortunately, Dusit was driving a lap around the checkout counters so I got back in time to snap a few pictures. The people there were so friendly!

We arrived in Sisters around 8:30, but had some difficulty locating Kat's aunt Kit's place. A phone call cleared the confusion as the directions we had assumed that we would be arriving from the west, but instead we came from the east. We found the house and were introduced to Kit and Clay, and their dogs Sommie, Jubile, and Alex. We chatted for a while before they led us to Kat's grandparents' cabin nearby. They had thought that we were arriving the previous evening and started to heat the place up for us, but when we didn't show, they shut things off because they weren't sure when we would actually arrive. So we turned on the water heater and the baseboard heaters and settled ourselves in.

After Kit and Clay left, Kat cooked up some canned chili and rice for dinner, and we drank hot chocolate while working on various problems like splitting a cake in half and the eight queens problem before going to sleep. Rather than heating up all the rooms, we just laid out our sleeping bags in the living room and slept in front of the heater.

Dusit and Kat working on the eight queens problem

Sunday, November 9

Dusit and Katie looking out the window	View towards the neighbours	View out the window	Dusit folding Kat
Dusit stored his glasses on Kat's head then hid his own head.	Headless Dusit	Kat on the back porch	Zooming the digital camera by placing the lens in the viewfinder of a SLR camera with a zoom lens

Kit and Clay were busy until 9:30, so we took our time getting up and showered and dressed. We watched Dusit make a few wrong turns getting back to town before meeting them at their house. They treated us to brunch in Sisters, then we took a walk around town and returned to their place (but not before Dusit made friends with Cooper, the dog at the bookstore).

Main street in Sisters

They showed us around a bit of their ten acre property; apparently they managed to purchase it below market value because the previous owners believed in burying as a means of disposal. Although Kit and Clay have already had truckloads of junk hauled off, there was still scrap metal lying around. There used to be lots of signs and automotive bits too because the previous owners had at some point also owned a Shell gas station.

In addition to the house, there was a barn, some sheds, and a guest house which they were fixing up, but didn't quite manage to finish in time for us to stay there. There were also pig pens that had fallen into disrepair as the previous owners aged and the area of actively worked land diminished.

A stream ran not too far behind the buildings. They wanted to build a bridge, and challenged us to come up with designs that would be able to withstand the occassional flooding of the stream. Some of our ideas include a suspension bridge, placing a trampoline on each bank, walking on stilts, and rolling across in a giant gerbil ball. There was also an irrigation ditch which ended in a small pond behind the house, and Sommie was entertaining himself running around on the partially frozen surface of the pond.

To keep the dogs from straying too far, a buried wire outlined their space, and their collars held a radio receiver that warned them if they approached the line too closely. But they had a large space in which to roam and we spent a long time playing soccer with Jubile and getting him to chase us around the buildings. Alex and Sommie were eventually let out to play, and when we had tired ourselves out, Dusit picked up the ball to stop the action. While he was talking to us and not paying attention, Alex made a great leap and knocked the ball out of Dusit's hand and off the dogs went. Just before we left, we were crossing the icy log bridge across the irrigation ditch for fun, and Jubile would cross with whomever was on the bridge by running through the water; his lower half was completely dripping when we left.

Dusit getting a picture of Sommie	Kat on a hammock which was smaller than she remembered	Kit, Kat, and Clay	Argh, I don't remember the name of the cat!
Dusit getting another picture of Sommie	Jubile chasing a basketball	Dusit with Sommie and Alex	Kat and Dusit across icy log bridge
Kat crossing icy log bridge	Dusit trying to jump off log bridge	Kit holding a plate of ice	Kit and Kat

We went back to the cabin because we hadn't brought any maps with us. The original plan was to go out to Smith Rocks and do some climbing. But it was too easy coming up with excuses for not going: people (Dusit) wanted to nap, it was 2pm and there wasn't much daylight left, and it was cold out and climbing with bare hands wasn't so appealing. So instead, we went into town for ice cream. Kat had been telling us how great Tillamook ice cream was, so we went looking for some. The place near where we parked didn't indicate that their ice cream was Tillamook (unlike the other place we passed), but we went in and asked anyway. It turned out that their ice cream was from another local dairy, and we felt bad walking out, so we just stayed there; I got a huckleberry swirl which was pretty tasty. Kat didn't think that their ice cream was as good as Tillamook.

On our way back to the cabin, we did investigate what was at mile zero of Camp Polk Road (it joined back to highway 126). Both days, while driving on Camp Polk Road, we saw deer on the side of the road and in the trees, although we did see one roadkill just on the outskirts of town on our random drive.

Sleeping on the floor

Cool gap below the cloud as it moved over the mountain

Cloud moving closer

Kat and Dusit napping

Kat joined Dusit for a nap, and I read for a couple of hours. They got up shortly before we lost daylight, and we went for a walk in the field behind the cabin. We hopped across the creek, and wandered down to a lone tree that Kat remembers visiting when she was younger. We paused on the way back to look at the stars for a while. Then we did a couple more math/logic problems before heading to Kit and Clay's for dinner.

After dinner, Clay showed us some of his photographs of wild horses. He would go out and spend a few days tracking the horses, following them around and photographing them. I don't remember the name of the horses in which he was really interested though. He grew up working in cowboy acts and now trains horses, and his photographs are displayed and sold at shows. Unfortunately for me, the wildlife that I would be interested in photographing are bears, cougars, and lynx.

Clay and Kit

We had dessert and sat around chatting for a couple of hours before deciding to leave them to rest. It wasn't exceptionally late when we returned to the cabin, so I taught Dusit and Kat how to play tarot, and we played a few rounds before going to sleep.

Monday, November 10

Feather on the window

Kat and Duse

We didn't get as early a start as we were hoping because the circut breaker for the hot water tank somehow got tripped, and we had to wait for the water to heat up again. But that gave Kit enough time to come by and borrow Kat's travel email manuscript and make copies. We said our goodbyes and were on our way, with a quick stop for some sandwich materials and pistachios on the way out of town because we didn't expect to have much time to stop along the way. It began to rain a bit as we were leaving, but fortunately for us, we only ever got rain on the entire trip while we were in the car. We passed a few controlled burns not far out of Sisters; I think they were still working on their forest fires.

Driving through crummy weather

Very red earth throughout central Oregon

We missed Sublimity

We made pretty good time getting to Salem, so we took a little detour to go see Kat's old house there. Subsequent owners had put up an ugly red fence and repainted the house. As we sat in the car in front of the house, a dog started barking quite a bit, so we took our pictures and left Portland bound. We missed I5 and ended up taking highway 99E half half the way there.

2960 Wedgewood, Kat's old house in Salem

We arrived at Kat's grandmother Dorothy's in Lake Oswego around 3pm. That gave us a bit of time to chat before Kat's uncle Kim was supposed to be on the radio. He was being interviewed by Oregon Public Radio about his new book, a collection of published and previously unpublished works by his father William Stafford titled Every War Has Two Losers, which was to hit bookstores the next day. We turned the radio on at 4pm, but of course we had to wait until almost 5pm to hear Kim; he was very well spoken and responded to the questions very well. Coincindentally, the interview prior to Kim's on the program was with a friend of Dorothy who had just compiled her letters from the war and donated them to a national collection.

After the radio program, we drove over to Kat's aunt Barb's place with Dorothy. It was actually a bit of a family gathering; Barb and Steve and Kat's cousins Sam and Marah were there (although both Sam and Marah were busy that night and had to go out), as well as Kim (who was just on the radio) and Peren and Guntherie. Their dog was also named Sam because figured that it wasn't fair to rename him just because there was already a Sam in the household.

We had salad and two chicken soups for dinner, one with beets made by Peren and a creamy one that was not unlike tom ka gai by Barb, followed by gingerbread and ice cream. Kat regaled everyone with stories of her year of travel, repeating herself several times over the evening as some ears were busy preparing dinner or were otherwise occupied at times, until Guntherie had to be taken home and put to bed; they gave Dorothy a ride home as well.

Barb (and Marah who had just come home from her dance lessons) finally got a chance to sit down and catch up with Katie. They also tried to suggest ideas for us for the evening, but sitting in a car all day is tiring and we opted to just stay in. I think Barb was tired too, so we just went upstairs to our room, and played a few hands of tarot before going to sleep.

Jouions le jeu de tarot

Tuesday, November 11

Dusit took the bed.

Then he used Kat as a pillow.

There was talk of driving out to the coast and visiting the Tillamook factory, but we decided to take it easy and not have to spend nine hours in the car. Instead, we went for a walk towards downtown after some really tasty fresh pumpkin bread for breakfast.

Dusit and Kat walking down Thurman Street	Cycling hazards	No, my Powers can only be used for GOOD.	Cool bike rack
Go by streetcar	Looking south down NW 11th Avenue	Dusit was enthralled by the complexity of the parking meters.	Cute dragon on sidewalk
Cute strange winged creature on sidewalk	Elephants	Elephants	Dusit not taking a picture of Thai Cuisine
Looking down Broadway	Tri Met MAX Light Rail system	Purple octopus in front of Greek Cuisina	Please don't get wet...
Dusit and Kat by Willamette River	Kat and Dusit by Willamette River	Downtown buildings	Cool cloud backdrop on downtown buildings
Electric car parking only	Nice fuel line	Sculpture	Dusit taking a picture of the trolley car
The shopkeeper feeds the pigeons	Church	Kinda scary face in front of PGE Park	Pom
Tacky purple tree	Marrakesh Restaurant was closed.	UFOs aliens and pink beams	Great fall colours

Our meanders took us to the river downtown. We missed Powell Books, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing as I would have been liable to get caught in there for hours. We figured that ice cream should be easy to find around the riverfront. But there was no sign of it from the park by the river and wandering through downtown didn't lead us to any either. We had been walking for a couple of hours by then, and some of us were starting to get hungry. I suggested looking for the Moroccan restaruant which Barb said was near her house. We did stop in a store for snacks but all we ended up with was a bottle of Pom pomegranate juice. However, someone there was able to tell us that there was a Moroccan restaurant near 21st and Lovejoy. It turned out that it was actually at 21st and Northrup, and it also turned out that it was closed at the time.

On our way back to Barb's, we passed Quimby Street, which reminded me of something that Sam told us earlier. Apparently Matt Groening went to his high school (with Steve) and Mr. Burns was modelled after their teacher Mr. Bailey. Good trivia for Dusit who worked on the hit game Simpsons Hit and Run. We also walked by streets named Flanders and Lovejoy.

Dusit, Barb, and Kat in front of house

That's a big mailbox!

Barb and Sam

Back at Barb's house, we made use of facilities and said our goodbyes. She also ordered us an appetiser that she really likes from a nearby Thai restaurant. We picked it up, then went to a Fred Meyer and finally found Tillamook ice cream; we got 1.89L of the chocolate peanut butter, and some plastic spoons from their deli department.

Ice cream aisle of Fred Meyer

Scanning the ice cream

Self serve checkout

We took our "klunch" to the rose garden in Washington Park. The Thai dish consisted of a set of little containers of dried shrimp, peanuts, chopped chilis, ginger, lime, some cripsy starchy bits, a sweet sauce, and spinich leaves on which to place all the components. It was pretty yummy, but I have no idea what it was called (and Dusit didn't recognise the name when Barb told us). Scooping from a frozen tub of ice cream with plastic spoons was rather challenging; we didn't even get through a quarter of it, and had to take the rest back for the trip.

International Rose Test Garden

The end of our Thai appetiser

Kat, Dusit, and our lunch

Red rose

We left Portland around 3:30pm. Every time Dusit opened his mouth to sing along with Brad Roberts, a large spoonful of ice cream would fill the void until the ice cream ran out less than an hour later. There was talk of stopping in Seattle on the way back because Dusit has never been there, but we left sufficiently late that it wasn't as appealing. We actually made it to the border by 8pm, but had to wait about half an hour in the lineup, which was enough time for the low fuel indicator to come back on.

I405 crossing Willamette River	Dusit trying to sing with Brad Roberts	Cooling tower of nuclear plant	Cooling tower again
K	Low fuel indicator

Although none of us were terribly hungry following the ice cream lunch, Lhy Thai sounded quite appealing. We had to restrain ourselves from eating too many pistachios as we all realised that we were just eating them because they were there, and we wanted to save room for dinner. Stopping at the first Chevron on highway 99A, Dusit called his parents to check that they were still open and I called Deb so that she could join us in half an hour. Nothing wraps up a trip like a good feast.