June in Oregon

Food Carts

Our initial idea to celebrate the solstice was to fly to England and join the massive gathering at Stonehenge, and then drop in on Wimbledon, but we dilly-dallied too long and our house-sitter got booked and could only give us 5 days, so we decided to fly to Portland instead. Despite decades living in northern California, neither of us had ever visited Oregon. 

Portland has a reputation as a hip city, Eugene’s big brother. At least 3 TV shows are set there: Portlandia, Leverage, and Grimm. (Disappointingly, we didn’t see any “wesen,” the creatures featured in the latter.) We stayed on the northwest side at a place that gave us free tickets for the streetcars and we took them everywhere. The 1^st afternoon we took one to Powell’s Books (the largest independent bookstore in the world) and from there circled through Chinatown and Old Town on foot but found both lacked the vibrancy of the Chinatowns in San Francisco or New York. Back in the Pearl district, kind of a mishmash area, also with little foot traffic, we split a good burger at Deschutes Brewery. Portland is much taken with the connoisseurship of beer and most of the brewpubs serve flights, as wineries do in our neck of the woods.

Pioneer Square

Next day we took the streetcar downtown, a more architecturally unified urban area, and had lunch at a pod of food carts near O’Bryant Square with every imaginable ethnicity of food.  We walked it off along the river before wandering over to Pioneer Square for lattes at the Starbuck’s on the corner.  We were waiting for an old friend of mine who recently moved to Portland.  A racket from the bandstand made conversation difficult when he arrived but it was no quieter inside so we just had to make the best of it.  We talked about the book he published a few years ago on Buddhism and Wagner for a couple hours, until we all had to go.  We had to meet another old friend I’d met years ago on my post-graduation trip through Europe.  We met him and his wife at a restaurant down by the river.  He had reserved a table outside with a view of the marina at a place called Thirst.  We chatted for a couple hours there about our adventures since we’d last seen each other, and then they went home to suburbia while we headed to Bridgeport Brewery, an important location in Leverage that was within walking distance of our hotel, to taste another flight. 

  

Oregon Coast

In the morning we taxied over to Enterprise, picked up a dark red Subaru Legacy that I ended up quite liking, and headed for Cannon Beach, the beginning of our road trip.  The annual sandcastle competition was that day (the solstice) which we thought was a lucky fluke, but it turned out to be unlucky because it generated a massive traffic jam.  We got so frustrated that we gave up on visiting Cannon Beach altogether and after we finally got free of the crush, headed south, feeling stressed and cranky.  We stopped for an overdue lunch in the next town, Manzanitas, and the food improved our moods.  Farther south we discovered that Oregonians, in addition to beer, love coffee.  Every town we went through had several drive-thru espresso stands, including many examples of a chain called Dutch Bros., an innovation Frieda greatly appreciated since she rarely gets a sufficient number of lattes.  This may have been her favorite feature of Oregon.  

Florence

We discussed whether to try the local road to see the Three Capes but decided against it when Tripadvisor advised that it was closed at about the halfway point.  Continuing south on 101 we had a bit of a scare when she began calling ahead for reservations and hit a rash of no vacancies.  It was, after all, Saturday night, and we hadn’t made one because we weren’t sure how far south we were going to get.  Finally she found a place in Florence, next to the Old Town there, and we arrived around dinnertime and went to Mo’s on the riverside for some clam chowder. 

Florence had some minor charms but overall I have to say we were disappointed in the Oregon coast. You can see more drama and beauty from the roadside in 4 miles of Big Sur than in 400 miles of the Oregon coast. And let’s not even bring up the Amalfi coast in Italy. If you have the time to pull over, take side roads, and hike, you can probably find some awesome vistas, but we didn’t have that kind of time. From 101 what you overwhelmingly see are trees, millions of trees filing past.

Redwoods

The following day we continued south toward Crescent City but before arriving turned off for Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.  First we walked the Simpson Reed and Peterson Trails, and then motored over to Stout Grove, the last 3-4 miles on an extremely dusty dirt road.  These were all recommendations of the first old friend we’d seen in Portland, who lived for a couple of years in Crescent City while writing his book.  The redwoods were awesome, of course.  Crescent City, on the other hand, was a dump.  I couldn’t believe my friend had tolerated it for 2 years.  The downtown area was a ghost town, with no one at all about.  We couldn’t find a decent restaurant anywhere and ended up at Pizza Hut for lack of a better alternative. 

In the morning we took 199 back through the redwoods and angled north to I-5.  We got into Eugene about lunchtime and stopped at Tourist Information for a walking tour which directed us to a good lunch at a place called Steelhead Brewing.  Eugene was, of course, smaller and sleepier than Portland, and it was summer so the university students weren’t around.  The residential area between downtown and the river was delightful, and the river walk more bucolic than the one in Portland.  We finished our explorations in the late afternoon and headed north to Salem where we got a room at the edge of a vast wasteland of chain stores that was like anywhere and everywhere in the USA, less than an hour from the Portland Airport.  

Drive-through Espresso in Eugene

It was fun to get a taste of Portland and Eugene, we loved the streetcars and the brewpubs, seeing old friends, and the people were friendly but, wherever you go in the States, so much is the same.  We came away feeling it’s hardly worth the cost of travelling in the States because, with a few exceptions, everyplace is so similar.  Once you get past the expensive airfare and the ordeal of the long flight (admittedly grueling, in coach from California), the costs in Europe are equivalent and there’s so much more novelty, variety, and history there.  In the States most of the beauty is natural.  If you want to see man-made beauty you have to go to Europe. That said, I still think San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but a lot of its appeal derives from its site, and the topography.  It has a unique character.  By contrast Portland has a kind of sawmill quality.  It feels more provincial, more homey