Darling & Wolf: Oregon

It still rains in Oregon. Somehow the rain didn’t know to stop at the Columbia River. This did help contribute to the waterfalls we saw, however. Melanoma Falls? Multigrain Falls? Something like that. I remember Bill Bryson lambasting his countrymen for not wandering far from the car at nature’s big events like those we were seeing. Sure the fatties made it half way up the paved trail, perhaps 500 feet from the parking lot, well done, good effort. The rest was a peaceful jaunt for Emma and I through empty forest, the only company was my singing due to paranoia of black bears.

With the rain continuing to soak our souls and the van starting to smell like wet dog we decided to head to Portland for some civilisation. Air B&B set us up with a nice woman we never met who left her back door open for us to be greeted by her yapping dogs. Try doing that in London without losing your telly. Or dogs.

Portland immediately hit a sweet spot with us. Emma likes taking unnecessary pictures of flowers so the abundance of roses in everyone’s gardens gave her something to do whilst I revelled in the local brewery scene. In between we popped into Powell's book shop (a really cool establishment) to pick up a book on birds and a book on trees. The amount of times we’ve seen bird or tree and wondered what we were looking at sure annoyed me, so these guide books were great. At the time of writing I’ve seen vultures, bald eagles, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, quails, a variety of hawks, eagles and falcons and more sea birds than necessary. Most of which would have been difficult to identify without these guides. We now know the difference between a Sequoia and a Redwood, a Ponderosa Pine and a Douglas Fir. Knowing about the flora and fauna has definitely added to the richness of the experience.

Many Deschutes Brewery beer floats later we spent the evening at a Thai restaurant called Pok Pok, unlike any Thai restaurant we’d ever been to. They served Asian-food stall fusion cuisine that burned the roof off our mouth and set fire to our souls at the same time. Excellent and highly recommended, even though the locals at the next table made fun of us by toasting each other regularly in a faux English accent “CHEERS MATE”. Well cheers mate to you because these spicy wings were fucking awesome. Full and tipsy we retired to our bed and slept very well outside of the van. The only negative experience of Portland came when a gentleman asked me if my Doc Martens meant I was a redneck or a racist. I didn’t have time to comment as he moved on to Emma informing her that she was “Daddy’s little squirt”. Again before I had time to comment he moved on the stop the traffic and shake the hand of a driver of a car he liked. I think I could take solace in the fact that this man was either drunk or deranged but it did make me feel self-conscious of my DM’s. Then I saw a DM store and decided he was mental.

On returning to Security the next morning we realised that we might as well have just slept in the van on the street and saved a load of money. Taking that on board we departed for the rest of the Oregon coast. First stop was the Tillamook cheese factory. It was a factory. A factory which made cheese. That was it. Don’t bother.

Cape Lookout provided our first stop on the coast. We went for a run on the wild beach as the sun had come out. All the way up we encountered waterfalls pouring from great cliffs onto the beach below. It was truly the epitome of the Oregon coast and what we had come looking for. We both loved it. Further down the coast at Washburne State Beach we went rock pooling, marvelling in the relatively disgusting contents of the pools. Sea urchins the size of your head crammed like open sores into the smallest puddles. Beautiful and yet sickening at the same time. Maybe it was just me.

We attempted to go up to Crater Lake, a long drive simply to attempt but we arrived late so decamped down in a valley where snow began to fall. Sleeping in absolute silence in a forest with a dusting of snow is both magical and creepy but one which we both savoured. The next morning I tried to drive us up to Crater Lake but the snow was falling heavily and the last thing I wanted was to slide all over a mountain road. So reluctantly we headed south and on to a town Emma fancied visiting called Ashland.

Ashland is famed for its Shakespearian theatre which the town doesn’t let you forget. The Best Western is even themed as some Tudor hotel. Coming from England it was all a bit absurd but the town was lovely nonetheless. Plus they had a brew pub I wanted to try called the Cauldron. Here I drank too fast and befriended a local – Stefan. He knew where London was, had actually left America before to visit Australia and used to work in a brewery so I immediately liked him. He took us to play pool in some other bar whilst I tried to inform him of the joys of snooker. Try telling a snooker fan about snooker and he will be bored. Try telling an American about snooker and the emotion will be ten-fold. He listened politely though whilst beating me at pool and letting me buy him drinks. Fucking gentleman. It was a Sunday night but people were still out and still drinking. One peculiar couple took a shine to us. The man looked like Michael Moore and largely served to tell his wife to shut up and force me to drink rum and orange juice. His wife largely served to inform me of the ills of the mass media and then turned to Emma to discuss her magical crystal worth $35,000. Emma informed me that they were both off their faces on something other than booze. I hadn’t noticed on account of being off my face on booze. I had a brilliant night and slept on the motel room floor apparently at my own insistence. We agreed we’d go back to Crater Lake via Ashland on our way back up north.

We departed Ashland for the Redwoods of Northern California. Not before the heavens opened at the moment our wipers broke on Highway 1. Driving down winding roads with amorous drivers (trying to get their cars to kiss your car) on one side and a cliff face on the other is challenging at the best of times but driving for even a short distance without wipers is horrific. An hour of standing in the rain and I had them fixed again but the battery started to give way again - heart sinking time! We settled to camp as the only visitors at a campsite in the Redwoods. Shortly afterwards we’d run out of oil. Knowing that this was the perfect way to destroy an engine I drive the 20 odd miles to the next town in California at 15 miles per hour. A little wooden shack sold me their last litre of oil which, when poured into the engine, steamed/smoked like a dying ember. It was nowhere near full but it would carry us to the next shop. It’s like Security wanted to die but we wouldn’t let it. Not yet old boy.