Finally So Cal

We drove through the Columbia River gorge. The wind was enough to drive me crazy. I felt like I’d just drunk a case of beer. The wind was pushing us all over the lane and I was forced to drive with my hands at 10 and 2 just keep the car in my own lane. We stopped for gas in Bummsville Oregon (really don’t know the name but all that was there was a gas station, a few attendants, three or four other wayward travelers, and some tumbleweeds). The gorge was beautiful but Id’ seen enough by the time we were through the canyon.

We arrived right on schedule just outside Portland just in time for evening rush hour. We’ve got great timing, eh? We decided that instead of driving right into Portland that we’d detour and go by way of Salem. We drove straight past Salem and all the way into Eugene, Oregon, where we had to stop for gas and pee breaks. We met a really nice, but SO redneck, gas jockey at the gas station who was totally psyched about Eddie (my car, for those of you who don’t know). He asked to take a test drive. I gracefully declined his request but told him that if he was going to get a Cobalt, to go for the 6 cylinder ‘cuz while “Fast Eddie” is wicked to look at, he’s rather lacking in the hill climbing department.

By now it was dark (about 9pm) and I passed the keys off to Alan. I was DONE! I’d been driving all day (from 8:30am in case you forget when we started). We drove south towards Grant’s Pass, which is another pass through a mountain range and it also happens to take you through the Redwood Forest along the west coast of Oregon and into Northern California.

For those of you who have never seen a Redwood in real life, in the day light, they’re daunting. At night… wow… they’re something else. They’re even more “something else” when the road is one, narrow, lane each direction, there are no street lights, and there are “Yahoo’s” driving like bats out of hell because they’re familiar with the road. Speaking of ‘bats out of hell’, we actually saw one. It had a 2’ wing span. No, I’m not kidding. Unless they grow Eagles that look like bats and fly only at night, at 4’ off the ground, then we saw an eagle, but otherwise, it was totally a bat. Look what it did to me!



No, really, I was scared to death, getting out of the car. It was dark. It smelled weird. And we couldn’t see more than two feet ahead of us. Alan actually had to take a picture of me walking towards the tree so I could see how far it was so the tree. He was also scared of what else might show up in the picture behind me after he took the picture. To this day, he still maintains my bravery for standing in the dark all alone while he took the picture, standing two feet from the car. Anyway, we both ran back to the car (or rather towards headlights we hoped belonged to our car and not someone driving down the freeway) giggling and whimpering at the same time. There was nothing brave about this picture. We were like little girls. It was awful. And yet the adrenaline rush was enough to keep me awake for another 30 minutes or so. I passed out just as we exited The Pass and arrived in Eureka, California. I did, however, make a valiant effort to stay awake. Every 15 minutes or so I’d wake up, apologize for falling asleep while he was driving, and then pass out again. Now it’s hilarious. At the time, I felt SO guilty.

As we arrived in Eureka at midnight, which has some sort of Naval base near it, there were a few miles of road with LARGE warning signs stating that you are not allowed to stop along this stretch of road way. You're not even supposed to slow down; just maintain the speed limit of 55 mph. It’s dark, so Alan never did get to see what it was we weren’t allowed to stop for, but there was some high security looking measures. To this day Alan is curious what it is along that stretch that was not to be seen or stopped for… for now he figures it was ‘cuz someone would shoot at us from a naval ship for stopping… how cool would that look?

posted by Meg @ 8:01 PM