The Proposal and three other days worth of sights

Greetings from Willow Creek, California – self-proclaimed Bigfoot capital of the United States. It’s been a wild ride since we arrived in Portland a few nights ago. Portland has always been a city that has interested Alicia and myself for its carefree and artsy persona. Last year on our road trip we realized we’re much happier camping so we intentionally only scheduled only a few city stops and Portland was one of our must-sees. Wednesday we got up to a cool and overcast Portland that would eventually warm up to the mid 70’s and get sunny – the last day of sun we’ve encountered. From the hostel we walked down to the Pearl District to Powell Books which calls itself the biggest independent bookstore in the world or the biggest English book store, according to a manager. I obviously haven’t been to every bookstore in the world, but I’m not going to refute its claim. It was three large stories tall, with a textbook annex across the street. Any subject - and probably any book, new or used, could be found there. They even have a map of the store to help you out. We spent a good hour or so wondering around the store. We didn’t buy anything because neither of us wanted to carry books around with us all day and if you’ve seen the 2^nd bedroom of our apartment you know we don’t need any more books, but it was definitely worth the visit. From there we went to lunch at Old Town Pizza – self-proclaimed best pizza in Portland. It was pretty good, but I bet I could find better pizza somewhere there. The atmosphere was what made it, though. It was in the location of a former hotel lobby and was decorated with a hodgepodge of antique and wooden furniture and was very dark and old-timey feeling. It’s located above the Shanghai tunnels. Back in the 1800’s they used to kidnap sailors who had too much to drink at the hotel and send them to Shanghai as slaves. That’s where the term being Shanghai-ed comes from. After lunch we walked around a bit, had a few drinks at Rogue Brewery, and then would up at the Chinese Gardens. Portland has a smallish Chinatown – nothing like NYC’s or what I imagine SF’s Chinatown to be like, but the gardens were a nice little oasis in the middle of a pretty big city. Rocks and plants were imported from Tai Lake, China. We had sushi for dinner at a place that sent around a toy train loaded with different rolls and what not before playing trivia at the Thirsty Lion, a place advertised at the hostel. I consider myself pretty good at trivia, but what I’ve come to realize over the years is that the bigger the town, the harder the trivia. A few weeks ago I played trivia with a couple of coworkers at the Cleveland Draft House In JoCo and we got third place with me doing most of the heavy lifting. Alicia and I got second to last place in Portland, but it was dinosaur-themed night and we didn’t know our dinosaurs, much less to bring in toy dinosaurs for bonus points. After that we went to Voodoo Doughnuts, a Portland institution. The line was out the door and around the corner. Fortunately, the doughnuts were already made so the line moved quickly. I had a maple bacon doughnut and Alicia had the Voodoo doughnut which was shaped like the stores mascot and was filled with raspberry filling. We then walked back to the hostel and crashed for the night. Our car stayed parked in the hostel lot, so we probably put about 8-10 miles on foot that day. It was an easily walkable city. Portland also has a big homeless and transient population and a lot of people who looked like they were on the Meth. Those were the ones passed out face-down in city parks, on ledges, and under bridges during daytime. Besides the usual looking homeless people there were also a lot of young transients - kids in their twenties who were “homeless” by choice. They held signs and asked for money but we hypothetically homeless but probably crashed at a friend’s apartment with eight other “homeless” people and partied all night. Outside of Voodoo doughnuts one girl held a sign that read “Too ugly to strip. Too honest to steal…etc.” She was talking with people in line and seemed normal enough, which begged the question: why not get a retail or food service job, but we realized it’s easier to party all night, chill during the day and just get by. Being transient, at least for the short term, is pretty great.

Thursday we left Portland and headed south to Crater Lake National Park. Crater Lake was wondrously beautiful – a deep, almost fake looking, blue lake in the middle of a volcano that blew up about 6,800 years ago. Jutting out of the caldera, to one side, is Wizard Island, a volcano that formed after the initial explosion. It looked burnt around the top, showing it was still active. We drove around the rim of the lake, or at least what was open. In late June, snow was still covering a good part of the park. The temperature was in the lower fifties and it was overcast. It felt more like March than June. In some pictures we took we could convince you it was January. Crater Lake gets, on average, 533 inches of snow a year. Alicia and I have done a lot of camping in our lives and neither of us has ever had to choose a campsite based on whether or not the campsite was free of snow. We found a large one that was free of snow and set up camp for the night. Of course it rained, but fortunately it was after dinner and was light enough that we could wear our ponchos and enjoy the fire. It rained in a light but steady clip all night but stopped for good about 10am allowing us to pack up in relative dryness.

From Crater Lake we headed south into California. Even though the trip is just a big loop around the US, California seems like the pinnacle, the main desire of the trip. We’re Okies and California is the promised-land. Our first stop in California was Redwood National and State Parks. Before we arrived there we pulled off at the coast so we could dip our toes in the Pacific Ocean. It was chilly and windy – nothing like NC beaches in late June, but it was cathartic. We then proceeded to drive though the Redwood forest. Oak trees get big in NC, but nothing can prepare you for seeing a 300 foot, 2000 year-old tree for the first time. I’ve never felt so tiny in my life. We camped amongst the Redwoods at Elk Prairie campground. The trees around the site were covered in moss and rather large. Not the biggest, but still massive. One tree looked like it fell but kept growing. A large portion of the trunk ran parallel to the ground before turning towards the sky again. We walked a trail to see the true giants of the area. We were basically camping on Endor. And for once it didn’t rain at night! That was really nice.

This morning we woke up and headed to Gold Bluff Beach. This is the part of the day that most of you want to hear about, I guess. We parked along the road in a small pull-off and found a nice secluded part of the beach. Right before we parked we saw an elk grazing. The other time we saw an elk was at the Grand Tetons when we were watching the sunset – the previous most relaxing and happy moment of the trip. The elk has come to be a good omen for us. On the beach, Alicia was interested in collecting rocks but I was able to rein her in a focus on being on the California coast and us in general. We started to walk down the beach when I told her I had a question to ask her before dropping to a knee and presenting her with a ring and asking her to marry me. It rained most of the day, but it hadn’t started yet. The sun was behind the clouds, but still trying to peak through. She of course said yes! Alicia has a hard time with her rights and lefts. If I’m giving her directions, it’s much easier just to point which way to turn instead of saying right or left. When I popped the question she presented both hands to me and in the moment of excitement I had to determine which hand was her left. Fortunately, I picked the right one.

We continued to walk down the beach, in the glow of the moment and stumbled across some debris from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. There was a bottle of Japanese dish detergent that had clam barnacles as well as a light bulb that was about the size of a basketball. I’m not sure what takes a light bulb that large, perhaps a light house. The rain started at this point and continued for much of the rest of the day. We ate seafood for lunch at a seaside restaurant in Trinidad, CA before making our way to Willow Creek and the Bigfoot Motel. Tomorrow will include a tour of the Bigfoot Museum and a drive through the Avenue of the Giants redwood strand and down California 1 along the coast. It’s been a good day.