elliot winard

We woke early and drove up the California coast - through redwood forests and over the state border into Oregon. The Oregon coast is so nice! We stopped at the beach where Myers Creek Rd. meets highway 101 and dropped shells that J. had collected in both Westhampton and San Francisco. We went to an awesome lunch spot in Orford, OR - The Crazy Norewegian’s Fish and Chips. The fish was delicious, the tartar sauce was sweet and dilly and the chips were crispy. Check it out if you ever find yourself driving along the Southern Oregon coast.

We left the coast when we were parallel with Eugene, OR. The road was very scenic as we drive East - more farms, forests and train tracks. After we hit Eugene we headed due North on the Interstate to Portland and pulled into our friend P.’s house at around 7:30 pm - after a nice dinner at a new restauraunt in the Fremont area of NE Portland I fell as P.S. and J. talked.

Then this morning we met R. for a nice breakfast at the Cup and Saucer - really good blueberry pancakes and a tasty ‘garden sausage’, egg and cheese sandwich on grilled saurdough bread. After breakfast/lunch we met up with P., browsed through the books at the little Powells Books and bought the latest Haruki MWe walurikami to read while driving. We stopped at Trader Joe’s to buy food before taking I-84, the innerstate highway that follows the Columbia River, east - with Oregon under our wheels and Washington state over the river to our left. We passed three or four dams, a concrete plant, neat looking abandoned factories, lots of cows grazing on large pastures.

We drove throught the Blue Mountains. Visibility was low - It was a little scary! I was very relieved to get out of the clouds, even if the flat part of central Oregon was a bit dismal - cloudy, flat, barren of trees. Two more mountain ranges broke the monotony and the snow-capped mountains to the left *and* right were beautiful.

We passed into Idaho at 8:45 PST - our first time-zone change. 45 minutes later we checked into the Boise Airport Best Western and ate a dinner of avacado, cheese and fresh bread. Then bedtime!

It’s 8:30am on Tuesday now. We slept late - tired from sitting all day, I guess.