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Published: August 3rd 2010
Early Birthday
Phil celebrates Lucien's 20th birthday a month early, the night before our departure.West Coast/South West Trip, 2010
Flying back over the lush quilt of market gardens in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, then descending westward along the Columbia River and easing into Portland airport, it felt like stepping through a magic door at the back of the wardrobe.
The aroma of the woodstove burning through July in our wintry house in Sydney, Australia, had barely left us, and our life and friends there, including a whole new network of ESL connections, fluttered in with us like a psychic parachute.
The night before our flight we'd had an early celebration of Lucien's 20 birthday, and we were heading into Sky's world of independent music.
Getting over jetlag took more time than it used to — why? But we had booked ahead into a good motel for relaxing, and I enjoyed swimming in the pool while Phil did lifeguard duty glued to his laptop screen. We had some nice meals catching up with Sky and some walks with our shared dog Hinza (who took a one-way flight to the USA in 2007, where he enjoyed more residential rights than Phil!), and after doing some minor provisioning of clothing and an
My Little Lucien
Can 20 years have passed already? enjoyable trip to the Hollywood Farmers' Market (whee we happened into Shannon Ristau), we braced ourselves and headed off to our storage unit just east of Vancouver, WA.
Our storage unit has always been the site of particular angst for us, as we have vastly different ideas on what we should: take with us/keep stored/throw out/never have had to begin with.
Phil basically thinks he can go anywhere with a pair of clean undies and a cloth hankie, and I want back-ups of back-ups in clothing and am immobilized wondering whether I should take along that semi-finished braided rug I've been working on for years, along with its attendant bag of cloth strips, and what about this bike with the flat tire?
Consequently, just the thought of going to the storage unit fills us with dread.
However, by some magic of the erosion of our differences, and a disinclination for repeat performances of grief, we managed to pack in the essentials of our camping gear and some of our stored cold-weather clothing. I graciously accepted Phil's veto of the tent and 2 sleeping bags (as we'd slept only in the van on our last trip) but I
The airport train
The ride to Sydney airport is easy and in the middle of the day--for once! smuggled the hammer into the van amongst my turtlenecks. Phil admitted that he would need the warmer jacket for October, and I left behind the braided rug, sewing machine, chess table, shopping bag of knitting needles, several books, the large mirror...no, I wasn't seriously considering taking all of it!
And thus we began our 2010 domestic safari through the west and southwest of the USA. We headed east along the north side of the Columbia River and crossed back to Oregon at Hood River by evening. We'd decided to “reward” ourselves with one more night in a motel and found, through good luck rather than good management, a place called Praters, on the highway just west of the city. It was an unassuming little motel (which reads “cheap” to us) but from our room we had a picture window out the back with a fabulous view of Mt Adams, still snow-covered and striking in its evening shadows, as well as of the Columbia River below.
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Ilisha Helfman
non-member comment
wonderful to hear from you
Hi Martha, This entry was a lovely surprise. I love hearing about your travels and completely understand the stored bags of rag strips and knitting needles! Thanks for the pictures and Happy Birthday to Lucien. Keep us posted on your adventures! Ilisha