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The Pacific Coast
The Pacific CoastI finally make it to Redwood National Park. The guy at the visitor's center recommends a good day hike, so I embark upon that. The hike goes out to Fern Canyon and then back again, a total of 11 miles over mildly undulating terrain. Good enough to work off my overeating at breakfast. The hike goes through old groves of redwoods and within the forest canopy it's pretty moist and cool. Eventually I make it out to the coast, but I can't actually get to the beach itself with out walking through some marshland. Not wanting to get my feet wet and not having that much motivation to actually touch the waters of the Pacific, I skip that part. Plus, it's cold and windy here at the coast. On the return leg of the hike, I run into a nice half-Japanese, half British hiker and chat with him for awhile. We are both excited to see another half Japanese person, lol.
After the redwoods I head into Oregon, driving late until I get tired. I park incognito at the maintenance parking lot of a roadside campground. (Campground wanted $30 per night, uh sorry no) The next morning, I open the
Redwoods Hike
Redwoods Hike door without disabling the alarm and the damn thing goes off, horn blazing. So much for incognito. I scramble to turn it off for what seems like an eternity. Fob- it's broken, hit door auto-unlock switch- no change, put key in ignition and start car- no love. The horn is blazing until I stumble out of the car in my bare feet and turn the key in the driver's side door. In a few minutes, a park ranger drives over in his truck. I'm thinking I'm in trouble. I am parked in the maintenance parking lot with no legit reason for being there, and it's probably obvious I parked overnight. I don't lie, I just tell him I got tired on the road and parked here to sleep. Amazingly, he doesn't really seem to care. He seems really friendly and just wanted to know what I was doing there, almost more out of curiosity than anything. Had this been Virginia, I would have been berated and given a ticket.
I make it up to Crater Lake. The weather rolls in. Can't see the trees in front of me through the fog, let alone the Lake. It's raining (which will
Redwoods Hike
Redwoods Hike turn to snow later), cold, and the forecast has more of the same for the next few days. Time to bail, I'll try Crater Lake again in a few days perhaps.
I drive to La Pine and after pumping iron at the local fitness center, I scope out some of the houses that I've looked at over the years on realtor.com. Funny to see these neighborhoods and houses in person. They seem slummier than I imagined, though not that bad. However, there's no way I could live here unless I had a really hot (and loyal) wife 😊.
Up the road in Bend I return my defective backpack at REI and use some of the refund money to acquire a few miscellaneous pieces of equipment I need. Afterwards, I use the zillow app to scope out some of the recently sold houses in the low 100s. The houses and neighborhoods seem nice enough. You can get a new construction starter home (3 bed, 2 bath) for between 100 and 200k here, depending on the neighborhood. Bend is actually pretty livable. Though, in my line of work I'm not sure I could find employment here or anywhere near here.
Yours truly
Yours truly Portland's probably the closest, and the Java jobs aren't abundant there.
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Kevin
non-member comment
fell out my chair
Keep it coming! OMFG! I was on the floor when you described the alarm going off! My jabby mates here must have been thinking I'm finally coming around. Awesome pics of the redwoods. I can almost smell the forest and hear the birds, instead of the blaring techno I'm listening to right now.