you can't pump your own gas in oregon

Day: 30

Mileage: 4897

This is the first lesson we learned in Oregon. And by ‘learned’ I mean the girl selling cigarettes out of the drive-thru window of the gas station shouted, “You can’t do that here, sir; it’s illegal,” to Curt as he grabbed the gas pump and attempted to do what I’m pretty sure is totally normal in 49 other states. I have not yet figured out why it’s illegal here, but apparently it is.

This wasn’t exactly the friendly ‘Welcome to Oregon’ I was expecting. But then again, I don’t really know what I was expecting. It’s just that we spent something like three and a half weeks in California, so I wanted the entrance to Oregon to be noteworthy and inviting. But then I either missed the sign that said Oregon or there wasn’t one, and the first thing we did when we got there was break the law.

Once we filled up the lawful way and got back on the road, I was happy to discover that the coastal highway in Oregon is significantly less curvy (read less nausea-inducing) than its Californian counterpart.

Here’s one thing I haven’t addressed yet that should be noted for the benefit of any other Minnesotan who decides to take a West Coast summer trip and expects places like California and Oregon to be warmer than the Midwest. They’re not. Not when you’re on the coast, at least, where it is often cool, foggy, and windy. And the trouble is, I didn’t exactly research this before we left. Which means I didn’t pack for it. Which means that when we’re camping and essentially living outside, I end up wearing outfits that make me look like a newsie.

There may be beaches all along the coast, girls and boys, but the heat of the sun is inland. So we went inland. Not only because of the weather or the fact that my outfits were getting more ridiculous by the day, but coastal Oregon just wasn’t grabbing us for some reason and we wanted to see what it was like farther inside the state. Part of the reason coastal Oregon wasn’t grabbing us is because we were having trouble finding a decent campground. We kept finding these places with 150 campsites and RV hookups filled with the type of people who don’t mind camping next to 149 other parties and enjoy traveling in an RV. At one such campsite, a little boy biked past me and asked if I knew the people who “lived” in the campsite next to ours. He said he was looking for his friend. When I said I was sure he’d be back soon, the boy said, “Yeah, he’s been missing for three days,” and rode on. I have to assume that ‘missing’ doesn’t actually mean missing in this case, but at any rate, some of these campgrounds can be a little weird.

Speaking of weird - a note about California I forgot to mention earlier. There is a town called Bodega where they filmed Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Maybe we just hit it at an especially spooky, overcast moment, but if there was ever a town that looked like the set of a Hitchcock film, this is it. There even seemed to be a strange number of swooping, menacing birds in the area. We stopped for coffee there and the guy running the coffee shop seemed to have forgotten he worked there. He was doing something on his computer when we arrived and it took him a full minute to realize we were there, get behind the counter, and ask us what we wanted. He mumbled absolutely everything he said, but I did catch that Tippy Hedren from The Birds had been in town the previous week for an event.

Back to Oregon. On our way inland to try to warm up, we stopped at the beach at Cape Lookout, on the suggestion of my good friend Rachael (who is originally from Minnesota but lived in Oregon for some time and whose couch we will be crashing on shortly at her new place in Seattle). It turned out to be a great suggestion. The beach was gorgeous. Not warm enough to swim (or even de-layer, in my case), but warm enough to roll up your pants and stroll through ankle deep waves for a while.

On our drive inland, we watched the temperature rise degree by degree on the car’s thermometer and found a place to camp at Gales Creek, where it read a balmy 74 degrees. It was a small, quiet campground with nice hiking and I wasn’t shivering, so I can’t complain.

Our camping neighbors that night were members of the Oregon Gay Men’s Chorus, or at least that’s what I imagined them to be. They were very friendly, but their voices carried during their late night campfire, teasing each other about the contents of their respective refrigerators. So it wasn’t the most peaceful night, I guess, but it was still an improvement from what we had found in Oregon thus far.

Having some success with inland Oregon, we decided to go in a little farther the next day and drove past Portland (not skipping, just postponing) toward Mt. Hood. On our way to Mt. Hood we passed an exit for the town of Boring - seriously, Boring - and I wondered if maybe we should turn around and go straight to Portland after all.

We attempted to stop at two informational Mt. Hood ranger stations, but both were closed (at noon on a Saturday - one for the whole weekend and the other for the lunch hour), so we decided to drive in the direction of the nearest campsite. On our way there, we came across an area that was not a campsite but where there were paths, the slightest suggestion of a dirt road and other campers, all along a river and with a gorgeous view of the mountain. We discovered shortly thereafter that the actual campground had the benefit of outhouses and garbage cans but no views of the mountain and no access to the river. And since we hadn’t really roughed it for a night yet, we thought why not do it in a place where we can have a whole section of a river to ourselves and wake up looking at Mt. Hood? I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to pee in the woods for something like that.

Our plan had been to do some hiking that day, but the area was too peaceful, the sun was too warm (hallelujah!) and the views were too great to leave. We sat by the river and swam (actually speed-bathed, camping style) and generally soaked up the goodness.

Travel tip: If the area you’re in during the day seems too good to be true, it just might be. Non-designated camping areas along beautiful rivers in scenic areas by day may double as local hangouts/raucous party centrals by night. Camp at your discretion. Be prepared to be awoken by intoxicated stragglers from the raucous party and pack up camp much earlier in the day than you may have planned.

Ah well, on to Portland.