Vacation Recap Day Six: Strung Along I-5
It’s lucky I don’t feel like writing much, because Day Six of the vacation was spent mainly in the car, driving through Washington and Oregon with Paul, Kanako, Emi and Nelly. The seating arrangement was Paul in the driver’s seat, Kanako in the front passenger seat, Emi in the baby seat, Nelly in the back and me in the rear passenger seat. We set off, racing through the winding roads of Whidbey Island, hoping to catch the ten o’clock ferry. We pulled up to the ferry just minutes before ten, but we were dismayed to see that a snaking line of cars up the hillside behind us, indicating an hour and half wait to get onto the ferry. We spent the time in desultory conversation, and it came to pass that I bet Kanako an ice cream cone that Jason Bateman wasn’t ever a regular character on Silver Spoons. Turns out he was Ricky Schroeder’s best friend—so that’s one ice cream cone to Kanako. (Yes, I still owe her.)
Finally, we made it back to the mainland, and we decided that we might as well stop at Scott’s for lunch, due to the fact that it was now lunchtime and we were right by Scott’s place. We had carryout Thai food, which was good—ignoring the fact that my pad thai noodles were bright pink for some reason.
Then it was on the road again. We drove through Seattle, and then Tacoma (which I think has a nice faded industrial charm to it, at least from the interstate), hit some traffic in Olympia right by Sleater-Kinney road, and then it was smooth sailing until Portland, where we hit major traffic on the south side of town. We took a nice detour through the suburb of Lake Oswego in an attempt to avoid a crash on I-5, and we drove through some tree lined residential neighborhoods and right by their local Crate and Barrel. I later read Lake Oswego is seeing huge appreciation in its real estate values. I think if any town has a Crate and Barrel, it probably has skyrocketing housing prices. Call it Schoewe’s Second Economic Theorem, if you like.
Back onto the interstate, and just when my limited capacity to keep Emi from bawling reached its distressing end, we reached the Willamette Valley vineyards south of Salem. The vineyard is situated among rolling hills covered with grapes—and both times when I’ve stopped there, the sun has been shining with especial vigor, bespeckling every cultivated cranny with a golden glow. It gives you the pleasant sensation of stepping into a well-tended arcadia, where everyone is hearty, hale and quaffing lots of wine. We stepped into the tasting room to begin our quaffing, and I overheard a woman telling one of the workers that she always remembers how to pronounce Willamette by rhyming it with a common curse (I won’t produce it here, in consideration of our younger readers, but it’s a lot like “Gosh dang it”). I was glad I overheard this, because I had always pronounced it as if it rhymed with “Bill, I’ve met” or “Kill a vet.” Or “Rancid jet.”
We returned to the highway with several bottles of pinot noir tucked under our arms. The next stop was Eugene, where we spent a while driving around downtown looking for a Japanese restaurant. We asked a friendly woman if she knew where one might be, and she answered that, in an amazing coincidence, she and her friend were headed to the local Japanese restaurant in a couple minutes. But then in a daze that seemed common to Eugene residents, she said she couldn’t quite place where the restaurant was. She knew it was a couple block away, just across the street from a Scandinavian furniture store … maybe a block to the north …
We set off in the general direction she had indicated, and, after walking by some strangely menacing college dropouts with a mean looking dog, we found the restaurant. After we were seated, a group of earthy, Oregon-type women at the next table began oohing and ahhing over Emi. Kanako apologized that Emi’s hair was sticking up more than usual, and one of the nice ladies just beamed and said, “Oh, no, that’s her crowning glory!”
After Eugene, our final destination of the evening was the La Quinta in Grant’s Pass—and a quiet night’s sleep perched between the mountains and the interstate.
Finally, we made it back to the mainland, and we decided that we might as well stop at Scott’s for lunch, due to the fact that it was now lunchtime and we were right by Scott’s place. We had carryout Thai food, which was good—ignoring the fact that my pad thai noodles were bright pink for some reason.
Then it was on the road again. We drove through Seattle, and then Tacoma (which I think has a nice faded industrial charm to it, at least from the interstate), hit some traffic in Olympia right by Sleater-Kinney road, and then it was smooth sailing until Portland, where we hit major traffic on the south side of town. We took a nice detour through the suburb of Lake Oswego in an attempt to avoid a crash on I-5, and we drove through some tree lined residential neighborhoods and right by their local Crate and Barrel. I later read Lake Oswego is seeing huge appreciation in its real estate values. I think if any town has a Crate and Barrel, it probably has skyrocketing housing prices. Call it Schoewe’s Second Economic Theorem, if you like.
Back onto the interstate, and just when my limited capacity to keep Emi from bawling reached its distressing end, we reached the Willamette Valley vineyards south of Salem. The vineyard is situated among rolling hills covered with grapes—and both times when I’ve stopped there, the sun has been shining with especial vigor, bespeckling every cultivated cranny with a golden glow. It gives you the pleasant sensation of stepping into a well-tended arcadia, where everyone is hearty, hale and quaffing lots of wine. We stepped into the tasting room to begin our quaffing, and I overheard a woman telling one of the workers that she always remembers how to pronounce Willamette by rhyming it with a common curse (I won’t produce it here, in consideration of our younger readers, but it’s a lot like “Gosh dang it”). I was glad I overheard this, because I had always pronounced it as if it rhymed with “Bill, I’ve met” or “Kill a vet.” Or “Rancid jet.”
We returned to the highway with several bottles of pinot noir tucked under our arms. The next stop was Eugene, where we spent a while driving around downtown looking for a Japanese restaurant. We asked a friendly woman if she knew where one might be, and she answered that, in an amazing coincidence, she and her friend were headed to the local Japanese restaurant in a couple minutes. But then in a daze that seemed common to Eugene residents, she said she couldn’t quite place where the restaurant was. She knew it was a couple block away, just across the street from a Scandinavian furniture store … maybe a block to the north …
We set off in the general direction she had indicated, and, after walking by some strangely menacing college dropouts with a mean looking dog, we found the restaurant. After we were seated, a group of earthy, Oregon-type women at the next table began oohing and ahhing over Emi. Kanako apologized that Emi’s hair was sticking up more than usual, and one of the nice ladies just beamed and said, “Oh, no, that’s her crowning glory!”
After Eugene, our final destination of the evening was the La Quinta in Grant’s Pass—and a quiet night’s sleep perched between the mountains and the interstate.
Comments
Post a Comment