Tuesday September 9, 2008

Here's part two of the 2008 Oregon Adventure.

Tuesday September 9

I awake slowly. Good thing. Means I'm starting to relax, or so I tell myself. I'm really easy to lie to these days, and relaxation is bit of a foreign concept.
I peek out the curtains, it's very heavy fog. It's the Pacific Coast, it'll burn off soon. Like I said, I'm easy to lie to.
I go to the Pig N' Pancake for breakfast. They get the eggs right, poached medium, but the sausage patties are pretty close to hockey pucks.
Personal memo: Stick to the sausage links. They may be more filler than meat but at least you can swallow them.
I walk back through the fog to the hotel to pick up the Buick. Today's plan is to head south to Cannon Beach, Tillamook for the Aviation Museum, the Three Capes Loop Scenic Drive, and then back North to Seaside for dinner.
I stop at a Shell station for gas, get out and almost start pumping when I am approached by a burly guy in a reflector vest asking if I need help. He takes over the pumping duties after he explains that Self Serve Gas isn't allowed in Oregon, or New Jersey.
My Fodor's Guide Book on Oregon has failed to mention this Gas situation. I think this is an important thing to know. Along with the no Sales Tax.
I roll into Cannon Beach a short time later, it's only about ten miles south of Seaside. Fog is so thick I can only see a couple of blocks so I give Cannon Beach a pass. Figure I'll come back when the fog lifts. Next stop Tillamook, or so I thought.
I stop on a cliff top just north of Arch Cape at Oswald West State Park. To me it's little more than a viewpoint pull out, but the view is moodily scenic.

On Nehalum Bay, at the hamlet of Wheeler, I stop to watch some fisherman on the flats. The gray overcast, and cool sea air remind me another fall is coming. The salmon will spawn, the leaves will color and make random patterns of red and orange patterns on the ground. Darkness will come early, and I'll need to light the fireplace on the rainy Sunday afternoons while I read on the couch.

Another year gone, and another approaching. Mr Shuffle has Marc Jordan sing ”Seems I've been in school for so many years, September marks my life out of ten, the memories were good when my heart was made of wood and I didn't realize back then, that I'd be traveling down this highway, 'cause it's the only thing going my way...”. Mr Shuffle plays his game! The miles and the music wear on. The sky is still thick and gray but the fog is lifting.

One of my primary reasons for this trip is to visit the Tillamook Air Museum. Housed in an old Navy Blimp Hangar, it’s billed as the largest wooden structure in the world. It's very impressive. It's huge, really, really huge. It's also very dark, so dark I could not see the other end of the thing despite it being well lit.

Being a plane buff, even though I dislike flying, Tillamook offers some displays that I have never seen. A genuine F4U Corsair, a PBY Catalina, an SBD Dauntless, and two very rare planes. A Martin Mauler, one of only two left on display in the United States, and the one of a kind Boeing 377 StratoCruiser or Mini-Guppy.

It's also an opportunity to get up close to an F-14 Tomcat, a P-38 Lightning, the A-26 Douglas Invader, and a P2V-7 Neptune the first production turbo prop airplane. Over 30 planes housed in the massive structure. There is plenty of room to expand.

The most surprising display I find is the tiny Scorpion Helicopter tucked away off to one side, almost as an afterthought. As a teenager I had dreamed of owning one of these kit built machines. It was billed as a commuter helicopter. I had never even seen one until now. It looked a bit flimsy. Back when I weighed a lot less, it would not have concerned me what it's payload would be. Now I top out at 210 and I try to tread lightly around the china shop. The Scorpion was only a thin fiberglass shell with a small engine.

A DC-3 in Evergreen livery was parked just inside the hangar door.

I take a lot of pictures. My left forearm is acting up again. I think the weight of the camera and the vertical angles I use are taking their toll.

The gift shop has a lot of good quality merchandise at reasonable prices. I buy a fleece jacket for $20 and couple of logo'd T-Shirts. There is also a small aviation themed café.
Back in the Buick I take a turn to see what the “Cemetery” sign is about. I thought it might be related to the Museum but it's not. It's also in an interesting place way out in the middle of a field. I'm sure there's a story but I see no information other than it's a Catholic Cemetery and appears to have been here a long time. Someone is tending to the grass so I don't venture in.

Back on HWY 101, it's almost 11 and I am looking for a Venti Awake. I passed a Starbucks at the north end of town. Fortunately I notice the route I'll be taking to access the Three Capes Loop. In town I see one of the new 2009 Dodge Challengers. Looks stylishly sweet, but I’m not fond of the bright orange paint job.

For the next few hours I will be driving south on a scenic and curvy two lane road. It's not a numbered Highway. The posted limit is much higher than people are driving. I have a Pickup loaded with a Camper in front of me and it's swaying a bit on the curves. The road is narrow, trees overhang the road, and there are some reverse angle corners. The Buick is handling well.

Ahead of the pickup is a turquoise '57 Nomad towing a BOLO trailer. I am impressed with its condition. Straight out of the showroom condition is rare for a 51 year old.

I stop at Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint. There are houses almost right on the beach, but what I really notice is the trees to the south. All the branches are pointing east. Not a tree expert but I am guessing the winds here are strong and constant to be able to do that! Again the beach is broad and hard packed.

I walk down to the water's edge. The fog has mostly burned off but there is still thick cloud. The Pacific Ocean looks gray, cold and just a little menacing even though the air is warm. I'm not comfortable here. I look at the houses for a few moments. Storm surges associated with climate change will, I think, be damaging this place. Unable to place reasons for my anxiety I leave after about ten minutes.

I feel better as I get back on the road and drive to the Cape Meares lighthouse. I take advantage of the cliff top and the surrounding park space to take a stroll. The lighthouse itself is quite squat and small, not one of the classic towering structures. It doesn't have to be, it sits on top of one humongous, sheer, cliff. Wandering the park is not for the elderly or infirm. While the paths are paved there is an incline from the parking lot down to the lighthouse and then up on a walkway to some viewpoints. I get slightly winded walking up the path to the Octopus Tree.

I continue the drive south. Kathy Mattea is "Walking Away A Winner", and King Kobra kicks it up with "Never Say Die". The curves in the road are fun and there isn't much traffic so I give the Buick her head and revel in the quickness of the turns. She's not the handler my '82 T/A was, but she's civilized about it and responds well. Diane Schuur checks in for the first time this trip. She's telling me about her "New York State Of Mind". Her range and style always thrill.

Outside of Netarts the smell of the sea is very strong. I flashback to childhood, and summer vacations in the Gulf Islands, the cabin next to the waters of Pilot Bay. The smell of the sea is the smell of home, and family.
I park the Buick and get out to soak it up.

I tear myself away with reluctance and get back in the car, put it in Drive, and Kenney Chesney starts in with “Demons”. Mr Shuffle is feeling cruel.
Miles on I pass a break in a roadside dune embankment and pull over. I walk back and am impressed with a stretch of beach almost hidden from the road. Signs say this is Tierra Del Mar and warn that driving on the beach is forbidden from November to March. Driving on some sections of the beach is allowed here. I walk back to the car and park it on the beach. This is a great stretch, another of those places to contemplate Life, Love, and the State of the Economy. I take some pictures. Aside from an elderly couple who never get out of their car and a young family playing at the waters edge, I have the beach to myself.

Someone with far less discipline than I could have got lost in the scenes and have stayed for hours.

I take some pictures of the beach, a mother and child, and the lightening sky.  None of them will bring in any money but I enjoy the process.
I move further south, to Pacific City. Finally the sun makes a full appearance. There are rock formations, surfers, beachside restaurants, and a small town. I wander out on the golden beach to take some pictures of the rocks and the surfers. I see a red Chevy Blazer driving on the beach. I would drive the Buick on the beach except for two things, it's leased, and the tires aren't any great heck except on dry pavement.

One rock formation is a silent, stolid sentinel. Impassive. Solid. Alone.

Pacific City marks the end of the 3 Capes Loop Scenic Drive.
I turn north again on Hwy 101, David Benoit is playing "The Key To You", and doing it wonderfully.
I am trying to see Mt Hebo. It is supposed to be around here and it's supposed to be 3100 feet high. You can't hide a mountain that big from plain site, but they have managed to. My interest in Mt Hebo is low key. A good friend was here horseback riding with her mother the previous week. I want a picture of ”Mt Hebo” just to show her I was there.
The town of Hebo is a gas station at the crossroads of Hwy 101 and Hwy 22. I find a State Park sign that says “Mt Hebo” and the symbols show horses, camping, fishing.
On a flash of whimsy I turn up the mountain road that Nav says is there. I try to zoom her out a bit to get an idea of how far it goes but that's inconclusive. “Journey, not destination...”
After about a mile the road narrows. It's still paved but now its about a car and a half wide. Some optimist has painted a double yellow line down the middle of it. The tree cover is confusing Nav. Sometimes I'm on Mt Hebo Road, sometimes on HWY 22.
I feel a low level unease. The “lizard brain” is seeing something that disturbs it, but not able to sort out what. A couple of miles further on I see a Viewpoint information sign. What is written there dispels the unease. In the early part of the century (for those of a certain age that would be the 1900's) a major fire destroyed almost all the timber. The trees were replanted by hand and those are the ones that stand today. They stand in evenly spaced rows. Gaia does not grow her forests in evenly spaced rows. She revels in chaotic randomness. That's what bothered me. Having grown up in a naturally forested area that organization struck my “lizard” brain as being wrong.

I stop a mile or so further up at a rough pullout to take some pictures of the forest and the road. The sun is out full now and the colors, shadows, and shapes intrigue my sight. I spend a few minutes cursing. I compose and set exposure and then the sun will hide behind a cloud.

I drive on wondering when this road ends. It's been a while since I left the highway. I see a young fellow sweeping the road. Incongruity and serendipity again. What are the odds of finding someone sweeping a mountain road just when you need one? I ask him if there is a summit or if the road just curves around the mountain and then back down? “Summit's about a mile ahead” he says.

I drive on. The pavement runs out as I round the final curve, a quick view of a lone hawk catching the afternoon updrafts, and I come out onto an almost flat summit.

I start to laugh, then belly laugh, and then to tears of, well, I can't quite describe why or what. The scene before me is straight out of my childhood. Straight out of those interminable car trips. The ones where we would be all over the South Coast and Interior. The ones where my brothers and I would “fight over the middle seat”, “...don't cross this line”, “...mom he touched me”, and “...are we there yet”. On those trips my dad would sometimes take us up mountainsides on little better than goat trails to look at tv and radio transmitters he had either worked on or knew about. A moment of whimsy to turn onto the mountain road has brought me face to face with my recently deceased father, and his work, his passion. Across the top right of the mountain were transmitter sheds, microwave dishes, flat panels, dipoles, and almost every other type of antenna you can imagine. I heard my father's voice silently naming them all. I have long forgotten the details of the radiation characteristics of these antennas, but I remember he could speak with such authority about them. Maybe that's why the tears. I really miss him.

It was a microsecond of absolute crystal clarity. Personal, professional, emotional, intellectual clarity. And something in that microsecond changed me. And don't ask how or why. I just knew. As I know now that things can't be the same as they were. I wasn't sure then, and I'm not sure now exactly what those things are, or will be, but I know they can't be the same.

When you get to the Oregon coast make Mt Hebo's summit a “must” stop, but only if it's a clear day. Today there is still fog and coastal cloud visible below, and mountain peaks everywhere above.

Out of habit I lock the car and walk to my left, to a large knoll that is almost flat. It looks like something used to be here, a large something. The rocks are more like gravel, and there is a short, roughed in, road from the Transmitter sites. I spy a piece of re-bar sticking out of the ground and some short concrete posts.

The view, well just look at the pictures. It's beyond my limits to try and describe what I see.

I can try to capture in images what I see but it's impossible to capture the whole experience. The air clean, without odour, sun warm, breeze breathlike, almost a caress, and it’s almost totally silent. I am by myself but without a feeling of aloneness. For once, for this one all too brief moment, I know I am who and where I am supposed to be.

I depart the summit 30 minutes later without regret. I have to move on, it's 1545, and I'm hoping the new message and the lessons travel well.

On the way down I run into the road worker again. I stop and thank him and he begins to tell me the story of the mountaintop. During the Cold War the summit was an Air Force Base with a huge radar installation. He asked if I had walked out to the knoll to look at the view. That's where the big radar dish was. He says the weather at the summit can be vicious and the Air Force eventually had to enclose the dish in a big radome. You've seen these type of covers at airports, they look like large golf balls. One Columbus Day, during a huge storm, the radome blew off the dish and was carried out over the mountain edge, and landed in a farmer’s field a few miles north in the town of Beaver. The farmer used it to re-roof the barn. Or so the story goes...
Kathy Mattea sings about "Who's Gonna Know", Frank Sinatra loves "Autumn In New York", and Randy Crawford compares love to "A Cigarette In The Rain". I take my time on the descent.
Once again northbound on HWY 101, with the afternoon sun to my left, I can enjoy the views of the coast. I look for the barn as I pass through Beaver, but don't see one that looks like it's been roofed with radome bits. The story has put me in a good humour. Further north I pass the Air Museum and on through Tillamook to stop for a Venti Awake.

Pulling out of the Starbucks Mr Shuffle gives me Toby Keith and "An American Soldier". Pride and Patriotism writ large, and not out of place here. It's a song about a guy who works very hard at a tough job, one that you can't call in sick to, and where everyone expects the best of you all the time. I can relate, but change is now a personal shadow. The work is not as important as it once was. Part of this vacation had been to give me time to examine the changes in my work of the past year. I have determined to change my own work focus. All the effort hasn't been worth it after all. Really, it’s been a waste.

Driving north I spy a tree growing out of a rock, out in the channel. It's one of the eastward focused ones. It grows alone, against some rather spectacular odds. To me it's sculpture, and it's a gift.

I arrive back in Seaside just after 1730. I park the Buick and take the camera gear up to the room. I send a quick e-mail to my brothers about a route change for the next day while I contemplate someplace for dinner. At the other side of the parking lot is Dodger's, a seafood place that's once again recommended by the desk clerk. Steak, baked potato, sautéed scallops (in garlic butter) and a salad with a great 1000 Island, and a couple of local Rip Curl Ales.

Back at the hotel I curl up on the bed with Attack Poodles, a couple of Mirror Pond Ales and a jazz music station on the TV. Sleep comes easy, and for once, dreamless.