Leave the Path

Our last day in Portland was a good one. At breakfast (banana pancakes and scrambled eggs at the guesthouse) Emre proclaimed “Today, it’s not going to rain.” It seemed like a silly promise since it had rained at least three times per day since we’d arrived in Portland, but it turns out he was right. Yesterday was the warmest, driest, most clear and lovely day we saw on the whole trip.

Luckily, the one thing we had left that we really wanted to do in Portland was to go to Washington park. We left a little later than we’d planned, but by late morning we were riding the Max rail line east of the city. Washington Park is a hilly area several miles wide with several museums and gardens within it. We got off at the same stop as the zoo and consulted a map. The Japanese and Rose gardens were somewhat north of us, so we followed a series of interlocking switchback-dense trails up the hill. We were hardly the only ones visiting the park that day. We saw dozens of families out enjoying the miraculously cloudless sky. Over half of the visitors brought dogs. Often the trail wandered through a manicured garden or arboretum. Very few trees had blooms or leafs this early, but the magnolias were all decorated with big fuzzy buds just starting to open. At other places the trail moved through what I assume is more natural Oregon wilderness. In those places our whole field of vision was filled with vibrant green. Like the woods we saw near the coast, huge ferns and thick curtains of vines gave the forest a very primitive feel.

Eventually we found the gate to the Japanese Gardens and paid for our entrance. I didn’t really know what to expect from these gardens. I knew that they were several times larger than the Chinese gardens but I expected them to be somewhat similar. In actuality the Japanese gardens were very, very different from the Chinese garden we saw earlier in the week. We were lucky to catch a tour and to have an excellent guide who had lived in Japan for a few years before returning to Portland.

Our guide explained that Japanese gardens intentionally include very few flowering plants. The stone and water features used are extremely important to the garden design (this is similar to the Chinese gardens) but a majority of the plants are evergreens. As apposed to the sharp contrasts of the Chinese garden, most of the Japanese garden was subtly different shades and textures of green.

There were also fewer man-made objects in the Japanese garden than the Chinese garden and those that we did see (a tea house, stone lanterns, a couple bridges) tended to be very simple but elegant in design. I particularly enjoyed photographing the stone lanterns. All of them are hand-carved granite and most of them are antiques or symbolic gifts from cities or individuals in Japan.

The garden is actually a sampler of 5 historic styles of Japanese gardening. It was started shortly after WWII to repair Japanese-American ties damaged in the war. Despite the fact that it’s only 50 years old (very young for this sort of garden, apparently) the mastery of the gardeners made some of the clearings feel like they have always been there. Several parts of the garden that Emre and I wandered into after the tour seemed simply surreal, like they were just naturally perfect and had never been touched by human hands. A huge part of this effect was due to the moss. Apparently many people in Portland are annoyed by their natural bevy of moss (indeed I found sections of the city where my moss-points-north trick didn’t work because people had tediously cleaned the moss off of the large trees.) In the Japanese garden, however, they truly appreciate this natural treasure. Our guide told us about a former gardener named Sam who loved the moss so much that he pruned it with tweezers. Whole hillsides are covered with meticulously maintained velvety moss. It provides a consistent green background for the textures of the stones and plants of the garden. It is more regular in texture and requires less trimming than grass and it lends an air of age and solitude to even the busiest parts of the garden. The luxurious moss carpet of the tea house garden is so lovely and so fragile that we weren’t even allowed to walk on the path through it. (I would have loved to get close, but the rule is probably for the best since many of the visitors couldn’t seem to keep their feet on the stone paths.)

I was surprised that the garden included no bonsai. Many of the pines and other trees were carefully pruned to remain on a human scale (a charming contrast to those mammoth firs and cedars of the natural Oregon forest), but I don’t remember seeing any miniature or potted plants in the whole garden. My favorite trees were the ones I’m calling “Mario Trees” because they look like the strangely bubble-shaped cartoon trees from the Super Mario games.  I think they are a kind of boxwood but trimmed into these strange terraced shapes.  

An advantage of a larger garden was that even with the dozens of visitors there with us, we were still fairly spaced out. We saw many people with fancy cameras pausing by particularly nice views. There were also several families with small children darting about and looking for koi in every pond. Occasionally on the smaller paths people would get into one another’s way, but even with all those people it wasn’t hard to find a more quiet reflective space.

The water features were some of the most immediately noticeable features. They added movement and fluidity to the otherwise formal gardens. Several little ceremonial washing fountains were tucked away near the paths. A large waterfall emptied into a pool and a pair of streams passed through the park and joined a few small ponds. Some of the streams and ponds were crossed by simple bridges. In one of the ponds we found all of the prized koi (which include some of them the original fish introduced when the garden was begun in the 50’s) huddled together in the deepest part of the biggest pond.

There were also a couple of sand-and-stone gardens. Honestly I wasn’t so taken with them. I think that the act of raking would be therapeutic, but just looking at a raked garden didn’t do much for me. Another popular area of the garden is the overlook. The Japanese gardens are on a large hill looking west over Portland so they have arguably the best possible view of the city. From the overlook we could see the rooftops and towers of Portland, framed by the evergreens of Washington Park and against a backdrop of Mt Hood, Mt St Helens, and a bright blue sky. It was almost cheesy how good the view was on the day we were there. The photos look like cheap postcard pictures but I promise it was a beautiful sight.

After the Japanese garden, we stopped by the International Rose Test Gardens, known as a jewel of Portland and origin of the Portland nickname “the Rose City.” Unfortunately March is not the time for roses and the garden was very bare.

We meandered down hill from the gardens and, much to my surprise, found ourselves on 23^rd street not far from the hostel where we had stayed the first nights. From there we walked to downtown, popping into shops that interested us and thoroughly enjoying a view of the streets unclouded by rain. Because we’d missed lunch again, we opted for an early supper. We hadn’t tried any Pacific seafood as of yet and a quick internet search suggested a place called “Jake’s Famous Crawfish” as the place to experience Portland’s finest fish dishes. Emre was a little reluctant at first, having once ordered crawfish and been surprised to learn that it’s not a fish at all. We were extremely pleased with Jake’s, though, and the menu happily featured much more than crustaceans.

According to the story on the menu, Jake’s was established in the 1890’s and has, over the course of so many years, been frequented by an impressive clientele. The interior was very early-20^th century elegance, with heavy wood paneling, oil paintings of Oregon scenery, large stained glass lamps, and smartly uniformed waiters. Apparently this place isn’t a very well kept secret; when we sat down at 5:00 and the place was already busy and when we left there was a line of people waiting. Many of the tables were pushed together and we saw several very large multi-generational families feasting together. It was a wonderfully happy, established ambiance for a dinner. The menus at Jake’s are printed daily with a list of the fresh seafood choices and where they were brought in from. We both chose salmon for dinner. Emre’s was stuffed with crab meat and brie, mine was roasted on a cedar plank. Both were absolutely delicious, as were all of the side dishes and the extra-rich chocolate truffle cake Sunday. The service was excellent, as well, and we left feeling extremely satisfied and happy.

It was still light out when we left and we walked around the streets a little more, catching a few last glimpses of the city before catching the bus home. We spent the evening packing and went to bed early.

I really enjoyed my time in Portland. Emre’s favorite part was the Cirque du Soleil show (he walks around singing the songs). Mine was probably the light rail system (It’s just so practical! Why can’t other American cities get it together?) followed closely by the Chinese and Japanese gardens. The gardens were pretty, but more importantly they gave me a tangible reason to be interested in Chinese and Japanese culture. After an excellent tour of each garden, I left feeling like I had just scratched the surface of East Asian philosophy and history but that it would be a fascinating thing to study. On the whole it was a great experience and one day we’ll have to find an excuse to go back in the summer to see those roses.

Happy Easter!

Wednesday was our last night at the hostel. Thursday morning we did a load of laundry, packed up, and moved across town, over the river to the Hawthorn district on the east side. Emre, with his hat and moustaches and loaded up with all of our stuff looked even more adventurous than usual.

We had to ride the streetcar, walk a little, and catch a bus to our new temporary home. Unfortunately Thursday was one of the coldest, wettest, windiest days we’ve had. Or maybe it just seemed that way because I was noticing the beginnings of a cold and we spent more time than usual waiting at bus stops. I noticed that most of the pictures I’ve used are of the moments after the sun breaks. Those are the prettiest times in Portland, but they’re rare. Most of the time it’s overcast and it often rains for a few minutes at a time, though usually not hard. And especially along the river it is very windy. Standard uniform for Porlanders is a hooded sweatshirt with or without a rain shell and then some sort of substantial boots or shoes for puddle stomping. We’ve been damp more of the time than we’ve been dry. BUT the plants are fabulously green and the seasons are mild – summers aren’t too hot and winters don’t get all that cold.

We were really happy to be inside again. The place we’re staying now is the Bluebird Guesthouse. It’s about a 15 minute bus ride outside of downtown, but it’s a charming early 20^th century arts and crafts bungalow and very comfortable. The linens are good quality, the rooms all have little period details, there’s a big clawfoot bathtub, the kitchen is fully stocked, there’s a free guest computer with internet, and the common rooms are really cute. The neighborhood is pretty good, too, a short walk from a bakery and a coffee shop. The living room even has a guitar which Emre has been using to practice his favorite refrains from the Cirque du Soleil show we saw. It’s also really cheap which makes up for the short bus ride and the shared bathrooms.

In the afternoon we set out again to find OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. (They have a 2-for-1 ticket deal on Thursdays, by the way.) OMSI is on this side of the river and it’s on the map. Unfortunately it’s in an ugly, windy, confusing industrial/commercial district. Our first attempt was aborted by a big highway we couldn’t figure out how to cross and a constant drizzle of frigid blowing rain. We headed back towards the bus line and ducked into a little café for soup. The sun came out while we ate and the waiter gave us better directions for finding OMSI. We made it on the second try. OMSI was kind of neat. They have exhibits about life sciences, a few live animals, and dozens of puzzles set up at little stations. The coolest thing, though, was the dinosaur exhibit brought in from China. It included several complete fossilized skeletons of dinosaurs trapped in a Pompei- like event in per-historic southern China. There were also three different flat fossil slabs of small winged, feathered dinosaurs. Nearby were robotic versions of several impressive dinosaurs, moving disjointedly and making more clicking noises than I would expect from a real dinosaur. In separate spaces the museum also hosts a retired submarine and an IMAX theatre, but we didn’t visit those. All in all it was an okay museum but hardly life changing. I’m glad I didn’t pay full price.

Thursday evening we explored Hawthorn street, which is a few blocks north of our hostel. It’s supposed to be one of the coolest, most youthful neighborhoods in Portland. It’s not as pretty or compact as the older parts of town. I get the impression that this was suburbs, industrial land, and a little shady 20 years ago. Now, though, it’s home to lots of bicycle shops, café’s, and tattoo parlors. We ate at a cheap little Lebonese restaurant for dinner and then headed home under the rain to go to bed early.

Friday we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the adorable breakfast nook of the kitchen of the Bluebird. Then we road the bus into town to catch the streetcar to OHSU. Oregon Health Sciences University is the biggest hospital in town with the best residency programs. It also has a gondola up to the hospital which is set on a hill outside of town. From the gondola, we could see the circus tents, the river, OMSI on the other side, and mountains in the distance. The other passengers in our pod included doctors, patients, tourists, and a couple local families with really excited 3-year-olds.

Once we got off the gondola at the top, though, we didn’t really know what to do. The platform leads strait into the hospital. We puttered around a minute before finding an exit and briefly exploring the outdoor parts of the campus. It’s really built into a hilltop, so all the buildings are different levels and there are long tubes connecting different parts of the hospital. It’s all very impractical but nice looking.

The gondola ride back down was similar, with a nice view west. We swung a fair bit, though, and I can only imagine this is a scary ride on really windy days.

Our afternoon we wandered around the center of the city a little more. We stopped into interesting shops here and there. We bought really fancy cupcakes from a cupcake store on 10^th. We also stopped for tea a couple times. Oregonians really love their tea and it makes sense. When it’s cold and rainy outside you might as well stop in a few minutes and have something warm and invigorating.

We decided to grab a few groceries and have dinner at the guesthouse. Emre bought a solid chocolate rooster from a local chocolate specialist and a few pounds of kumquats. He ate the rooster for dinner and the kumquats for dessert.

We are flying home super-early in the morning Sunday so tomorrow (Saturday) is pretty much our last day in Portland. The weather is supposed to be nicer so I think we will go see a few more gardens. I really like it here and I’m sad to go. I’m also really dreading the time change and a full week of class starting Monday. Vacations are never long enough.

Man the time is flying by. Already we’ve been here five days. We’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to write. I’m doing laundry at the hostel, now so let’s take a few minutes to catch up. (This is a picture of the NW Portland Hostel, by the way – it’s a great deal for comfortable lodging. It’s not as fancy on the inside but it’s clean, safe, and the location is absolutely unbeatable.)

Monday Kati went back to work. Emre and I got up early to take the car back to the airport-based rental place. Then we set about exploring downtown. First stop: Voodoo Doughnut where we purchased their signature dish. It’s a little dough man with raspberry filling which squirts out when you poke him with the pretzel. Perhaps a little morbid, but very tasty. Apparently doughnut violence brought out the most vicious in me.

Then we walked around for a while, just stopping in at shops that appealed to us. We went by Powell’s, the famously huge new-and-used bookstore. I know it’s a little blasphemous, but I wasn’t terribly impressed. There were a lot of books, but the selection of used books was surprisingly limited and the prices were not particularly good. Twenty or even 10 years ago this would have been an incredible resource for finding less common books. Today, though, it seems like a slightly less convenient and more expensive version of Amazon.com and similar book websites. Even on a Monday morning, it was packed, though, so plenty of people must love Powell’s.

On a whim we decided to go to the Chinese Gardens in Old Town. That was an excellent decision. The gardens were starting to bloom, the sun popped out from behind the clouds, and we had an excellent guide who educated us not only about the gardens and their history but about the philosophy and history of Chinese gardens and Chinese culture in general.

Aside from exotic and ornate plants, the garden boasts intricate wooden structures imported from Portland’s sister city Suzhou, China and masterful mosaic pebble pathways that reminded me of similar work at the Topkali palace.

Some of the flowers were blooming, even in March. My favorite are these little popcorn ball plants. There were several colors including this red and white variety. Plums and magnolias were also blooming.

My favorite plants were the “penjing” trees which are very much like bonsai. The ones in the garden were arranged as tiny forest scenes. At first glance they were really cute little trees, but later when a crouched down close to them I could really imagine myself in a tiny forest patch under this tree. These were truly works of art. (I tried to capture the same feeling with these super-closeups below. A more distant view of the second penjing is visible through the moon door in the first garden picture above.)

The buildings were very imaginative, as well. Each one was resplendent with intricate and highly symbolic wood work. My favorite was the the building on the North side. It’s the only two story building and it holds a tea house. The inside is decorated with exquisitely made, hand carved antique furniture and has the ambiance of another time and place altogether. We took our seats and each ordered a different tea.

The teas were served in an old-fashioned cup with the leaves and water together. Emre’s leaves sank so his was easy to drink, but mine floated and kept getting into my mouth with each sip. It’s hard to be elegant when you have to keep spitting out leaves.

Other than that little snag, though, our visit to the tea house was an incredibly positive experience. The second floor windows offered a slightly different perspective of the gardens, looking south. The garden is only one city block, and Portland block at that (Portlands blocks are smaller than NY or most other cities.) The garden is surrounded on all sides by the city, but from within it seems far more isolated and tranquil. The garden has several looping, crossing paths and millions of fascinating little details, so it’s easy to forget that there are skyscrapers just beyond the walls. From the second floor of the tea room, however, it was clear just how close the rest of the city is.

We left the garden in something of a trance, possibly due in part to having accidently skipped lunch. We met up with Kati and Jarrod and another friend Sammy (the only Portland native I’ve met so far) and we all trouped down to Hunan Chinese restaurant near Pioneer Square. We all shared a most excellent meal. When we came out, however, the sky had opened again over Portland and out walk to the streetcar home was under a cold, penetrating rain. Monday being Saint Patrick’s, we went out again that night. It was still raining, we didn’t find anywhere with live music, and we came home early.

Tuesday I got up and downloaded photos on my computer. I worked on my correspondences as Emre slept late. I looked a the clock at one point and saw that it was 10:30. Then 11:00 rolled around. By 12:00 I was reminded Emre to get up. We both got dressed slowly and stumbled out of the hostel by 1:00, each annoyed with the other for making us late. Then Emre looked at his watch. It was only 10:00. I had been looking at the clock on my computer which is still set for the east coast. I felt pretty dumb, but it was like we’d magically regained 3 hours of our morning so our our path to the tram line meandered a little more. We stopped to look at the big giant dome building near the hostel. It’s apparently a Jewish Temple and it’s gorgeous.

We also stopped for brunch at Ken’s Artisan Bakery and I was thoroughly impressed. My croissant was crispy, flaky, buttery, sweet, salty and absolutely perfect. The decor was right, too. The big windows looked out on a street, the furniture was simple and rustic, and we could see bakers making pastries and kneading bread in the back part of the shop. We need one of these authentic boulangers in Chapel Hill.

Our eventual destination for the morning was the zoo. We walked down to the max line and rode it through a tunnel, to the zoo on the east part of town. The zoo was fairly empty. And at first it seemed that all the animals were still asleep. This black bear was particularly funny, sleeping sprawled out as if dead but occasionally letting out a big snore or using one paw to sleepily scratch an ear.

As the sun came out and the day progressed, though, they came out. The polar bears were some of the most interesting. One was swimming laps in his tank, at one point pushing off on his back and wooshing by the glass with a big paw on the glass. The other was playing volleyball with herself, tossing a ball way up into the air and then either swiping at it and hitting it against the rocks or letting it splash into the water. Through the glass we could see their hugely powerful bodies close up. Very cool animals and they seemed smart, or at least very curious.

There were lots of other great exhibits. Of course I enjoyed the penguin house. I also really liked these animals below, mostly because Emre kept referring to them as “donkeys in pajamas.”

The indoor exhibits were excellent, as should be expected in a place where it rains every day. The flooded Africa exhibit is home to a giant crocodile. The bat house has probably a hundred bats who were all feasting on fruit when we visited. Probably my favorite, though, was a giant tank with native animals of the NW Pacific coast. Most of the cool things I saw on the rocks at the beach included but they were all fully submerged and opened up. There was also a live kelp plant which, in life, had the size and coloration of a giant sea turnip.

Another excellent exhibit was the Lorikeet house where Emre proved the validity of his pirateness by attracting parrots to his shoulders.

Here are a few more of my favorite zoo pictures:

On the way back to the hostel, we stopped at the grocery. Emre discovered a large selection of citrus including the illusive kumquat. He bought a couple pounds of them and then went home to eat most of them in a single sitting. He smelled like kumquats for the next 2 days.

I made another trip to that grocery later that evening. Kati and Jarrod came over and together we cooked a meal of pasta, extra-vegetable sauce, and fried eggplant. It was excellent but unfortunately the photos didn’t turn out well at all.

Wednesday we stumbled out of the hostel late, without any particular plan in mind. We walked to town, having just barely missed the streetcar. Then we walked around in town just exploring all the different districts. We bought a couple little gifts and Emre purchased a new hat from a self-professed haberdasher sandwiched between two fancy hotels in the Pioneer Square area. For lunch we stopped into a bistro. Our meals were far larger than we’d imagined when we ordered. Afterwards we walked along to river, which was lovely but freezing and probably doubly so with all the blood tied up in our busy stomachs.

Portland is a great city. People keep complimenting Emre’s handlebar moustache and asking tips on how to grow and maintain such a fine example. Moss grows thickly around all the trees but obviously most thickly on the north side – a boon to those of us who get disoriented easily.

We planned to meet up with Kati and Jarrod briefly before they hopped onto the train to Seattle. While we waited we read comics in Powell’s. I’m really glad I got to catch up with Kati after all these years. It’s good luck that Jarrod was in town, too. He seemed like a cool guy.They were in a hurry to catch the train so we didn’t get to talk long.

Our evening was dominated by the Cirque du Soleil show we had bought tickets for weeks in advance. It was as incredible as I imagined. The performers of all types are truly masters of their arts. The acrobatics were, of course, breathtaking, but the acting and musical performances were just as well done. The feel of actually being in a big tent with subdued lighting and a surprisingly small number of spectators was far different than the mood that the shows have on TV. We also sat in the middle of the front row which changed our perspective on the show. We had to crane our necks for the trapeze show, but we had a great view of the performers’ faces and the details of their costumes. I liked keeping track of which actors came back on stage in which costumes. A couple of times it seemed like acrobats flipping or tumbling in contraptions would just fall of the stage into our laps – but of course they never did. It was a great experience. The theme of this show is (I think) a dream by a dying clown and it was a very surreal event. We couldn’t take pictures inside and I’m not sure I can describe it adequately, but the show was amazing. And Emre with his moustache and new Indiana Jones hat looked like part of the act.

Today we’re regrouping and moving to another boarding house on the other side of the city. Emre’s run out to get some more pastries from that amazing bakery nearby. When we finish with laundry and packing and blog-posting we will go find our new home and then go back out to explore a different part of the city. After today we’ve only got two days left in Portland and I have to admit I’ll be a little sad to go.

We’ve been in Oregon for a couple days now. We arrived in the afternoon on Saturday following a grueling cross-continent flight which was unfortunately cloudy most of the way. We also had a short layover in Salt Lake City which is , at least from the air, the ugliest city I have ever seen. The salt lake is more like a giant dead mud pit and the city is flat, dingy, and sprawling. Oregon, however, has been treating us well. We explored the streets near our hostel Saturday night, met with my friend Kate and her friend Jarrod for Indian food, and then turned in early. We got rained on about 10 times in 3 hours. I hear that’s about par for Portland.

Sunday we got up super early, rented a car, and headed West. About two hours and one quick tea stop later we reached Cannon Beach, renowned as a cute town and artists’ colony on the coast. I assumed there’d also be a beach. I was so right. The beach at Cannon Beach is broad, flat, and sandy, but with enormous, mountainous rocks just past the water. It was breathtakingly lovely. One of the most interesting features, however, was the piles of dead stuff. Huge chunks of kelp washed up on shore. The huge hollow ropes smelled terribly fishy and resembled alien tenticles.

The town hosted a bevy of quaint wooden cottages and shops. In addition to galleries, cafés, restaurants, and trinket shops, Cannon Beach is home to no less than three kite shops. That fact and the persistent bone-numbing ocean wind convinced us that this might be a good place to fly a kite. We stepped into one of the shops with the goal of finding the cheapest and silliest kites. The winners were dubbed “Space Robot’s Last Stand” and “The Duck – With Realistic Flapping Motion”.

Despite similarly poor construction, The Duck took to the air like, well, a duck whereas Space Robot initially entertained us by spectacularly tumbling and smacking nose-first into the sand. The Duck flew continuously for hours after we released him. We took turns absentmindedly holding the string as we strolled down the beach and the duck, flying hundreds of yards high and dully predictably, got a little boring.

Kati started to reel him in so that we could go get a bite before the low tide and Emre, after getting the lines of the two kites crossed and then untangled, uttered the magic words “my kite is going to knock your kite in the head,” thus beginning a kite battle. He didn’t succeed but we all ran giddily down the beach, staring into the sun to see how our flying champions fared. Emre had gotten much better control of Space Robot, but Duck was really in his element. Finally, Duck’s realistic flapping motion helped to propel him into Robot’s line of flight.  A direct hit caused Robot to split spectacularly in half and tumble to earth. Emre renamed the remaining kite as “The EVIL Duck” and we all went to town for a late lunch.

Low tide was about 3:30 so when we came back to the beach many of the big rocks were exposed, as were the tide pools at their bases. I started finding whole empty shells which I collected in a bag for my mom (sorry mom, some of them are going to reek – I haven’t been able to dry them yet) until we got near the most massive-ist “Haystack Rock” where a park ranger told me it was illegal to take anything. I understand why they have that rule, though. The tidepools around the big rock were incredible in quantity and diversity of exotic sea life.

Barnacles, mussels, and occasionally limpets covered the entire surface of some rocks. Star fish far larger than my hand in lovely crayon colors clung desperately to the under side of many rocks. Huge minty green and smaller pink anemones rested in the open stage, looking like delicate tissue-paper flowers. Little brown fishes darted around the trapped pools. And if you looked really closely there were snails and hermit crabs in lovely little tulip-like shells.

We were not the only ones on the rock. The two park enforcers also kept an eye on the other two dozen visitors, many of whom went around poking the anemones to make them close and trying to pull the star fish off the rocks. The tide pools were incredible. I can only imagine how much many more fascinating creatures must close up completely or swim away when the tide goes out. These places are really rich gardens just out of our site most of the time.

On one side of the giant rock there was a cave visible, probably 15 feet or more in height and depth. We couldn’t get to it because of the slick rocks, park rangers, and 6-ft waves of the Pacific ocean. We speculated on how amazing it must be on the inside, though, walls plastered with sea creatures and entrance rhythmically blocked by a wall of angry sea spray.

Before the tide came back in we chose to go a little north into a national park to see another beach. On our way, we saw something unexpected and magical by the side of the road. We caught a glimpse of one, then two, then six white and ginger baby bunnies. In unison, we all yelled “BUNNIES!” and Emre turned the car around. We didn’t get to touch them and one by one they hopped into the brambles next to them. Only then did we notice a few big rabbits in the same colors hopping about. The bunnies weren’t really afraid of us and one of them was nibbling on what looked like a carrot stick. And then a family walking on the other side of the road said something like “those crazy people are just looking at the bunnies” which makes me think these guys are sort of an institution around here. These baby bunnies were dangerously cute and fluffy. If they’d been a trap of some sort we totally would have fell for it.

The national park was filled with giant fir trees that seemed to have been frosted with sticky moss. Around their bases there were enormous ferns and a hazy mist.

I kept an eye out for dinosaurs, but according to an official post, we needed to be more aware of cougars. We never saw any, but I kept my jacket unzipped in case we had an urgent need to “appear large”.

From the park we got a great view down the beach. We also got to tramp around on a little cliff-side trail and see a lighthouse in the distance. As we headed back to the car, we noticed a guy on a grassy cliff landing with a really huge kite. We looked at each other, then at the huge pointy rocks and crushing waves below and I think I said “is he parasailing?!? that’s such a bad idea” about 20 times. Then he got a good wind and proved me wrong. He lept off the cliff, glided down gently, caught a draft, and when we pried ourselves away several minutes later he was still airborne and higher than the spot he had started. He seemed to be steering quite well and in no danger of hitting the rocks or ocean. I think he could have neatly landed on the same grassy spot if he tried.

The beach at the park wasn’t as good as the one at the town, or maybe we were just too tired to appreciate it. There were some huge beached logs on the shorter beach and a handful of building-size rocks we chose not to walk to.

We drove a little farther north to a beach near SeaSide. Still near low tide, this beach was also very wide and flat. And this beach had cars on it. We were very cautious at first, thinking that it’d be really dumb to get our rental car stuck in the sand, but we saw a half dozen sedans cruising along the shore. The sand was dense, packed, and slightly wet and we had no trouble driving on it. Emre thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of driving on sand. We got out and picked up a few more shells (most of them had been violently snapped in half or smaller by the waves) and then Kati had the great idea of flying the Duck out the window of the car. He did pretty well for a few minutes before crashing into the ground and splitting in two. Jarrod bravely ran barefoot across the freezing sand to retrieve his body. As we got back on the highway we saw a male mallard duck alone in a pond by the road. I like to think that the spirit of the Evil Duck lives on.

As we drove back to Portland, Kati and I talked about all the people we knew so many years ago and what they’ve done since. Back in town we dragged ourselves to Kate’s apartment where we ordered pizza and watched a documentary about jumping sharks (which can be summed up with the single line “Now Dr. Rocky Strong climbs gently onto the floating island of rotting whale meat to get a closer look at the feeding great whites.”)

Yah, so all in all it was the best day I could ever possibly imagine. We were all pretty seriously exhausted by the end of it but I can’t imagine a better way to spend a Sunday.

This Saturday we’re flying out for a week in Portland, Oregon! This will be my first experience on the West Coast and I think this is the best bit of it for me.  Portland is famous for quality used books, artisan beer, and coffee shops and those happen to be three of my favorite things. I am so looking forward to no school or work or anything to do other than picnic, peoplewatch, and play Boggle for a whole 9 days.  We’ll be staying in a hostel and likely meeting interesting people. One day we’ll drive out to the beach (I am praying for an orca sighting – Emre’s face would be priceless) and an old friend of mine might come with us. And perhaps most importantly Portland has a reputedly excellent and extensive public transportation system and so I’ll be able to get my tram fix.  I’m extremely excited.

The photos here are obviously “borrowed” from another website. Unfortunately, I don’t have any new photos of NC since Christmas. It was dreary outside, we haven’t traveled, and I haven’t been feeling very photogenic. And honestly, who would want to see pictures of me in frumpy pajamas studying and eating noodles?