Evening, I'm currently sat in the seating area of the hostel in the Adelaide Hostel. Its very quiet, apart from the guy who just tripped over my internet cable trying to get to the loo, he was bloody noisy, but also apologetic. Its been a busy few days. So lets crack on!
So, the Greyhound jouney was intresting post the last blog update. The greyhound nutter drank a lot of vodka, tried to talk to me and Rosie, who tried our best to give one word answers to questions like "are you a photojournalist?" and "where you from?". Piers just slept through his ranting, but was woken up by him repeating "wake up, I won't hurt you". The bus pulled into Portland and the weather had improved significantly, giving us a beautifully clear evening, we found our hostel, which turned out to be a motel. But it meant we got a room to ourselves, which was nice. Portland is a beautiful city, it reminded me of Oxford a bit, as its a small University city, with a large youthful population for 8 months of the year. It had a tram system that was free to use downtown, with large modern cars, the kind of thing you might see in a small European city. Another thing giving it a European vibe was that every street was tree lined, and all the buildings looked to be at least 90 years old, which for youthful America is bloody old. The first evening me and Rosie decided we fancied a drink so headed downtown to see what offerings there were. We discovered a small bar that JP Shooter would have loved. It was essentially an arcade, with a laser quest look, that served ($1.50!) drinks. When we went there, a pinball tournament was in full swing, and a local news team had turned up to film the proceeded. After a couple of drinks we headed back to the hotel, and got a reasonable nights sleep. The next day we woke up fresh and ready for an exciting day in the sun... to find it was chucking it down. Feeling a tad downhearted we headed for the zoo. Our emotions soon flipped when we got to see a goat before we even entered the zoo entrance. We payed up, snapped a picture of the teaser goat, and started our trek around the zoo. We witnessed many marvels of nature that day. Some highlights:- An angry lioness pacing up and down the glass of a display. Getting licked by one goat, being rejected by another goat. Watching some sealions, and watching a bat commit several sex crimes in 5 minutes, while parents desperately tried to overt the eyes of there children. Just as we left the zoo, it started to chuck it down, so we ran to the tram, and headed of to the shopping mall, to do some tax free shopping. Because, for no apparent reason, Portland is tax free on all purchases. I bought a pair of jeans, which are tight fit, furthering my hipster vibe, and a stupidly loud hawaiian shirt, ideal for beach lounging, which I plan to do a lot of in LA, and Charleston. That evening we returned home, and felt pretty tired, so decided to have an early ish night, as we would be up early the next day.
Portland day II. We got up at a resonable time, and headed down to Budget rent a car, so we could head up to Mount Hood for a mooch around. Our friendly budget lady told us she was out of economy cars, so we had to rent some black sporty looking Nissan beast. This was good for me (driving) and Piers (Chief Navigator) but not so good for Rosie (Navigator, second order, and light to moderate rear tourist). Some brief last minute research informed us we couldn't go to the top of mount hood, as all the roads would be covered in snow, and a sporty Nissan is not ideal transport on snowy roads. So we decided to follow the river valley next to the mountain, which would give us cracking views of the valley, and lots of waterfalls. It was my first time driving in just under a year, so the car, combined with driving on the wrong side of the road led to heary driving at first, and a lot of wrong turns, but we were soon on the Columbia Highway, and 20 minutes later we were skirting the river. We turned of onto a 'historic highway' that would lead us past lots of waterfalls. We were soon ascending mount hood to ear popping heights, and the view across the valley was soon impressive. As we got to one of the highest points on the road, we saw a detour that would take us up to a trek up to 4000 foot. So we climbed an even narrower and windier road up into the mountains, which soon informed us the road would be impassable because of snow. Lies! The road was clear of snow right up to the point it closed. It was bloody cold though, and we found about 4 patches of snow, one of which I got a photo with Piers in, before returning to the scenic road above the valley. We continued along the scenic route until we came across our first waterfall, it didn't disappoint. The mouth of the river stopped at the edge of a shear cliff before crashing onto the rocks below. We were fascinated and climbed to the bottom of it, to be pounded by the spray and air it produced, then climbed to the top to watch the water disappear into the abyss. Good times. We got back into the car, and drove for a while, and there was an EVEN bigger waterfall. Again, we climbed to the top. Except, this time it took bloody ages, and the view from the top was rubbish because of all the cloud. So we hiked back down, got in our car and headed for the next waterfall. Which was crap. Back in the car, to the final, largest waterfall. We got out. Took a photo and left. We were cream crackered. The drive back was along a freeway, so we were back at our hostel in no time. That evening, me and Piers returned to barcode, were they were having a Guitar hero night, we got to listen to some cracking tunes, even if they were sung badly, by the Evening, I'm currently sat in the seating area of the hostel in the Adelaide Hostel. Its very quiet, apart from the guy who just tripped over my internet cable trying to get to the loo, he was bloody noisy, but also apologetic. Its been a busy few days. So lets crack on!
So, the Greyhound jouney was intresting post the last blog update. The greyhound nutter drank a lot of vodka, tried to talk to me and Rosie, who tried our best to give one word answers to questions like "are you a photojournalist?" and "where you from?". Piers just slept through his ranting, but was woken up by him repeating "wake up, I won't hurt you". The bus pulled into Portland and the weather had improved significantly, giving us a beautifully clear evening, we found our hostel, which turned out to be a motel. But it meant we got a room to ourselves, which was nice. Portland is a beautiful city, it reminded me of Oxford a bit, as its a small University city, with a large youthful population for 8 months of the year. It had a tram system that was free to use downtown, with large modern cars, the kind of thing you might see in a small European city. Another thing giving it a European vibe was that every street was tree lined, and all the buildings looked to be at least 90 years old, which for youthful America is bloody old. The first evening me and Rosie decided we fancied a drink so headed downtown to see what offerings there were. We discovered a small bar that JP Shooter would have loved. It was essentially an arcade, with a laser quest look, that served ($1.50!) drinks. When we went there, a pinball tournament was in full swing, and a local news team had turned up to film the proceeded. After a couple of drinks we headed back to the hotel, and got a reasonable nights sleep. The next day we woke up fresh and ready for an exciting day in the sun... to find it was chucking it down. Feeling a tad downhearted we headed for the zoo. Our emotions soon flipped when we got to see a goat before we even entered the zoo entrance. We payed up, snapped a picture of the teaser goat, and started our trek around the zoo. We witnessed many marvels of nature that day. Some highlights:- An angry lioness pacing up and down the glass of a display. Getting licked by one goat, being rejected by another goat. Watching some sealions, and watching a bat commit several sex crimes in 5 minutes, while parents desperately tried to overt the eyes of there children. Just as we left the zoo, it started to chuck it down, so we ran to the tram, and headed of to the shopping mall, to do some tax free shopping. Because, for no apparent reason, Portland is tax free on all purchases. I bought a pair of jeans, which are tight fit, furthering my hipster vibe, and a stupidly loud hawaiian shirt, ideal for beach lounging, which I plan to do a lot of in LA, and Charleston. That evening we returned home, and felt pretty tired, so decided to have an early ish night, as we would be up early the next day.
Portland day II. We got up at a resonable time, and headed down to Budget rent a car, so we could head up to Mount Hood for a mooch around. Our friendly budget lady told us she was out of economy cars, so we had to rent some black sporty looking Nissan beast. This was good for me (driving) and Piers (Chief Navigator) but not so good for Rosie (Navigator, second order, and light to moderate rear tourist). Some brief last minute research informed us we couldn't go to the top of mount hood, as all the roads would be covered in snow, and a sporty Nissan is not ideal transport on snowy roads. So we decided to follow the river valley next to the mountain, which would give us cracking views of the valley, and lots of waterfalls. It was my first time driving in just under a year, so the car, combined with driving on the wrong side of the road led to heary driving at first, and a lot of wrong turns, but we were soon on the Columbia Highway, and 20 minutes later we were skirting the river. We turned of onto a 'historic highway' that would lead us past lots of waterfalls. We were soon ascending mount hood to ear popping heights, and the view across the valley was soon impressive. As we got to one of the highest points on the road, we saw a detour that would take us up to a trek up to 4000 foot. So we climbed an even narrower and windier road up into the mountains, which soon informed us the road would be impassable because of snow. Lies! The road was clear of snow right up to the point it closed. It was bloody cold though, and we found about 4 patches of snow, one of which I got a photo with Piers in, before returning to the scenic road above the valley. We continued along the scenic route until we came across our first waterfall, it didn't disappoint. The mouth of the river stopped at the edge of a shear cliff before crashing onto the rocks below. We were fascinated and climbed to the bottom of it, to be pounded by the spray and air it produced, then climbed to the top to watch the water disappear into the abyss. Good times. We got back into the car, and drove for a while, and there was an EVEN bigger waterfall. Again, we climbed to the top. Except, this time it took bloody ages, and the view from the top was rubbish because of all the cloud. So we hiked back down, got in our car and headed for the next waterfall. Which was crap. Back in the car, to the final, largest waterfall. We got out. Took a photo and left. We were cream crackered. The drive back was along a freeway, so we were back at our hostel in no time. That evening, me and Piers returned to barcode, were they were having a Guitar hero night, we got to listen to some cracking tunes, even if they were sung badly, by the coolest geeks I've ever seen. We returned home to get a half decent nights sleep for the Very long drive ahead of us.... except I couldn't sleep because I was nervous about the very long drive ahead of me, and that I wouldn't get enough sleep. Touche Catch 22.
The next day I felt pretty groggy. We packed our stuff and lugged it to the car, and took the car back to the budget rental place. Then collected our next car, which would take us all the way down to San Fran. Through some intense bargain hunting by me, I had managed to find a car for $37 including tax that we could drop off in San Fran. As San Fran is short of cars, and Portland has a surplus. The normal price would be $120. After completing the paper work we were handed the keys and boarded our new steed:- a lime green Ford Mondeo. It was much less of a hand full than the Nissan, and Rosie wasn't folded up in the back of it, so every one was a lot happier, after a brief lap of Portland as I managed to miss one exit we were soon on the I5 and heading south towards California. We expected the drive to be very long and dull, and for the first 4 hours we were not disappointed. The road was almost exactly straight, with tall disciduos trees lining each side of the road, and some mountains very faintly off to our left. But at hour 5 the road became slightly more windy, and started to climb upwards. Soon, I was asking Piers if we heading the wrong way, because there was a ginormous mountain range I was not expecting in front of us, and we appeared to be climbing up it. We were going the right direction, soon we in snow covered mountains at the Oregon border, and decending into California, after a brief stop to tell border security we weren't carrying any fruit (that's literally all they asked) we were now in a more baron and arid looking landscape, but still up in the mountains, we crossed a beautiful lake, the weather had now cleared giving us clear blue skies. We made a gas stop at a tiny gas station, run by prehaps the nicest man I've ever met, it was an independant gas station with a diner built into the wood cabin he ran it from. Some of the novelty items it contained included a pet rattle snake, (that rattles when he's hungry) a bath with two mannequins in, and a wall covered in Californian number plates, he even came out to join us for a cigarette, and we taked about how Bear Grills may be the worst survival expert in the world. We got back in the car and continued our drive. As the sun set at hour 8 of our drive I suddenly realised I was really, quite hungry. So we stopped for a Taco Bell, you ever seen Fight Club when the lead guy say sleep deprovation feels like your life is a photo copy of a photo copy of a photocopy. Yea, I had that. A taco and some sugary crap made me feel better, and we continued on our journey, on what was perhaps the straightest road in history. By hour 9 it was pitch black, and I got the feeling that the scenery either side of us was impressive, I just couldn't see it. By hour 10.5 we were rolling into the out skirts of San Fran, and crossed our first bridge, it was massive, with 5 lanes for each side of the road. Piers informed us we hadn't seen nothing yet, and sure enough the final bridge, a four mile beast connecting both sides of the valley was super impressive. by hour 11.25 we were standing in the hostel lobby, exhausted but happy. The drive was honestly one of the highlights of my trip so far, listening to the various CD's I made, along with the breath taking scenery made the jouney incredible. A++++ would do again.
Quotes.
"He looks like Jesus, but sexy"
Rosie on a guy on the Greyhound.
"I'd put my sandwhich in his box"
A lot of sexual innuendo flying around lately. This one about a squirrel statue, with a lunch box. I posed for a photograph, with me stealing food from his lunch box.
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