“Hallo!
My name is Inigo Montoya!
You killed my father!
Prepare to die!”
He was, of course, one of the main characters in the wonderful children’s movie (with enough sophisticated humor to keep adults involved), “The Princess Bride.”
I bring this up to let you know what we’re up to when we’re not living our fabulous RV lives seeing great sites, meeting important people, and washing dirty clothes by pounding them with a rock in nearby polluted streams. No, when we’re not doing all that good stuff, we’re driving AB1 from one campground to the next, 300 miles and five hours at a time. And while I’m driving, Diedre keeps me from nodding off at the wheel by having me help her answer crossword puzzles, quizzing me on baseball trivia, reading select “Sports Illustrated” magazine articles, and reading aloud or listening to books or books-on-tape.
For this year’s literary challenge, we started by having Diedre read As You Wish by Carey Elwes or as we like to refer to it: “The Making of ‘The Princess Bride’ Movie.” It’s one of our favorite cinematic works. If you get a chance, rent it, especially if your kids/grand kids are visiting. We especially love Mandy Patinkin as “Inigo Montoya,” Andre the Giant as “Fezzick,” and Billy Crystal as “Miracle Max.” As soon as Diedre’s done reading it to me (hopefully by the time we get to Minneapolis), we’ll crank up the old gas-powered VCR and re-watch the movie with the knowledge of the inside stories the actors talked about in the book. I can’t wait.
Anyway … we got back on the road Sunday, May 24. The day’s travel contained the best scenery we’d seen so far starting north of Redding, California. And it was what we planned for this year. In 2013, we were mainly RV’ing to see friends and family in the upper Midwest; in 2014, touring the south and the east coast became one big history lesson as practically every place we stopped had some significance to either the Revolutionary or Civil wars. But this year, 2015, is going to be all about the scenery, the beauty of nature in and around the seven to eight national parks we’ll visit. And it’ll start with Oregon, the 31st state we’ve visited and camped in (overnight stay needed to qualify) during our two-and-a-half years of RV’ing. We’re shooting for all 48 lower states (Delaware is going to be the tough one) plus quite a few Canadian provinces. Have fun with us as we go our merry way. You can even keep score at home. It’s so easy, even St. Olaf Junior College grads can do it.
Loyal blogophiles may recall two years ago our visit with softball friends Jim and Carol Ericksons in Mount Pleasant, MI. Unbelievably, there was actually no “mount” in “Mount Pleasant,” although there was a lot of “pleasant” in the good folks of Mount Pleasant. So it really shouldn’t have surprised us when we landed in Klamath Falls, OR, and found out that … yes, you guessed it, there were no “falls” in Klamath Falls. What next, no pyramids in Cairo, Illinois?
Monday was “Memorial Day,” so we put out our limited red, white, and blue décor and celebrated the day accordingly. In the RV-park-mentality, what more could say “Memorial Day” than doing two weeks worth of laundry and then trimming one’s beard (mine, not Diedre’s)? Seriously, they have an incredible laundry room here: 10 washers and 10 dryers. I did my four wash loads in the time it normally takes me to do one at home. Other RV life tasks included replenishing our meds/vitamins trays and then some amateur grocery shopping. The festive day ended with a night out at the movies. We viewed the George Clooney non-epic “Tomorrowland,” and then in keeping with the tone of the movie, we had a late-night romantic dinner at Denny’s.
CLNP is an incredible combination of mountains, trees, water, and, of all things, snow … in late May! Wherever you look, there’s a combination of at least two and often three of the aforementioned. The marvelous Crater Lake surrounds a scenic small island that we determined we must visit next time.
CL is the deepest lake in the U.S. at 1,943’; it’s actually the belly of an erupted volcano. No streams run into the lake, so there’s little sediment to cloud its waters. It makes for a wonderful photograph when the clearness of the lake perfectly reflects a wonderful mirror-image of the snow-capped mountains above. Speaking of snow, you can see that Diedre couldn’t resist the temptation to pelt our nature photographer with snowballs.We finished our wonderful day at the park with a hike to Discovery Point. It was a lovely walk atop the rim surrounding the lake.
On Wednesday, May 27, before our drive to Oregon City in the Portland, OR, area, we walked over to the aptly named “Starvin' Marvin’s” cafe for breakfast. The food was good and there was lots of it. While eating, I noticed three old guys stumble in, John Deere hats and all, but they didn’t seem to know what to do. One guy pointed, the others shrugged, and slowly they wandered around aimlessly. Diedre confidently nodded to me and said, “See! They don’t know where to sit without their wives here to tell them!”
Here’s an interesting (at least to us) bit of nomenclature trivia. You may remember back in the L.A. blog when I mentioned my Uncle John’s funeral. At the time, I had found out about the ceremony’s particulars from my cousin “Jean” (Mona). I had gone to the funeral with my mother “Jean” (Mom) while Diedre called her sister “Jean” (Goldie) on her Smart-Phone “Jean” (Genie). Are you noticing a trend here? And then on our second night in Oregon City, we went to have dinner at the home of Diedre’s cousin who, of course, is named “Jean” (Gee Gee). Note: all the “Jeans” nicknames are in parentheses; these are imperative, or we’d never know of whom we were discussing.
Warning: another one of “Alexx’s Asides” is imminent. Take shelter immediately.
One of my habits is to always carry pennies to cover sales taxes. In Oregon, I didn’t notice it at first, but it eventually occurred to me that every time I paid for something, the amount was never an odd, penny-requiring amount. When I mentioned it to Gee Gee, she nodded and then with the wisdom of Yoda, explained this phenomenon with a story about the person from Washington state who came to Portland and bragged about all his state had to offer. When he was done spouting off, Gee Gee smiled and then offered just three little words in defense of her home state of Oregon: “NO … SALES … TAX!”
On our last day in Oregon, we decided to see Portland, again under the kind auspices of Gee Gee the Guide. We started healthily by visiting the spiffy Lake Oswego Farmers Market. The gals kept me from getting too bored by having me get my picture taken with the world’s largest (my guess) pair of Groucho glasses. Honestly, it’s as if they had a five-year old child with them.From there it was on to downtown Portland for a walking tour. We crossed several bridges and made our way to the Portland Saturday Market, the largest continuously operated open air market in the U.S. It was a lot of arts and crafts. Nearby there was a carnival running, so we ambled by to take a look. But it was only when we came across this sadly misguided, pro-diabetes Pepsi sign that we knew it was time to move on.
To Washington … with dispatch!
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