Just spotted on the Fox News front page: Tiger mauls to death.
Let us all log this away, shall we? Fox News assures us that people can be mauled to death. In case you were going to forget.
Returned from Oregon safe and sound — no maulings. Made it through Wyoming’s white out conditions and managed to weave through the t-boned pick-ups and jack knifed semis littering I-80. Last winter really tested my driving ability — I had never had to dodge 8-inch patches of ice on the interstate or head up into the mountains whilst an avalanche killed several people on an adjacent highway. I made jokes about how I needed to go to the council and get my winter driving merit badge, because I’d definitely earned it. This winter is already beginning to look more dangerous than last one, particularly since Anthony and Dani were in an accident on Tuesday.
The good news is that no one was seriously hurt. Dani is a very capable winter driver and managed to save both their lives and most of the car, hitting the median only with the tire/nose of the car. Anthony neglected to inform me until yesterday that they were also carting around a leftover OXYGEN TANK, which would have made any impact on Anthony’s side of the vehicle much more…interesting. This is seriously his third brush with death. For a bookish guy that doesn’t do sports and isn’t all that infuriating, it’s pretty impressive.
NOTABLE MOMENTS ON THE JOURNEY
1. Wyoming was tricky as I mentioned. Both of our somewhat unscheduled motel stays were in the same town somewhere along the interstate. (Unintentionally. On the way back we actually stayed right across the street from the place we’d stayed at before.) Wyoming was often a white-out, had sneaky black ice, and had wind that made me worry for my hastily-replaced-in-’03-driver’s-side-door. It always has wind-noise but was starting to make strange sounds that made me wonder, about to be ripped from the hinges? That would have made the drive lively.
1a. After we passed the Oregon state line we watched the temperature raise and watched the LAKES hidden behind the hills. (Lakes!! say the desert-dwellers. Water sitting all in one place!) After dinner we began passing marque signs saying DANGER EXTREMELY ICY AHEAD, and, CHAINS REQUIRED ON COMMERCIAL VEHICLES.
When you see a marque in Colorado or Wyoming that says ROAD SLICK IN PLACES, that usually means that there are cars littering the ditches along the road and that we are due for approximately eight feet of snow within the hour. So there was a brief moment of panic at the sight of the word EXTREMELY, thinking we were about to die. Sense took over however when I checked the vital stats. Temperature: 45*. Current visibility: crystal. Road appearance: dry. Current speed: 65-ish. Turns: easy and worry-free. Nudge the brakes: perfect. No slipping, no skids. No danger, kids. There was much baffling driving from the locals after this, including a hill in which everyone was stopped. For several minutes.
We made lots of jokes about the extremely dangerous Oregonian ice as we weaved between people creeping forward and made it through just fine. It was more than a little exasperating, and if this is the way you treat the winter time, Oregon, it’s time we traded for a few years so you know what winter is.
Winter ‘06, my friend Erika concentrating as a car skids off the road just beyond.
Tables were turned later when it started to rain — people immediately whizzed past as if we were driving backwards. Touche, Oregon. Touche. We have a lot to learn from each other.
2. Eugene, in a nutshell: furniture stores and no discernible city center per se. The most confusing place I have ever been. We kept getting lost. We got lost almost every time we left the motel parking lot. Have you seen Dark City? Where the aliens move everything around every night? That’s what Eugene felt like to me.
Portland in a nutshell: hair salons, bursting at the seems with interesting stuff, and a huge population of youngish bespectacled interesting people. No surprise there.
3. We had a baked omelette in Eugene. I think the process was similar to a dutch baby. It looked horrifying but it was one of the most amazing things I have ever eaten, and I have eaten many things.
4. We drove out to the coast one day, because we are deprived landlocked sods with a burning desire to see the sea. Every few miles after Florence we began seeing billboards for “sea lion caves” which sounded interesting. I’m all for doing lame tourist-type things if they’re cool. Or at the very least, if they’ll get you closer to where we wanted to go anyway, which was the SEA. This particular area we were in had lots of cliffs and made close-range wave oggling difficult.
There were two parking lots next to a tiny gift shop out in the middle of no where essentially and we pulled over, I myself being sort of glad that the lots were empty. The cost? $10 each to go down this walkway and into an elevator that will bring us to a cave. It seemed kind of steep, but the building is right there and Anthony and I keep thinking and what if we see a sea lion? so we bite the bullet. The lady gives us the automatic shpeal about how there are [x] seals in the cave at any one time and how old the cave is — we were pretty skeptical, she said something in the hundreds. Whatever lady.
The walk down to the elevator building. Kind of at a crazy angle because I wanted to get the whole walkway.
After we get to the building we kind of stop and look around for a little while. There was a great spot below us where the waves were crashing against rock.
It was pretty. Then we noticed a dark shape ducking waves and being generally playful, and we realized HOLY SHIT THERE’S A SEA LION!
At this point we were feeling pretty good, thinking okay it was worth ten bucks now that we know we’ve actually seen some sea lions. Okay. Sweet.
Then we went down the elevator. The minute it opens we are bombarded with SOUND. Hoots, grunts, the roaring of the waves and all make the whole place a very noisy area indeed — it was like outtakes of wookie sound recordings, and the sound that the “great beasts” make on Pelanor fields.
As for the actual number and proximity, well.
There was a 5′ x 8′ window type thing, covered in chain link. But that was about it. We could have spit on them.
One last thing before we call it quits. Q: who wins the prize for best animal?
A: The Nautilus!
