Going Going Oregone

Outside Yachtas, Oregon – miles traveled: Over 1000
Sorry I’ve been incommunicado for the past couple of days. You know when you’re in a cell phone store and they show you a map of coverage, and the white parts are the areas where there’s no service? That’s where I’ve been. Since leaving Pioneer, I’ve been to Carson City, Reno, Alturas, Klamath Falls, Medford, Cave Junction, Cresecent City, and Coos Bay. For those unfamiliar, that’s California, Nevada, California, Oregon, California, and back to Oregon. I think it’s safe to say that at this point, I won’t be entering California again until the end of my trip.

Picking up where we left off, the trip leaving Pioneer on Thursday dropped me down into Nevada going past Lake Tahoe. Because of my no gambling until Vegas policy, I wanted to get the hell out of Nevada as quickly as possible, which wasn’t too much trouble because in the area I was in there wasn’t anything that made me want to stay too long. I did stop in Reno at a Cingular store to pick up a wireless card that is supposed to give me high-speed internet almost anywhere in the country for $60 a month. Since I’ve been in the “almost” areas for the past three days, I’ve had limited success with getting a signal. It might be only a matter of time until the wireless card is “accidentally” thrown out the window onto the side of 101. We’ll see.

From Reno, the destination was Alturas, California in Modoc County, the area where rumors of Nathanson land have been whispered about for as long as I can remember. The drive into Alturas was about as desolate as it gets, and I’d go for 30 minutes at a time without seeing another car. Alturas is a blink and you’ll miss it town in the North Eastern part of California, and it can probably be best described with the word “dusty.” There are a couple of restaurants, a motel or two, and Sully’s trailer park, where I bedded down for the night to the sound of wild cats howling in the massive field that was my backyard. It’s a good thing I never got that gun, because Alturas would be minus five cats if I had.

I woke up early Friday morning and peeked into the trailer park bathroom, deciding against showering in it using the logic that I’d probably come out dirtier than when I went in. I ate breakfast at some diner that had the word “Bear” in its name, ordering two oatmeal-nut healthy pancakes and a coffee. Five minutes later, the waitress plopped down two massive brown circular items that I could have used as umbrellas had it been raining outside, both of which were the consistency of lead mixed with cement. While heavy, they were tasty, and after managing to choke one down I took off for California Pines, being careful not to fall in any bodies of water along the way because with that pancake in me, I would surely sink and never be found.

California Pines is a community a few miles West of Alturas, and I don’t know the story behind it, but this version I made up probably best describes it: sometime about 40 years ago someone bought a few thousand acres of land in the mountains and decided to parcel it up into acre plots and sell those plots in the hopes of forming some kind of mountain retreat community. And while it appears they did a somewhat decent job of selling some of the acres, the “community” part hasn’t really gotten off the ground. One of the lucky buyers were my parents, who bought two plots right across the street from each other for $2500 a piece and haven’t been back to visit in over 30 years. Hoping maybe his land has appreciated to some astronomical level consistent with the growth experienced in most of California, after I saw the land my dad asked me with a great deal of anticipation in his voice if anyone had built on any of the land around ours. I replied “Not only haven’t they built on any of the land around ours, no one has built on any of the land at all.”

At the base of the mountains that contain the plots of land is a lodge that functions as a motel and a sales office for California Pines. I strolled in expecting in this day and age of computers that I could give them my name and they’d be able to easily pull up the location of our land. Of course, this wasn’t the case, and the very nice lady with the mullet had to jump through all sorts of hoops to find this information out, finally calling the county assessor’s office after an hour of unfruitful searching. I was given a map which looked like a 200th generation photocopy and told the highlighted numbered squares belonged to the Nathansons, and then I was also told that none of the plots of land were any longer actually marked with numbers, so just “look for the land right around this bend, and that’s yours.” I was then also informed that there was still quite a bit of snow up there, and no one had been to any of the plots in at least a week, so some of the roads may be impassable. If I got into any situation where I felt I might have a problem, I was to turn around immediately, because since there was no cell phone service anywhere, it might be weeks until my carcass was discovered. Armed with my illegible map and indecipherable instructions, I set off to find the impassable roads to my uninhabitable land.

I drove the 13 miles from the lodge up into the mountains, finally seeing a street sign for the road that would take me into the “complex.” I found it slightly amusing to see all these street signs, normally a sign of civilization, marking dirt roads. I bounced along, praying an errant sharp rock wasn’t going to pierce one of my tires, when on Dogtown Rd. I came upon a fallen tree. The tree was lying across the whole road, making it impossible to continue, but I would not be deterred! I didn’t come all this way just to let nature prohibit me from seeing the rocks and dirt I was to inherit, damnit. Using the map I was given, I was somehow able to navigate the backroad streets around the fallen tree and minutes later, after almost getting stuck in the mud twice, I was surveying my family land.

Upon laying eyes on it for the first time, it became evident that my dreams of using the land to start an organic farm would never be realized, but it was cool knowing that this patch of dirt and rocks and trees and melted snow belonged to me and my parents. It would take years of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars to ever build anything on it, but it was ours. If there was anyone with a hundred miles of me at that second and they tried to come on that little patch of dirt, I could yell at them “Git off mah land!” with the full force of the law behind me. It felt pretty fucking cool.

On my way out of Cal Pines, I remembered that they’d told me no one had been up to any of the properties in a while, so I decided to be nice and tell them about the fallen tree. When I did, they looked at me like I’d just said the ocean was salty; they couldn’t care less. I can’t say I was very sorry to be leaving Modoc County.

I was told by the waitress at the lead-pancake diner that the drive to Klamath Falls, Oregon was nice, so that’s where I headed next. I drove northwest along highway 299 for about an hour and half, arriving in Klamath Falls where there actually are no falls. It looks like any logging type town, semi-wooded and rustic with a large industrial area. After stocking up on supplies at Safeway, I continued northwest out of town for about half an hour until I got to Rocky Point Resort, which resides on a large marsh just outside of Klamath lake. I pulled into a campsite and parked for the night.

Rocky Point is where I made my first friend, Paula from Seattle and her dog Tokyo. She had started her own little road trip, basically going the reverse of the first week of my trip. We hung out and drank some scotch, and now I have someone else to visit in Seattle when I go there on my way back. And no, I didn’t bang her. Paula, if you’re reading this, I apologize for being crude, but I’m only answering the question I know all my friends (and apparently my mom) are asking.

Saturday morning I woke up and headed West from Klamath Falls along the Oregon/California border. I wanted to get back to 101 and drive up north along the coast. I stopped for gas and learned something new: in Oregon, you have to let the attendant pump your gas. It was explained to me that the unemployment rate in Oregon was way too high, and in order to create jobs the state passed a law forcing all gas stations to become full service. The state then subsidizes the stations so that gas prices aren’t higher; in fact, they’re cheaper than they are in California. The attendant was cleaning my bug ridden windshield and remarked “You came through K Falls, didn’t ya?” One thing I haven’t figured out yet is since they have to pump your gas, do you have to tip them? I have been, and every time I do they seem over-appreciative. I’m sure the residents of Oregon have stopped tipping at this point.

Another thing about Oregon: the whole state seems to be on fire. Everywhere on the side of the road, people are burning big piles of stuff. I’m guessing it’s their trash, and everywhere you go people are just burning shit. Even in the middle of the forest, I’d look over into the woods and see huge plumes of smoke rising in the air. Message to Al Gore: if you want to curtail global warming, dump a huge bucket of water on Oregon.

On my drive to 101, I was driving on 199 through Oregon where I came upon my first must-stop roadside attraction: Great Cats World Park – Predators in Action. There was a picture of a Leopard on the sign, and I just had to see what the fuck this was. Turns out it’s basically a private zoo with all kinds of lions and tigers and leopards, oh my. They’re kept in cages, most of which are pretty big, and the cats seem to be happy. But what the fuck do I know if a cat is happy? It’s weird to see a Siberian tiger in the middle of Southern Oregon, and my first instinct is that it’s totally wrong. I took the tour ($12), and on a Saturday around 11am I was the only one there, which wasn’t really a comforting sign. Matt was my tour guide, and we’d go up to every cage and he’d tell me about the cat inside. He had a bag of raw meat and some salad tongs, and this was how he’d coax each cat to come to the front of each cage. It was simultaneously fascinating and tremendously sad, and the whole place smelled like cat piss.

The road to 101 dips you back into California for a little while, and then you meet up with 101 and travel back into Oregon. It’s a beautiful drive, similar to parts of highway 1 around Big Sur. I spent Saturday night in a campground along the beach, and today I’ll hit Portland.

Life on the road has been nice so far. I can’t say it’s been the most exciting thing ever, but it hasn’t been boring or lonely. My hope is that now that I’m out of California and seeing new things, the adventure quotient will pick up. And thank god for Sirius Satellite radio – it’s made the boring stretches of driving bearable. If things start to get really uneventful, I’ll just have to pickup and kill a hitchhiker. That’ll make for good blogging.

The most recent Schnauzer Logic podcast is up - go check it out at http://schnauzerlogic.tblog.com/ This is my friend Robin's podcast, and every week I do a segment with him on my travels. I urge you to listen to the whole show, but in case you have to rush over to the CIA to apply for Porter Goss's job, my segment starts around 50 minutes in. This week it's "Tales of the Baby Changing Table" - an episode you can't miss.

Also, next Thursday I'll be starting my weekly segment on KSCO radio's "Good Morning Monterey Bay." It will be at 6:45 am - yuck - but if you're up early to get a jump on your daily 4 hour commute, you can stream it at www.ksco.com while you brush your teeth.

Tons of pics to come soon!