Category: Washington

Solo Getaway in Oregon and Washington–Don’t Forget the Chargers!

The view from Mt. Angel Seminary in Oregon. Evergreen and deciduous trees in the foreground, red barn and other buildings in the center, open fields and farms to the cloudy horizon.

Sometimes a girl just has to get in her car and drive away. Let the winds carry her where they will. Follow her whims. Be free. Stuff a backpack, grab the keys and go.

Who am I kidding? I make myself crazy planning for months before I go anywhere. I clean the house lest the dog sitter think I’m a slob. I make reservations and fill folders with confirmation email printouts, schedules, and directions. I pack work I’m going to do, work I might do, books to read with backup books in case I hate the first ones, orange juice, granola bars, fruit, tea bags and extra tea bags, extra socks, extra underwear, two bathing suits, three pairs of shoes, copies of my books and my business cards, cold cream, face cream, hand cream, sunscreen, my guitar, sheet music and more sheet music in case I find a piano . . . If I’d had a passenger, he/she would have had to ride on the roof of my Honda.

My five-day journey concluded in Centralia, Washington, where I taught at the Southwest Washington Writers Conference. Centralia is a small town about 80 miles north of the Oregon border. Nice place. Nice college. Nice people. I taught workshops on creative nonfiction and book revision, met some great writers, won a raffle prize, and sold my books. It was a fun time that reminded me how much I love to teach. Or maybe it’s just that finally someone has to listen to me.

Photo shows cases of sausages, some straight, some round, some dark, some light, so many sausages, at a store in Mt. Angel, Oregon.

Before Centralia, I took a mini-vacation in Silverton, home of the Oregon Garden and Silver Falls and neighbor to Mt. Angel, a Bavarian-themed town down the hill from the Mt. Angel Abbey and seminary. I wrote poetry, played my guitar, swam, walked, shopped, explored, and ATE so much great food I couldn’t zip the jeans I had planned to wear for my drive home. But pulled pork tacos, chicken salad croissants, key lime pie, eggs Benedict, German pastries from Mt. Angel . . . It would be a sin not to enjoy the food.

I stayed at the Oregon Garden Resort, up the hill past the gardens. Guests stay stay in separate cottages with about six rooms, each with fireplaces and private patios. All are within walking distance of the restaurant, pool, spa, lounge and garden. Such views. Such flowers. Have you ever seen a smoke bush like the one in the picture? I never had. A friendly stranger who knows her plants told me all about it. Overall, the resort was fancy but affordable and it had a real “camp” feeling.

Photo shows odd-looking bush with orangish fluff surrounding green leaves. It's called a smoke bush.

The other two nights, I slept at the Holiday Inn in Chehalis, another smallish town north of Centralia. It was . . .  a Holiday Inn. Elevators, long hallways, soaps and shampoos in canisters attached to the wall. Kudos for their perfect indoor pool, though, and for the nearby Jeremy’s Farm to Table gluten-free restaurant and store. Fascinating décor, friendly staff, and amazing food with a healthy spin. I ate there two nights in a row and would do it every night if I lived nearby. Sure, I’d weigh 500 pounds. But life is short. Eat the pie.

 I spend most of my life shuttling between Waldport and Newport, Oregon, so it was nice to get out of Lincoln County for a while and see new things. Some folks avoid traveling alone, but I kind of like it. You’re free to do whatever you want, including changing your mind at the last second. You’re also free to get lost, to get sleepy behind the wheel, and to wish you had a designated driver, but that just adds to the adventure. In many situations, I was the only person who wasn’t part of a couple or a group, but I’m learning if I just enjoy myself and talk to whoever is around, I’m not really alone.

Some things I noticed along the way:

  • No one seems to mind men wearing baseball caps in restaurants.
  • Why is there always background music playing when nobody seems to need it or want it—except that one waitress in Woodland, Washington who was singing along as she worked? One of the joys of wearing hearing aids is that when I turn them off, the loud music disappears.
  • Why are hotel doors so heavy and the springs so tight? The one at the Holiday Inn gave me some new bruises as I tried to get in with my guitar and my ice chest. Is there some logical reason it’s three times as heavy as any door on my house?
  • I forgot the plug ends for my charger cords. Most places I stay have USB charger plug-ins anyway, but not this Holiday Inn. How would I keep my phone and hearing aids charged? Would I have to move to a different hotel? I threw an embarrassing hissy fit at the front desk and was handed a converter I could use. Lessons: Calm down and ask if they have a solution. Pack a couple of converters in your suitcase or remember to bring the plugs. At least I remembered the chargers.
  • Gas is way more expensive in Washington, and you get to pump it yourself. At my first gas stop back in Oregon, I got out of my car and a friendly woman in a red shirt came running to pump my gas before I had a chance to mess with her machine. Oregon has some self-serve pumps now, but not there.
  • Almost everyone I saw in my trip up the I-5 corridor in Oregon and Washington was white. With baseball caps. Where are all the people of color?
  • There is so much to see everywhere in this country. Take a ride. Check it out. 

Annie is hanging close to me today. She’s afraid I’ll grab my keys and go away again. Not today.

Tell us in the comments about your adventures.

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Writing my way across four states

Pondering the river during Fishtrap poetry workshop
This week I drove through four states in one day. Twice.
Sunday I woke up in a yurt at Wallowa Lake near Joseph, Oregon. Outside my window, deer grazed on dandelions and a covey of quail chittered in the bushes. I dressed, walked to the lodge for a breakfast of homemade coffeecake and cantaloupe, said goodbye to my Fishtrap writer friends and drove away. That night I went to bed in Missoula, Montana at a Howard Johnson’s on a busy highway lined with motels, restaurants, casinos and car dealerships. To get there, I had driven over 200 miles of winding roads from Oregon through Washington and Idaho and into Montana. I went from the vast farms and cowboy hills of Eastern Oregon through the Blue Mountains and along the Lochsa River until I finally reached the rolling hills and suburban landscape of Missoula. Seventy-five mile-per-hour speed limit and no sales tax. Woohoo!
After checking in at Howard Johnson’s with Indian desk clerks whose English was unintelligible, I drove down the street to Applebee’s and suffered culture shock after a week in nature at the Fishtrap writer’s workshop. No wi-fi, no phones, no TV, no news. We sat by a river talking about poetry, wrote songs under the trees, and told secrets by the campfire. We ate healthy cafeteria style meals. Suddenly I was in a noisy restaurant with an over-solicitous waiter named “Luc” who was waiting for me to choose from a menu of over-seasoned high-calorie entrees. As I settled for a plain turkey sandwich, my cell phone rang for the first time in over a week. No!
Why was I in Missoula? The main character in the novel I’m almost finished with lived in Missoula before she came to Oregon. Toward the end, she goes back for a while. Because I was so close to the border at Wallowa Lake, I decided to see Missoula for myself. I’m glad I did. You can’t really get the flavor of a place from the Internet. I was able to visit the places where she and her husband lived, worked, worshiped and shopped. I ate in the restaurant where she ate. I had a great time following my fictional character through this real setting.
But it got hot, very hot, and I needed to get back to my own nonfiction life. So Tuesday I headed west, taking a different route this time. I drove through C’oeur d’Alene, Idaho, stopped for lunch in Spokane, Washington (great food at the Timber Creek Grill Buffet), and crossed the Columbia River into Oregon near Umatilla. I honked my horn in glee. Hello, Oregon!
Four states in four days. Twice. I bunked in Arlington, Oregon Tuesday night, woke up yesterday at 5 a.m. to the roar of truckers starting their engines and a freight train blasting its horn and set my GPS for “home.” After 1,600 miles, the only state I wanted to be in was a state of rest.
Stay tuned for trip highlights and pictures in the next few posts.