Portland

Roxy. Portland, Oregon. March 16, 2006.

Well, aren't we being quite the awesome tourists? The self-loathing comes in waves, but, hey, as Jeff puts it, we're a first world nation, dammit, so if we want cake—we get cake! Speaking of which, Jeff and Justin maintain quite the sweet pad here in PDX: hardwood floors, big open kitchen, comfy couches, and a chocolate cake out on one of those glass pie holders you see at the more classic of the diners.

Last night we went with Jeff to the local dive, the nearby "Crab Bowl", just as delightfully tacky as it sounds. This is a research expedition into Hipsterdom, but I might have to minor in the What Exactly Is A Dive Bar question. When your colleague is hit upon by a 40-something who, when rebuffed, attempts instead to lead you upon the road to Jesus, and where the bartender is clearly a karaoke-master serial killer—this place just may qualify. Before the night was out, Jeff and Stefanos were at the karaoke themselves, to Pearl Jam's Black. A good time was had.

Needless to say, the "work and travel" scheme is not working out particularly well, though we did attempt to work on Physics for several hours, first at Powell's books on Hawthorne, then with Riana at the much more novel A Chance of Rain cafe a couple blocks west. Stefanos may have made some progress with the LIGO stuff, but I only learned a very small amount of Statistical Mechanics. The week is almost over. Eep!


Voodoo Donut. Portland, Oregon. March 16, 2006. (Tag: Voodoo Doughnut)

In the evening, with Jeff and Riana:

• Bourging it up with happy-hour designer martinis at The Vault and some kind of well-dressed would-be San Francisco elite
• Dinner at the Roxy, a downtown diner with a very good jukebox
• Becoming overwhelmed at Powell's books
• A pilgrimage to Voodoo Donut, a donut shop open from 10pm-10am (all night) where you can get, for instance, donuts shaped like gingerbread men stabbed with a wooden stake through the heart and some kind of red goo seeping out. Or a maple bar with bacon. Or glazed with captain crunch. You may also get married there, I am told, and later in the night they have a DJ.

Anyway, we will try to ameliorate the tourism-induced self-loathing with a good hike tomorrow somewhere between here and Eugene. Tomorrow night with shamster in Eugene, then on Saturday morning we're booking it to Eastern Washington. If we were sane I think we'd stick around here or spend some more time exploring the area between here and the tri-cities, but, well, you know. Not sane, and all that.

Lake Crescent, Olympic National Park

Lake Crescent, Olympic National Park. March 15, 2006.

I'm really liking Flickr's tagging feature these days. Look at pictures that other people have tagged "olympic national park" or "lake crescent" for more views of the astounding scenery.

Clearcut

Clearcut. Somewhere along the Washington coast. March 15, 2006. (flickr tag: clear cut)

US-101 ducks into and out of the Olympic National Park. You know when you're entering the park, because suddenly there are trees again. Along other parts of the road there's a dwarf forest or the remnants of a forest. Signs posted in these non-groves proudly state "Clearcut 1980. Planted 1985. Next Harvest 2045." The recent clearcuts are almost viscerally gruesome. This one is older, doesn't look quite so bad. Even the idea of a crop that takes a significant fraction of a human lifetime to mature is mind-boggling. But the idea of cutting the primordial trees—barbaric.

Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean from Olympic National Park. March 15, 2006.

We reached the Pacific!