Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Weekend - It Never Rains But It Pours

Thanks to the many American holidays we had an extended weekend at
Thanksgiving to take advantage of. Many of the Oregonian friends we'd
made were going home to celebrate the holiday with their families. Only
four members of TWP were from out of state; Lewis, from California;
James, from Hawaii and Helen and I from dear old Blighty. We had only
been in Oregon for a couple of months by this time so I suggested that
we travel around the state. Lewis was cajoled into volunteering his car
and driving for us and we broke out the guide books to find interesting
places. We decided on a circular tour of the northern half of the
state. We left on the afternoon before Thanksgiving day intending to
drive to Cascade Locks, a town on the Columbia River. It really isn't
that far from Corvallis, not in American terms anyway. We thought it
would be an easy drive to start the weekend. I've never been more
wrong. None of us were familiar with Oregon and it's weather. By the
end of the day, we were far too familiar with it. It rained the whole
day. And when it rains in Oregon, it means it. It's serious rain that
just keeps on coming. It seems impossible that there's that much water
in the world. Apparently, there is and Oregon demonstrated its ability
to rain for us. It wasn't that bad until it got dark. The road was
slowly turning into a river. Not that that mattered so much because our
more pressing concern was that we couldn't actually see the road. The
headlights of the car struggled to penetrate the driving rain and
failed. I was beginning to think this was what zero visibility was like
until a truck sped by us, showering us with more water and making it
impossible to even see the hood of the car. Wishing I hadn't chosen to
take shot gun I joined Lewis in pressing my face to the windscreen
trying to see where we were and where we should be. Somehow we took the
right exit and drove into Cascade Locks and to the hotel where we'd
booked rooms for that night. The clerk told us that we had a view over
the river from our room but the rain was falling so hard that we
couldn't see the mighty Columbia. Knowing it would still be there in
the morning we fell asleep.

As it transpired what we had thought was a highway the previous night
was the now visible river. The rain had let off a little but it was
still returning in occasional flurries. We ate breakfast in a
restaurant overlooking the swollen, discoloured and powerful Columbia
River. For Thanksgiving Day itself we had been invited to an
accomodating friend's home in a suburb of Portland called Tualatin. We
set off on I-84 which would take us directly to Portland. I noticed a
sign indicating the Historic Columbia River Highway. I begged to go, it
would take us back to I-84 eventually and Lewis could see the fish
hatcheries that were located on the highway. Lewis made some
perfunctory grumbles about the bad weather but he's a keen fisherman
and couldn't resist the hatcheries. The first thing we hit on the
scenic highway was Bonneville Dam and its associated fisheries.
Bonneville is the centre of controversy concerning the dying
populations of Columbia salmon. The dams on the Columbia are blamed for
disturbing the annual salmon runs, despite the fish ladders built into
them. Unfortunately for the salmon you can't just remove dams so
Bonneville Dam remains. Late November is the spawning season for the
salmon in the hatcheries and is the tail end of the salmon runs. We had
planned our visit well. Or we would have had we remembered that it was
Thanksgiving day and everything was likely to be, and indeed was, shut.
We didn't see the fish ladders, or the young salmon in the hatcheries.
Lewis, who was slowly turning into a grumpy old man, had to be
persuaded to carry on along the highway and visit the rest of the
sights. The scenic highway lived up to its name even in the persistent
dreary weather. The road wound through forests, over pretty bridges and
past rather aggressive looking waterfalls. The recent heavy rain had
had its impact on them. They roared down the cliffs, pounding the rocks
below and soaking us to the skin when we got too close. The most famous
of the falls along the highway is Multnomah Falls. It is, as I learnt
from our Fodor's guide to Oregon, 620 feet high making it the 5th
highest in America. It, like all the others, was transformed from its
postcard suitable, relatively sedate cataract to an aggressive torrent.
Bridges span the falls and, in better weather, I imagine it is an awe
inspiring experience to be able to stand so close to the waterfall.
With the rains and the swollen falls the only thing we experienced
standing on the bridges was one of being very very wet. Towards the end
of the highway was Crown Point State Park, we stopped at Vista House to
take advantage of the panoramic view of the Columbia Gorge.
Unfortunately the gloomy weather had all but erased the view with rain
and low cloud. A little disappointedly we got back on to I-84 and
headed on to Tualatin for a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner. If there's
one thing Americans do well, it's eat. Turkey, yams, mashed potato,
stuffing, beans...the menu seemed endless. Finished off with the
inevitable pumpkin pie and the less predictable marionberry pie, the
pride of Oregon. I'm told that marionberries grow in Oregon, and Oregon
alone. With not much else to its name and overshadowed by California to
the south and Seattle to the north, Oregon has to take its fame where
it can get it, and it gets it with, amongst other things,
marionberries. Full with good food and contented we whiled away the
evening watching movies and trying to forget that our holiday was
turning into the road trip from Hell.

We awoke early the next morning to a wonderful cooked breakfast. The
night before I'd been certain I'd never eat again, now I was shovelling
down pancakes, bacon and toast all drowned in maple syrup. While we
ate, we turned on the radio and listened rather dejectedly at the
effect the last few days of heavy rain had had on the west of Oregon.
Thanks to clear cutting mudslides had cut off some of the roads. Floods
had covered most of the others. In other words, most every highway,
byway, route and interstate in western Oregon was shut. Our destination
was Tillamook on the coast, normally a very easy drive from Portland
through the Tillamook State Park. Unfortunately all the roads through
the park were shut for one reason or another. We would have to drive
around it. We dug out our maps and found it would be a long diversion,
but not an unreasonable one. We left Dan's home as early as was polite
and headed towards Astoria which is in the very top northwest corner of
the state, a stone's throw from Washington State where we would head
south to Tillamook. All was going well, the sun had won out over the
rain clouds and it shone down on us as we drove. We reached Astoria and
headed south along a coastal road that allowed us to catch glimpses of
the moody Pacific. We were delighted, it was a pleasant journey and we
were not far from Tillamook when we stopped for gas at a ramshackle,
isolated establishment in the middle of some typically spectacular
Oregon forest. Lewis stayed with the car, James (briefly awake) went to
find a bathroom and Helen and I went into the store to buy some soda
and candy. We paid for our goods and chatted with the cashier, a burly,
bearded gentleman who gave the impression he never had a shotgun far
from him. He asked us where we were headed and we told him.
"Y'ain't gettin' to Tillamook." He told us.
"We're not?" we asked.
"Nope." He replied, "River burst its banks. Roads all flooded out.
Y'ain't gettin' to Tillamook." Without quite knowing why we thanked the
man for his dreary prediction and went back outside to find Lewis
waiting in the car, listening to the radio (while James had fallen
asleep again).
"We're not getting to Tillamook." He told us. Helen and I nodded and
said we already knew (James snored in what we took to be agreement). We
drove away, glancing back to see the proprietor waving happily at us,
apparently pleased we would not be getting to Tillamook. With a quick
discussion and consultation of the map we decided not to give up and
head back towards Portland and take a different route. Approach
Tillamook from the south instead of the north. We still had plenty of
day left. Again, this plan went as smooth as silk for a long time, we
even got off the exit for Tillamook before it went down the crapper.
The roads were badly flooded and the ever reliable Oregon State Highway
Division (OSHD) had set up confusing and misleading diversions which
meant we went around in circles for a long time. I'll leave us at the
mercy of the diversions for a moment to relay a wonderful story I was
told about the OSHD. A few years ago a dead whale was found stranded on
a beach somewhere on the Oregon coast. For some inexplicable reason the
OSHD took responsibility for removing the enormous carcass. It proved
impossible to move it, it being a dead whale and rather large and
heavy. And the OSHD having, apparently, very little in the way of
sense. I only say this because of what they decided to do. Some bright
spark found some dynamite. The brilliant and very innovative idea was
this; they would blow up the dead whale and let the seagulls eat the
debris. They cleared the area and put God knows how much dynamite
around the dead animal. Then they blew it up. If you have access to the
Internet I urge you to visit http://www.xmission.com:80/~grue/whale and
see the footage of this momentous occasion. The result was not, as they
had predicted, dainty little whale bits suitable for a seagull's lunch,
but huge chunks of blubber which were thrown about the beach, crushing
nearby vehicles. Just imagine going to the beach and ending the day
with a huge piece of dead whale on your car. It'd get rid of the new
car smell, I'll bet. The seagulls who were supposed to be eating the
carcass had been frightened away by the blast and even if they'd
returned the chunks were so big that the gulls would have been more at
home living in them than eating them. Only one remark is suitable after
that story: God Bless America. Back to the four unfortunate college
students in a small Honda being directed by the very same OSHD. By some
miracle we fathomed out the diversions and found ourselves finally on
the road to Tillamook. This road was flooded too. But we were
determined to get there now. We were more than prepared to wade through
Hell and highwater to get there. We were driving at a snail's pace, not
in a hurry to skid off the road. As we drove through an exceptionally
large puddle, more, a small lake really, the car lifted off the road.
This wasn't skidding. This was floating. Presumably having the same
visions as I was of being swept out into the endless flooded fields
either side of us, Lewis stamped on the gas and we shot out onto the
marginally less wet road. We had booked ourselves a hotel in Tillamook.
We should have guessed that the hotel was impossible to get to because
of...you've guessed it...flooded roads. We got so close to the hotel
that we could see it but couldn't drive to it because of a drowned
intersection. Lewis refused to try and drive through it. Our floating
experience earlier having scarred him apparently. He parked in a car
lot and told us we'd walk from here. Walking proved just as unpleasant.
The road was flooded all the way along. We were going to have to walk
through the flood water. We were wading through the highwater, all we
needed now was the Hell to round it off. We arrived at the hotel cold,
soaking wet, bad-tempered and, since we'd been dumb enough to wade
across with no shoes, we all had bloodied feet. I've never been so
pleased in my entire life to see a hair dryer and a radiator. It was
far too late now to do any of the things we'd planned in Tillamook, and
we weren't in the mood anyway so we spent the evening trying to get
ourselves and our clothes warm and dry.

The next day our tempers had improved, but I'm not sure how much of
this was due to resignation and the fact that today we would be driving
home to Corvallis via Newport. Our trip was almost over. The floods had
subsided enough that we could drive around relatively freely. And our
clothes had dried which meant that we were marginally less bad
tempered. Wanting to see some of the sights of Tillamook we drove to
the famous Tillamook cheese factory. We were so pleased to not be in
the car in ghastly weather I think anything would have entertained us.
But the cheese factory is quite fascinating. Who knew the process of
making cheese would be so interesting. Tillamook cheese is excellent
and we picked up lots of blocks at the factory shop. From there we
drove to the Tillamook Air Museum. We had enormous fun here. We played
in corsair and F14 cockpits, we marvelled at the new and old planes.
And I proudly read all about the spitfire and made everyone take photos
of the pride of the RAF. It was a cold day, but on the urging of one of
our friends who'd lived in Tillamook we bought some Tillamook ice-cream
to eat after our cheese. And it was exceptional. If nothing else,
Tillamook is well worth visiting if only for the cheese and the
ice-cream. Finding Route 101 was open and clear we drove down to
Newport, our final destination, with no problems en route. Once there
we went straight to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. This is the aquarium
where Keiko, the whale from Free Willy, was housed. Fortunately for the
whale, but unfortunately for us, she had been moved to a better
environment. Let's just pray she never runs into the OSHD...