American Movies (2 of 2)

We stayed the night in a most unimpressive town near the border of California and Oregon. For a while there I thought all American towns would be like that as we kept going through the ugly outskirts of towns that looked like industrial estates.

It struck me that for all it’s massive size the population of the USA must mean that it has a greater density in most areas than Australia. Something that is particularly apparent when you stick to the main highways.

We left 101 and drove up through Grants Pass and on to the Crater Lake National park the next morning. We got to Crater Lake at about 9:00am, driving through the trees, with snow coming down. It was dead quiet and there was not a single car to be seen. Up at the top of the crater, in the cold and sun, it was even more quiet. The view out over the snow covered crater, with big deep cold blue water was another “you don’t wanna miss it” experience. Man, this is a beautiful country.

Leaving there, along quiet back roads, with small family-run roadside gas stations we soon came to a reservation and then on into a little desert before arriving in Bend, Oregon. I had read somewhere that it was a great little town, and it was. First one I had seen that I actually really liked the look of, besides San Francisco of course. We had lunch in an old diner where half the clientele were souped up well before lunch on shots of bourbon or something.

Onward through some more reservations and through the desert plains, over canyons which you would pass over so quickly you would begin to wonder whether they were actually there. We went through another reservation, on different sections of road kept clean by every different type of community group you could think of, from the local scout group to staff from the local Veterinary practice.

Then before we knew it, we were dropping into the trees around Mt. Hood. I was getting to like these quiet snow covered forests. Mt. Hood was standing up there like the big old volcano it is in the early evening light. I’m not sure if it was the continual driving combined with jet lag but the place is a piece out of heaven.

Hood River is also a nice little town. My sort of town. We overnighted there with the fun and generous spirited Lebsack family (some friends of Cris’s) and spent part of the evening sitting out in the cold in a hot tub looking up to Mt. Hood in the fading light. There is something particularly nice about being in a hot tub in the cold at night. Invigorating.

Hood River struck me as the sort of town that would be a haven for lots of outdoor and extreme sports types, with a transient population. It sits nestled in the side of a hill, with the Columbia river down the bottom of the gorge. That river is the biggest I’ve ever seen. I thought it was a lake, but then driving along it just kept on going. All the way to Canada.

Finally the last day of driving, only six hours, thank heavens. So far my travel total of hours was…..56! 56 hours of sitting on my butt, first the plane from Australia and then 2½ very long days of driving.

The last section of drive was mostly more desert and pretty grim, from the point where we left the Columbia river to the line of trees which signal Spokane and the edge of the desert. If you look at a satellite picture of the region you can almost see that line, where the ground changes from what looks like a volcanic flow to the edge of the mountains and prairie.

In Spokane we spent Thanksgiving with Cris’s relatives, at his Aunt and Uncle’s house. A nice end to a 3 states in 3 days trip. Of the entire trip, this was what felt most foreign to me. I am used to travelling in different places and getting an outsider’s experience of a place, but this put a different angle on the whole trip. Unlike my scattered family, this one seemed huge and were together a lot. We arrived just before Thanksgiving dinner, right when it started snowing.

Apart from other movie moments earlier on, the hilly streets of San Francisco, crossing the bridge, winding through the Redwoods, standing up on the edge of Crater Lake and then sitting in a hot tub with a view of Mt. Hood, this one was for the text books.

It was like a scene from every one of those happy romantic American movies: treelined streets, cars and front yards covered in snow, Christmas lights on the houses, people playing ice hockey on a frozen lake and picture postcard views through windows into American lives. To top it off, I got to enter one of those postcards, and sat down to an amazing looking dinner table for Thanksgiving with an hilarious family of four psychiatrists (Roberts, Roberts, Roberts & Roberts), some musicians, two dogs and the best roast dinner I have had in years!

But seriously between the food, the table, the accents, the snow outside, and saying grace holding hands. Well…yep, I think I was in a movie.

Did you like this article?

    

 

Share it

 

Place a comment