The drive from Seattle to central Oregon gets better when you leave the interstate behind. The road curves around the lower flanks of Mount Hood through pine forests. In late summer it’s still hot but because this year has been rainy, things are green and the air smells fresh. At each third bend or so, the mountain appears, a cartoon-y snow-capped mountain that looks exactly like the kind of mountain a small child would draw, blue and gray with white outline of snow at the top. Our sky was blue, we had the sun roof open. I sang along to the CD we found lying in the parking lot next to the car after we’d eaten our sandwiches at the Antique Deli in Kalama, Washington.
I kind of couldn’t wait to get out of the deli. I could not stop myself from eavesdropping on the 80 something ladies behind me, they were talking loud enough so it was though I was at the table with them. “She likes a stylish man, you know, a business man, one with some style, and he’s poor as a church mouse. He’s a simple man, kind, but not a business man, and she says she just wants someone to go to dinner with, maybe some day trips…” and “She makes a big deal about her clothes, she’s in to all these name brands and she wants you to know it but honestly, she does look so plain…” and more, so much more. It was getting into my head. I kept imagining that they were twenty something husband seekers in 1948 but I had seen them, they were spackled senior hens in lots of makeup. I wanted to stop inventing their past and get going, so we did.
We drove while Dr. Hook sang “When I see my picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone.” The mountain was behind us now, and we spilled out on to the flat plains that lie east of the Cascades. A combine harvester threw up great clouds of pale brown dust behind it, bales of hay were dropped at neat intervals in stubby fields, and sometimes, there was a bright green patch of land that held some grazing horses or a few cows. American flags decorated the mailboxes, there was a recognizable increase in the number of political signs supporting the Republican nominee for president. This part of Oregon is The West that lives in our collective imaginations. There are Indians, the Warm Springs reservation is here, you can imagine the ghosts of Paiute and Wasco Native Americans watching your hatchback car from atop the basalt cliffs where the cell phone towers stand.
In late afternoon we stopped at the Sno-Cap Drive In in Redmond for milkshakes. The place was full of Mexican and Indian families and a lanky old white guy with a big cowboy hat and a big belly sat at the counter. We sat in little swivel chairs while the woman behind the counter put coffee powder in with soft ice cream and made our delicious afternoon snack, too big to finish even in the small size. We sat in the car to slurp ours through too skinny straws. We had the windows rolled down, the smell of gasoline and hot asphalt were just in the background.
We were not hungry anymore when we got to Eagle Crest Resort, a swath of developed and landscaped green in the midst of the sage brush and juniper. We checked in and walked the length of the property to the canyon that marked the far boundary. It was quiet, a few golfers roamed the course and there were a handful of kids at the pool, but for a holiday weekend, things were slow. The soccer field was covered with mule deer, they turned their heads and pointed their ears at us and then, went back to pulling on the immaculately manicured lawns. When we circled around the other side, they had migrated right on the course and were standing on a flat putting green as though it had been sculpted just for their use.
A long drive with no particular agenda is a grand way to spend a late summer day. To watch the landscape change and light shift position. To know that the days are still long and that it does not matter what time you reach your destination. Two lane highways that divide rusted pickup trucks from bible signs, the sharp remnants of the hay harvest from a soft green pasture of rye grass. The road, a meditation for Basho and Kerouac alike.
My horse
Clip-clopping over the fields–Oh ho!
I too am part of the picture!
-Matsuo Basho
What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It’s the too huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.
–Jack Kerouac
Disclaimer: We were guests of Eagle Crest Resort. All our other travel expenses we paid for ourselves.
Basho and Kerouac in the same story – love it.
Love central Oregon – go there every summer to backpack!