Monday, November 07, 2005
Upstate Oregon - west of Portland
The storekeeper here came out and asked if she could help me with anything. Apparently the man who walked past me had reported someone taking pictures out there and had no idea what I was taking pictures of. Apparently, people just don't see what I see. :)
These were taken outside a convenience store in a tiny little town on our way to the coast. The storekeeper was the daughter of a hippie who had given birth to both of her children in the forest. She said she grew up without a TV and was forced to go outside in the fresh air to play. She agreed with this and, if anything, felt she could improve on it even more. She told us she would like to raise her own children in New Zealand, because kids in the States are raised like sheep... conditioned by the media, zombified by video games, and the like. I was flabbergasted. I hate to say it, but I've felt that way about this culture for a long time. It's a rare thing indeed to meet people who don't buy into the pop culture machine and have the insight and courage to actively pursue a different way of life. Now that's independent thinking.
Quick update
I'm not done posting Vancouver pics, and will be updating them shortly as time and internet access allows.
On Saturday we took a bus (included with our rail passes) from Vancouver, B.C. to Seattle, Washington. The most impressive thing we found about WA was the Space Needle, a tower with rotating restaurant and an observation deck at 520 feet. But after going almost 3 times as high in the Sky Pod of the CN Tower in Toronto, and swaying in open air 230 feet above a canyon on the Capilano Suspension Bridge, the Space Needle seemed woefully inadequate! Watching WA from the train, we were fabulously underwhelmed. We felt that we could get the same weather but with prettier foliage, more stuff to do, more for vegetarians, and medical coverage by just staying north of the border! On a whim, we hopped a train the same night to Portland, Oregon. My apologies to any offended Washingtonians.
I got pics of a pretty little bridge (lined with lights, a la Golden Gate), the beautiful historic Seattle train station, and pretty downtown Portland and surrounding areas, but it appears that our camera was stolen either from the room or the taxi. Thank God, a thousand times, that I backed everything up to the laptop in Vancouver!! However, all the pics taken since are gone. Much as we hated to expend the money, I couldn't abide the idea of passing through the California redwoods and the Golden Gate bridge without a decent camera. Since the train goes far inland from Eugene, OR to San Francisco, CA, and we wanted to see the coast, we decided to rent a car and stop by Best Buy for a camera on our way westward. The new one seems to have way less problems with out-of-focus pics, which had become a sore point for me when we snapped about 7 closeups of elk in Jasper and every single one was blurry. Got some shots of greater Portland area and the coast that took our breath away, so already it's been well worth the purchase. Will post those asap.
On Saturday we took a bus (included with our rail passes) from Vancouver, B.C. to Seattle, Washington. The most impressive thing we found about WA was the Space Needle, a tower with rotating restaurant and an observation deck at 520 feet. But after going almost 3 times as high in the Sky Pod of the CN Tower in Toronto, and swaying in open air 230 feet above a canyon on the Capilano Suspension Bridge, the Space Needle seemed woefully inadequate! Watching WA from the train, we were fabulously underwhelmed. We felt that we could get the same weather but with prettier foliage, more stuff to do, more for vegetarians, and medical coverage by just staying north of the border! On a whim, we hopped a train the same night to Portland, Oregon. My apologies to any offended Washingtonians.
I got pics of a pretty little bridge (lined with lights, a la Golden Gate), the beautiful historic Seattle train station, and pretty downtown Portland and surrounding areas, but it appears that our camera was stolen either from the room or the taxi. Thank God, a thousand times, that I backed everything up to the laptop in Vancouver!! However, all the pics taken since are gone. Much as we hated to expend the money, I couldn't abide the idea of passing through the California redwoods and the Golden Gate bridge without a decent camera. Since the train goes far inland from Eugene, OR to San Francisco, CA, and we wanted to see the coast, we decided to rent a car and stop by Best Buy for a camera on our way westward. The new one seems to have way less problems with out-of-focus pics, which had become a sore point for me when we snapped about 7 closeups of elk in Jasper and every single one was blurry. Got some shots of greater Portland area and the coast that took our breath away, so already it's been well worth the purchase. Will post those asap.
Random observation
It was quite strange to pass by the Intel Corporation, and consider our laptops for a moment. They have Intel processors, quite possibly shipped directly from that very location in Hillsboro, Oregon, to Japan for assembly by Fujitsu. From Japan they were shipped to Alaska, then (for some strange reason) to Chicago, then to us in Los Angeles. From there we immediately took them back to Chicago, on through to upstate New York, west through Canada until we were almost at Alaska, south to Portland and then swinging west right past their central office. Ironic, no? We didn't even plan it that way. It just so happens that that was the best route to the 101 highway from where we were. Nickie happened to glance to our left and see it, marked by a short red brick wall with gold lettering.
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