Post-Vacation Blogging - Day 2 - Portland to Klamath, CA

On Day 2 of our vacation adventure, Phil and I got up early to go get our rental car from the Portland Airport. After the $2 ride on the TriMet to the airport with all of our luggage (and a very interesting conversation with a lady at the train stop who had taken a day-trip to Portland to look for a house and had her purse stolen so she wasn't able to get home to Washington -- no money, no ID, no credit cards), we arrived safely at the Hertz desk to pick out our carefully-selected vehicle.

We'd heard rave reviews of Hertz's NeverLost navigation system, so we picked Hertz entirely for that reason with our cross-country drive ahead. To shorten a long story, they didn't have any cars with NeverLost systems in them in Portland except for H2's, which they refused to give us as a free upgrade from the Ford Escape we'd reserved. So, we ended up with a Ford Edge. It turned out to be a nice vehicle except for the light-colored dashboard that reflected annoyingly every time we broke through the shade of the trees into the light. It drove nicely, though. If it wasn't a Ford, we'd consider getting one.

Another thing about this particular vehicle was there was no tape adaptor for us to hook up our iPods like we do for our usual long road trips. We determined to stop at the next Best Buy we passed to pick up an iTrip. We've purchased and returned iTrips at least three times, so we decided to keep it this time whenever we were able to get it.

Our first stop with the Edge was Multnomah Falls on the Columbia River Gorge. It's an amazing area and a must-see if you're ever in the area. Here's one of the pictures a nice bystander got of Phil and me in the rain at Multnomah Falls:



On the way out to the falls, we were searching desperately for coffee and breakfast. We didn't find anything on the way there, so we visited the falls and continued our search on our way out of town. We sadly settled for McVomit's (a.k.a. McDonald's) where I decided to be a coffee snob and, therefore, was fighting a car-nap the entire morning while Phil drove. We both determined this was a poor start to the driving portion of our trip and vowed not to eat junk and fast food (and, consequently, have diarrhea) the entire time.

Our next stop of the day was to visit our college friend Darla who now lives in Eugene, Oregon. We got to meet her precious son Mars, but missed her husband Jason who was at work. Darla also took us to the warehouse of the place she's been working for the past six years, Swahili Imports. Her boss travels all over Africa and hires artists and craftsmen and women to make lots of their creations, then she imports them and sells them in The States. They have two physical stores right now, but they're also selling wholesale to suppliers like Pottery Barn, World Market and Crate and Barrel. This is one of those places where I told Phil he could go into the store blind-folded, grab something and give it to me for a present and I'd love it. :o) It's beautiful stuff and they're supporting micro-enterprise big-time in Africa.

We also grabbed Baja Fresh with Darla and Mars (our first trip there, too). I just kept laughing when she suggested it because Paulie on The Sopranos episode we watched the night before called it Baja Fresh (with the emphasis definitely on the hard, non-Mexican "J"). Anyway, we thought the food was mediocre at best compared to Wahoo's or Chipotle, so we'll stick to Wahoo's and Chipotle. Then, Darla and I got Ben & Jerry's while Phil got coffee next door. We dropped Darla and Mars back off at home and headed west to the coast!

We hit Highway 101 at about 4:00 thinking we had about four hours left to go to get to our hotel in Klamath, California. Of course, we also thought Highway 101 was the historic "Pacific Coast Highway" that went along the coast with amazing ocean views. After a little while, we realized we had to go west another mile or two from Hwy 101 in order to actually see the ocean. So, we kept driving and just pulled over somewhere in southwest Oregon for pictures using the tripod and remote, since no one was really around. Here's my favorite one:



We finally made it to our hotel in Klamath, California at about 11 pm. We thought we could grab dinner at the next town after we took pictures, but it turns there were no places open after 9:00 in the next town, so we went dinnerless. Thank goodness for the Nutter Butters we had picked up at Target on our way out of Eugene!

The place we stayed in Klamath was a gem I found on Google Maps in the "find business" search function. The Ravenwood Motel was very cute, very inexpensive, and the management was extremly kind and helpful. Their website is an unfortunate display of a bad FrontPage template (what other kind is there, really?), but we'd definitely stay there again anyway.

All in all, Day 2 was a success and great fun -- especially considering we braved it with no coffee, no dinner and no iPod entertainment. It was amazing to discover we could survive in such conditions ... and still have a blast! Day 3 recap coming tomorrow. Stay tuned!