duck-shaped pain

Saturday

My dad likes to leave as early as possible whenever he goes on trips. Which is how we found ourselves on the first flight out of town, which left at 6 in the morning, a little early for a Saturday. Still, there's a point to this: if we get into Portland early enough, we have more of the day left to do more things. So, 6 in the morning it was.

There's always people I know on flights in and out of my hometown. This time, it was a guy named Don I went to high school with, who is now the manager of some large store in town. Last time I flew here, I sat next to my first grade teacher. The time before that, I was on a plane with Rick Schroeder, our town's resident celebrity.

Only the tiniest possible planes fly here. We got a relatively large one this time -- 15 seats, but I've been on ones much smaller. I hate flying on little planes, especially when flying over the Rocky Mountains. I'm always sure than doom will follow when I get on one of them. they just seem very unstable. But, if you're going to fly anywhere from here, you have no choice.

The flight from here to Salt Lake City was pretty uneventful. It's wasn't my choice to fly into SLC -- I would have rather flown into Denver, but there weren't any flights available. Plus, flying into Denver means we would have had to fly United, which means we wouldn't have gotten anywhere at all. DIA is, however, a much better airport than Salt Lake Something Airport. [1]

When we landed at SLC, I was amazed at the number of people there. I assumed most of them were like us: people on their way through to somewhere else. There can't be that many people who would go to Salt Lake on purpose, at least not until the Olympics. Then again, I feel the same way about Portland, and was surprised to find that our flight there was completely full. I kept looking at the people on our flight, wondering, why are they going to Portland, of all places.

I actually remembered to request a vegetarian meal on this flight, and was disappointed to find that no meal was being served, so there would be no special tray for me.

It was only about 70 degrees when we got into PDX, which was a nice change. Here, it's been over 100 degrees for days on end, and drier than a popcorn fart. [2] So the immediate plunge into temperateness was a nice change.

Rental car attendants are idiots. When I went to go get the car, there were four employees there: one to do the work, three to watch the work. It took forever, and then the car I requested was gone. I got a bigger car and discount because of it, so I shouldn't complain. Plus, I got a car with a CD player in it, without even asking. After three days of using it, I now desire one of my own.

We headed east, towards the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. It was close to the airport and wouldn't take a whole day to get through. My dad's original suggestion was to explore it when we drove back, while driving the rental truck. I had to tell him that this was a really bad idea, since the most scenic road through there wasn't really built to handle big yellow trucks.

We stopped to eat for a bit, at a restaurant in Troutdale. Our waitress was extremely happy and chipper, which my dad attributed to too much oxygen. Through the entire trip, whenever he saw someone acting weird or interesting, that was the official reason why. Too Much Oxygen. Unless we were in Utah, where the rationale was Not Enough Caffeine.

We drove along the Historic Columbia River Highway, stopping at all of the viewpoints and falls. Seeing a lot of green stuff all around is very refreshing, after being in the desert. I know that I'd rather live in the latter year-round, but it does one good to see the former every once in awhile. [3]

We stopped at Crown Point, which is a viewpoint where you can see vast expanses of the Gorge in all directions. This was my first visit there when the Vista House was open, which was nice. It's a pretty cool building inside, all marble and stained glass. It looks old (and it is), but everything in that part of Oregon looks older than it is.

Vista House is an official "interpretive center", which is the usual term in that part of the country (and maybe, I don't know, in other parts of the country, too) for visitor's center. I've always thought it was a weird phrase, and it makes me think of interpretive dance -- i always go to these places half expecting to see a 20-minute modern dance on the history of the Oregon Trail. One place we went to later, on the coast, had an "interpretive gift shop." Whatever that means -- I didn't want to go look.

There were plenty of people about, which is to be expected on a pleasant Saturday afternoon in August. People have to get all of their outdoor activities in before the Rinse Cycle [4] begins in about a month or so.

Still, I didn't expect to see that many people about. Most stops were manageable, even the ones where we ran into vast groups of elderly people in tour groups. It's sort of interesting to be one of the only people in your immediate vicinity not wearing a name tag and a matching hat.

Multnomah Falls was crowded beyond belief, though. It usually gets the most traffic of any stop along this part of the Gorge, since there's an exit off the interstate that goes to it. All the other falls and scenic points require people to get off the interstate and drive a while to get to them.

We walked up the trail to the bridge that spans the lower part of the falls and acts as the best place to view the upper falls. There were lots of folks joining us, taking photos and hanging out. Then, this one guy walked onto the bridge, and proclaimed loudly for all to hear, "I made it to the op!" He was an interesting sight -- he was outfitted like he was going to hike across Alaska or something like that: huge, well-stuffed backpack, bedroll, walking stick. He looked totally out of place. And, the bridge isn't even the top: the trail continues on to around the top of the upper falls. Getting up there might be a more impressive accomplishment, since even little dogs and grandmas can get up to the bridge.

I did not go into the cheesy Multnomah Falls gift shop, nor did I have a famous Multnomah Falls sno cone. Sorry.

Soon after that, we came to the end of the Historic Highway and got back on to the interstate. We stopped at one of my favorite things in Oregon, the Bonneville Dam and Fish Hatchery complex. I wanted to see the enormous, 10-foot sturgeon that lives there again, and to also see if there were any salmon there, which were absent at my last visit.

I know I like to look at fish, but I'm always surprised at how popular these particular fish are -- there's always a healthy crowd at the fish hatchery. Lots of people stop to let their kids feed the fish, and people always like to see the kind of enormous fish they can only dream of catching.

Mr. Sturgeon was there, although he seemed to be hiding, half of the time. We also saw some incredibly hefty trout, whose whole job in life is to swim around, getting sleeker and fatter by the year. Not a bad life for a fish.

I took my turn feeding the fish, and I was amazed to see how often fish would fight over the pellets I was throwing at them. Hundreds of people go there every day and throw food at these fish -- you'd think they would be pickier.

My dad tried to figure out what the food pellets were made of -- they were small and brown, like rat droppings, but they had a very aquatic smell to them. We theorized that they were once fish, too -- fish that misbehave at the hatchery become pellets after too long.

There were plenty of salmon, or, more precisely, plenty of little pre-salmon, swimming about. They were too small to see individually, but you knew they were there, because water alone just doesn't move like that. Someone tossed a hot dog bun into one of the holding tanks, which caused a near-riot among all the little pre-salmon.

The fish viewing rooms near the dam were hopping, too. Last time I was there, not a fish in sight. But this time � fish all over the place. The fish viewing rooms provide a look into the fish ladders built into the dam. If you�re there at the right time, you get to see fish struggling up the ladder, generally looking pissed at the obstacles that have been put in their way. We went to the fish viewing rooms on the Oregon side. The ones on the Washington side of the Columbia are better, in an odd way. Nobody really goes over to the Washington side of the dam, so the interpretive center on that side is usually completely empty and barren. The fish rooms on that side were built in the 1970s, and they�re still decorated in seven different shades of very deep shag carpet, which covers the walls and floors and basically everything but the fish windows. It�s pretty surreal, and would be an interesting experience under the right set of conditions.

We crossed the Columbia on spindly, narrow Bridge of the Gods. Driving over it is a disconcerting experience � you�re suspended high in the air over the largest river you�ve ever seen, and you hope against hope that nothing happens to the bridge, because all that�s between you and certain doom is a thin piece of metal grating. You�ve always put faith in engineering, and you hope that it hasn�t all been for naught, at least not this time.

The Washington side of the Gorge is less scenic, and the road that goes along it is a fairly unpleasant drive. I had forgotten how much I hated driving over it. People drive insanely on it, and since there�s less things to see, almost all the traffic is local and not hospitable to people who might want to pull over and look at something once in awhile. My rental car had California plates on it, which I�m sure made it even worse.

Hotel � okay. Nice view of downtown, at least what you could see behind the pointless twin glass spires of the Oregon Convention Center. My dad doesn�t usually like hotels, but since he left the choice up to me, we stayed a lot closer to downtown than he would have liked. Oh well.

I wanted salted squid for dinner. I love salted squid, and there�s only one place in Portland that I know of that makes good salted squid. So we went there. And it was pretty glorious. We also had garlic chicken with lemongrass, salad rolls and soup. I had a Thai coffee. I love Thai coffee � there�s one Thai restaurant where I live, and they serve it there. I�m one of the small handful of customers they have that ever orders it, something which always gets mentioned every time I go there. The older lady that works there always tells me how she used to drink Thai coffee when she went out with men when she was younger. She tells me it excites the senses.

After dinner, we had enough time to go to Powell�s. I was very glad, and I stocked up on a lot of books that I�ve wanted for awhile. I was lucky enough to find all of them used, and I also found a lot of other things I was not scheduled to find. But I did. My dad didn�t quite know what to think of the place, other than it was big and that they had a impressive geology section.

Part two � later.

[1] I actually like Denver's airport, which puts me in the minority, I know. True -- it's much too far from the city. But when it comes to just about everything else, people who complain too much about DIA didn't spend enough time stranded in Stapleton. I did.

[2] I have no idea where that phrase just came from.

[3] I mean, 150+ days of rain a year (at least) is a little much for anyone to handle.