Ascending Thor’s Heights: The Vista House At Crown point

September 8, 2011 Comments Off read Attractions, Oregon, Pacific, Travel, USA, West

As part of our roadtripstravaganza, we stopped at the Vista House at Crown Point. Their website indicates that one will learn “about the building, the highway, the Gorge, local history, sights to see, the flora and fauna, and visitor “comfort” facilities and rest area.” I learned one: that there were no lines for the women’s restroom (a rarity at any place in the United States but particularly at a roadside attraction) and two: if you’d hooked someone the size of my grandma (about five feet tall, 75 pounds soaking wet) up to some string and put her in a billowy sweatshirt, I’m quite certain you could fly her like a kite off of the side of the building as the wind there is unbelievably strong. There were a few occasions when the wind nearly knocked me off my feet and I’m considerably heftier.

Portland: I don’t like your hippies but you make a mean doughnut

September 8, 2011 2 Comments read Oregon, Pacific, Travel, USA, West

After a long day of driving, a little hiking, and the eating of a maddeningly thin yet expensive pizza that left us hungrier after eating than before, we made our way to Portland to avail ourselves of some doughnuts infused with the power of voodoo. I’d heard over and over how amazing Voodoo Doughnuts’ doughnuts were, but as a person with a car that occasionally threatens to overheat while sitting too long at a stoplight a block away from home, it didn’t seem wise to undertake the trip. Now, however, since we were in a rental and not exceptionally far from downtown Portland, it seemed foolish not to go, so we drove there with the help of a GPS system that only occasionally told us to turn the wrong way down one-way streets or sent us on a pointless loop a few miles out of our way. It only occasionally gave us wrong directions because most of the time, it struggled finding any signal whatsoever. Every time it was threatened with replacement or someone said “oh, just turn it off”, it would chime in with a direction–but at that point, we didn’t know whether it was telling the truth or if we’d be better off trying to find the place with our noses and a dowsing rod. That we eventually found the place and weren’t directed by the unit to drive off an unfinished bridge is somewhat of a lesser miracle. Portland’s streets were full of “colorful” types, by which I mean shirtless dickbags. One such shirtless dickbag, sprawled on the sidewalk like he owned it, screamed at Jason and I as we passed. “HEY GREEN SHIRT! GREEN SHIRT! IF YOU FUCK HER, I’LL KILL YOU. KILL YOU!” What the hell, Portland? First of all, that shirt was more of an olive color. Second, I feel like I should have a say in these matters. Third, lists should have three things.

I’d already checked out their list of offerings on their website, as I didn’t want to hold up the line of people behind me waiting for their own doughnuts overly long. For my selections, I picked a maple bacon bar, an old dirty bastard, and a mango tango. Jason chose a maple bacon bar, an old dirty bastard, and a voodoo doughnut. You may have noted that there was some overlap between our choices, and further thought: “Gee, why couldn’t they have shared?” and the answer is because we don’t swing that way. Frankly, after I’d had a bite of my maple bacon bar, a bear couldn’t have wrestled it out of my hands. I would have calmly choked the bear to death with my bare hands, dusted them off, and then finished my doughnut.

I am firmly convinced that the maple bacon bar is the world’s most perfect doughnut. It’s salty and sweet, fluffy with some crunch, the flavors complementing one another instead of battling for dominance. I should have gotten three of them. Don’t get me wrong, the mango tango was delicious, and the old dirty bastard was at least tasty, but neither could compete with the glory of the maple bacon. Jason and my dad also preferred the maple bacon over their other selections, so we all had a bit of doughnut regret the next day. After our doughnut dalliances, we went to Powell’s City of Books and spent the better part of two hours there, never even bumping into another member of our group by chance. The store is truly enormous, and they do indeed carry something for everyone. I left with a book on wigmaking and another on prosthetic makeup that is supposed to be the final authority on prosthetics but has been discontinued forever. As much as I love my Kindle, I will always love printed reference material, and I can’t wait to dig in and make fake body parts!

I know what I was saying. It was on the history of Astoria and these are the rejects!

September 1, 2011 Comments Off read Attractions, Oregon, Pacific, Travel, USA, West

During this year’s long beach weekend, we made it a priority to visit the Goonie Museum, as we just missed it last time and had to settle for being bitten by the Goonie cat at the Goonie house. This museum is located inside the old county jail, which had been donated for this purpose by the city. Realizing that a museum dedicated to the Goonies alone might come up lacking, it recognizes many of the films that were shot in and/or featured Oregon, though it is still generally referred to as the Goonie Musuem.

Tell the Goonies why you’re here:

Up until this point in my life, I’d never really bothered to conceive what the inside of a jail might be like, and I’ve never had the misfortune to be forced into the experience. (Yes, once when I was in junior high, I was brought home in the back of a police car, and at one point I did attempt to visit a boyfriend who found himself incarcerated, but both of those are stories for another time, and neither resulted in me actually being inside a jail.) Still, it smelled exactly the way one might imagine a jail smells: a bit like sweat and pee and desperation. The walkways themselves were narrow and claustrophobia-inducing, and while I suppose that makes sense in terms of preventing prisoner escape, it’s less than comfortable for people visiting of their own free will.

Although it has been up and running for over a year now, it suffers from exhibits that are either not ready for the general public or are broken. In the cell area of the jail, you are supposed to be able to send your friends the link to the museum’s website so they can watch you rattling around a cell, moodily resting on a bed, or yelling for chow. That was broken. In the other section of the museum, you’re given access to video cameras and sets with greenscreens, one of which was broken. You’re supposed to be able to record yourselves through the camera and edit everything together. That was broken. We had a lot of fun fooling around and photographing ourselves in flattering light, but it wasn’t everything it could have been. But like I said, we still fooled around. Everyone’s natural ham came out in front of the camera, and we’ve taken this as a sign that we should own video equipment of our own while simultaneously knowing no good would come of it. It’s like going to a pet store and falling in love with a nervous tinkling dog named Stainmaster 2000. You love his cute face, but can you change his nature? Probably not.

After a while, we noticed a face-size hole cut into a door, which I assumed was there for me to recreate a scene from The Shining. I have no idea why it was actually there, though I suppose it could well be there for this purpose as the front exterior of the building was filmed in Oregon.

While having my Shining moment, I realized that fortuitously I was wearing my ET/Shining shirt mash-up and I had the opportunity to take an extra creepy photograph, if only I was willing to cram my boobs through a hole in the wall. As always, I was up for it.

At least, it was creepy until this happened.

After we’d done all of the fooling around in the museum that we could muster, we made our way to the gift shop and realized that each of the cameras they’d given the public to play with feed directly to a monitor on the gift shop screen. At least three faces turned beet red, and there were some strong mutterings of “Thank god we didn’t get our tits out”. There should be a warning! It’s not like we’re all of a sudden going to learn decorum on our own!