Category West

We come from Springfield and we sell swampland!

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It’s no surprise that I’m a huge fan of The Simpsons (Worst. Kept. Secret. Ever.) and have been so since I was a kid. Any cromulent fan knows that historically the show has been very cagey about Springfield’s location, because it’s a very common town name, and thus everyone could choose to believe that The Simpsons’s Springfield was also their Springfield.  When I was a kid growing up in the midwest, I was certain that the ‘real’ Springfield was Springfield, Illinois.  Even though sometimes they went to the ocean. Or climbed mountains. 

In 2010, Matt Groening let it slip that the ‘real’ Springfield was Springfield, Oregon, which I suppose shouldn’t have come as a surprise, given that Matt is from nearby Portland, and many townspeople’s names come from Portland’s street names. Springfield, Oregon has embraced their cartoon likeness, and in 2014, they dedicated a wall to a giant Simpsons mural to take their relationship to the next level. A groin-grabbingly good mural.

oregon-day-one-6-of-14New York’s thataway, man!

oregon-day-one-7-of-14It’s the Springfield tire yard! The fire is forthcoming, presumably.

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There’s also a small free Springfield museum that supposedly has a Simpsons couch for photos, but thanks to my blundering numbskullery while planning, they were closed on the day I rolled through. DOH! Next time, Springfield.

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Spotted on the Roadside: A Passel o’ Possums

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Are possums the critter most suited to tending your autobody needs? These guys would definitely have you believe that’s the case. Or are they out for revenge, judging from the tire imprints that go around the midsection of one of their young? Looking for an excuse to get up under your hood and start bleeding your brakes? Either way,  don’t go playing dead when you see the bill–they’ll see right through it.

Spotted on SW 9th Ave in Albany, OR

Sunburn and Bugs 2016: Home Again Home Again Jiggety Jig

Comments Off on Sunburn and Bugs 2016: Home Again Home Again Jiggety Jig read Everything is Terrible, Idaho, Mountain, Oregon, Travel, Washington, West

 

day-eight-1-of-3This is probably a good place to play post apocalyptic power struggle games. It’s also probably a good place to have a rusty shank slipped into one of your organs.

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I’ve had some rough travel days (getting a wicked butt sunburn the day before a 7 hour flight, sleep deprivation, minor illness, etc) but this day was, by far, the worst travel day I’ve ever had. I was at peak illness, the kind of sick where just getting out of bed to sit in one place for hours on end seemed like an insurmountable task.  It started off bright and early with a trip to the Boise Whole Foods, where Emily made me drink something that tasted like a berry-flavored sheep’s stomach and also pushed some other kind of cold medicine in my general direction. Rachel offered me some sudafed, but like all nervous white people, I’d heard that episode of This American Life about acetaminophen and I had no idea how it would react with the aforementioned berried grassbile, so I declined.

I clung tight to that nervous no for at least a couple of hours, until we started going through some large changes in elevation fairly quickly. My ears were super plugged, and at one point, the pressure and pain in them was so severe that it seemed a likely possibility that my eardrums would rupture. I begged Emily to pull over at the next available exit to give my ears a break and then I sat out on a bench in front of a gas station, stuffed some pills in my facehole, and sobbed like a baby, which is a sure way to win the love and respect of the other people in the car who were probably already a little tired of your shit. Speaking of which, I promise to never give sideeye in the direction of a crying baby on a flight ever again, because those babies are tougher than me. I eventually collected myself and got back in the car, the sudafed making the rest of the day’s mountain passes more bearable. And dang, it was nice to see the rich green of the Cascades after a week in the desert, because after twelve years in this state, seeing them feels like coming home.

So, could a powerlifting animal rights activist, a driven psychology student, and a loudmouthed crybaby fart machine spend eight days and nights together in close quarters and remain friends? Or at least not intentionally drive off a cliff to end all of the farting and inappropriate jokes?

 

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Yes. Yes we could. Stay tuned for Sarcasm and Stomach Bugs 2017: The Harpies Take Manhattan*!

 

*Not actually a thing. Yet.

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