It’s OK I guess: A trip to Cape Disappointment

February 29, 2016 Comments Off read Attractions, Pacific, The Great Outdoors, Travel, USA, Washington, West

I thought it was pretty funny that they printed a sign for fog.

But by gum, they were right, that fog was front and center. Evidently, it’s one of the foggiest places in the United States. Take that, San Francisco, and eat it with your regional treat!

Possibly the poopiest rock of all time.

As with a number of things on my 33 list, I didn’t have a big pressing reason to add visiting Cape Disappointment to its number. I’d never been, it sounded scenic, it was within a reasonable driving distance, hey, let’s go. It’s actually not a disappointment at all, between the superb Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center and the miles of hiking trails in Cape Disappointment State Park. We hiked from the interpretive center to the lighthouse which took us past the picturesque Dead Man’s Cove (man, everything here has such a cheery name, I can’t wait to visit Butt Rot Park and Misery Peak, maybe Mediocre Cliffs if there’s time). The lighthouse is a working lighthouse as the nearby Columbia River bar is extremely hazardous, so a sign sternly informed us to leave the coast guard the fuck alone and get the hell out of the way of any cars driving up and down the path.

I thought it was funny that in the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, there was a “lighthouse passport” with insane levels of achievement for collecting lighthouse stamps (seriously, I could spend the rest of my life’s vacations solely visiting lighthouses and I don’t think it would be possible to collect 420 unique lighthouse stamps…shit, I’m struggling with 33 activities in a year!) and then when we got to the lighthouse, there was no actual stamper on site and I didn’t want to distract the coast guard for something as frivolous as a stamp for a book that I didn’t even buy. It turns out that a lot of the stamps for visiting the lighthouses are at locations other than the lighthouse, which means that you have to visit two places for every one stamp, and that half the achievement is just figuring out where in the hell you’re supposed to go for your stamp. What I’m saying is, filling a lighthouse passport will not be on my 34 list.

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Scootin’ San Juan Island

November 9, 2015 Comments Off read Attractions, Pacific, The Great Outdoors, Travel, USA, Washington, West

Almost a year to the day from my last visit, I set sail for San Juan Island, this time to explore more of what the island itself had to offer. Rather than take my car across on the ferry, I elected to rent a scoot coupe: a two-seater, three-wheeled moped that tops out around 40 miles per hour. The only thing standing in my way was the fact that my moped experience was limited to riding on the back of my second host father’s scooter in Taiwan–I’ve really always been more of an indoor kind of rebel, saving my leather wear for goth clubs and looking cool rather than for anything that might require that sort of protection.

My rental place did go over the ins and outs of driving a scoot coupe: don’t leave one of the buttons pressed in or your battery will drain. You have to manually disengage the turn signal because otherwise it will just keep blinking forever. Always put the wheel chock in front of a tire when parked. Always engage the brake lock when parked because of the inevitable kids playing on and around the coupe and their tendency to dislodge the chock. There is no reverse, one of you will have to get out and push in a reversing situation. Don’t go on any road that’s not on the provided map. Don’t try to u-turn on any of the roads because your turn radius is so enormous you’ll end up in a ditch. Speaking of which, pull over when cars are behind you so you don’t impede traffic but don’t just pull over blindly or you’ll probably end up in a ditch (don’t end up in a ditch). Got all that? Ok, drive that baby across the parking lot. You now have ten feet of experience and out into traffic you go! Of course, I immediately got flustered and missed the first turn, which meant poor Jason had to figure out the map and shout the new directions out at me because those big ass-helmets they have you wear are not super conducive to hearing. Or my ears clamp shut when I’m in a panic-type situation. Maybe both.

Once I got the hang of things (which actually happened fairly quickly), I had a lot of fun driving the scoot coupe. It felt like I’d somehow escaped a carnival with a souped-up bumper car, and had a great time careening around corners with the wind blowing in my face. It was late in the year, so there wasn’t a ton of traffic on the roads save for other scoot coupes, and we always honked and waved, which made me feel like I was part of a tiny adorable gang.

Since you can essentially drive around the island in one big loop, my first stop was at American Camp. As I’ve briefly talked about in a previous post, San Juan Island was the site of a territory dispute between the United States and England, with the island’s strategic position between the United States and Vancouver island, and as a result, both Americans and the English attempted to settle it. One day, an American farmer, Lyman Cutlar, found a pig digging up and eating his potatoes (not for the first time, either), so he shot it. The pig turned out to belong to an Irishman, Charles Griffin. Cutlar offered Griffin $10 for the loss of the pig, Griffin demanded $100, the British threatened to take Cutlar into custody, and in response, the other Americans on the island called for American military protection–thus sparking what is now known as the pig war. There was a lot of saber rattling on both sides, warships circled the tiny island, but ultimately no shots were fired. An American camp was established on the south of the island and an English camp was establish in the north, and eventually outside arbitration from Germany determined that San Juan lay within the boundaries of the United States. AT&T, however, still disputes that notion as I received a text message welcoming me to Canada and helpfully informing me that I’d be charged out the wazoo for data.

At American Camp, in addition to the visitor’s center and some historical buildings, there are a good number of walking trails that take you down to the various coves and the lighthouse at South Beach. I ended up taking one of the trails to Grandma’s Cove after briefly seeing what there was to see in the visitor’s center–it was too gorgeous out to stay inside for very long. I didn’t end up hiking to the lighthouse because I was concerned about spending too much time in one spot on the loop, so after a bit more time checking out the laundress’ and officer’s quarters, it was back into the scoot coupe to putt to the next destination: Pelindaba Lavender Farm.

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I’ve always said that movies could teach us so much: a visit to Halloweentown

November 4, 2015 Comments Off read Attractions, Oregon, Pacific, Travel, USA, West

At least six people messaged me this year to tell me about St Helens, Oregon, the city in which Disney’s Halloweentown and its various sequels were filmed. Much like Forks embraced Twilight, St Helens has embraced Halloweentown, and each October, the entire city gets Halloween fever, with haunted cruises, tours, car shows, contests, and bonfires with live music and ghost stories. The area in front of city hall is even decorated the same way it was for the movie. Situated just north of Portland, St Helens is within ideal daytrip distance from my home, so I decided that it was imperative that I visit.

Also like Forks, the media that put the town on the map is…objectively not great. Wellll, let’s say, subjectively not great. After all, I was a bit too old for the target market even when it was first released (and that’s if my family had cable at the time which I don’t think we did so I couldn’t have watched it even if I had wanted to), so I didn’t connect with the series the way some people even a few years younger than me might have, and I also don’t have the nostalgia of watching it with my kids or any of the other things that give you that warm Disney glow. Instead, I was a thirty three year old watching a movie that’s basically a Halloween episode of The Magic School Bus with a villain known as “the bad thing” which may put me on some kind of watchlist as a potential child endangerer somewhere. And then the next day, I watched Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge, which could have also been titled Halloweentown II: Rehashing the First One. I guess there are a few more sequels, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch them, not in the name of research, not even under the influence, no thank you, Sam I Am, you can keep your cheesy jokes and children’s squabbles. But I still decided to visit St Helens, because I’m always down for spooky shenanigans, even when it’s based on not-that-great media. Maybe especially if it’s based on not-that-great media.

All of the events in St Helens for the month of October are listed on their website, and I chose to attend the weekend of the pumpkin carving contest and haunted hot rod classic car cruise-in. If I had gone the week prior, I could have met one of the actresses from the Halloweentown movie (OH BOY!!), but I’m really glad I didn’t–I have a friend who lives in St Helens and attended that weekend and she said the crowds were absolutely insane: “Fifteen thousand people crammed around that damn pumpkin. Never forget.” When I visited, it was thankfully much quieter and in the sweet spot for these sorts of events: enough people so you feel like you’re part of a festive event and not some sad unintentional ghost town, but not so bustling that you can’t move around freely. There was still a line to pose with the various photo opportunities, but none of them were very long. If I had to elbow and jab my way in and wait in line for an hour or more to take a photo with a plastic pumpkin, I would have been very displeased.

Speaking of photo opportunities, St Helens knows where its bread is buttered, with various decorated benches and thrones, all inviting you to share your photos on social media (hashtag SpiritofHalloweentown hashtag StHelensOR hashtag KalabarNeverForget hashtag ThankYouDisney hashtag WeAcceptAllMajorCreditCards hashtag CashWorksToo hashtag NeverGonnaGiveYouUpHalloweentown hashtag HowLongCanIDragThisOut). Who was I to disobey?

While waiting in line for the plastic pumpkin photo op, I couldn’t help but notice a very familiar looking ornament on their Halloween tree–a plastic skeleton keychain with red rhinestone eyes. Why familiar? Way back in the days when people joined order by mail clubs, (we’re talking the halcyon days of 1996 here, people) I joined the Stephen King book club and the exact same skeleton keychain was my free gift for joining. As a stupid 14 year old, I thought I was getting a really swell bargain, buying books at cover price plus shipping…and a really rippin’ free keychain. I don’t know how they got my name, I don’t know how they knew I was really into Stephen King and at the most gullible stage of my life, and I sure as shit don’t know how I paid for it, but I remember hanging that plastic skeleton off of my backpack and feeling like the biggest badass who ever strutted down a hallway at school. Actually, now that I look it up, that book club is still a thing, and they still offer a free gift with membership and I hope to god it’s still the same keychain because mine fell apart a decade ago and I could definitely use a new one.

Even their garbage cans are Halloweentown themed!

“Hey, skeleton, whatcha thinking about?” “Skelly stuff.”

Also, if Forks doesn’t want Twilight anymore, St Helens will take that, too.

After voting on my favorite carved pumpkin (no photos as they were all behind reflective glass and were also old enough that they were getting spooky in ways their creators did not intend), I scoped out the haunted hot rods. I have to assume that the people who own classic cars devote a good 75% of their free time driving around to various events and showing them off with the community of other hot rod owners, and the other 25% is polishing the car and acquiring new decorations. Much as I want my very own macabre mobile, I’m not ready to commit to that lifestyle just yet. It is fun checking out the way everyone has a unique take on tricking out their vehicles, though.

I have to assume this last car is actually haunted as it was not decorated in any fashion but still parked prominently in the “haunted hot rods only” section. Ghosts in the machine? Poltergeists in the spark plugs? Revenants in the radiator? Who you gonna call?

DUMP STOPPERS! I have chanted “dump stoppers” every single time I heard the Ghostbusters theme this past month which ended up being more often than you would probably believe, sometimes in public. It also works as a variant of that charming song of our youth, Diarrhea. “When you’re out on a date and your ass begins to quake, DUMP STOPPERS cha-cha-cha.”

All in all, it was really cool to see how this entire town pulls together to celebrate Halloween, whether it’s by supporting the main events at city hall, offering festive treats at their restaurant, or decorating their yard. I’ve often thought it would be neat to live on a street where everyone goes all out for Halloween, the way that some streets get a reputation for Christmas decorations. But since St Helens would be a hell of a commute, I’ll just have to be the change I want to see in my own neighborhood.