My name is Eugene

Does anyone besides me remember that skit from SNL?   That Eugene was from NJ, but he might fit in here.  Yes, we are in Eugene, OR.  It’s biggest claim to fame seems to be the university, that did look pretty nice as we drove through.  Downtown is okay too, a reasonable small city, but it is divided by a river and has some serious lack of bridges. 

Hard to imagine that our day started in CA.  As predicted, we left the motel pretty early with a strong desire to find a decent place in the evening.  (We did, we are actually in one of the last available rooms at a Comfort Inn - a handicapped room, so it’s big - even bigger than the giant trees and that’s saying something.)

So, when we happily left Crescent City this am, it was to take state hwy 199 to cut up CA and meet the interest.,  Hwy 199 is like 4 different  roads in one.,  We started, it was giant redwood forest.  Like traveling through the forest primeval.  I know I keep saying it, but really, these trees have to be seen to be believed.  Giant does not begin to express.  We stopped at a trail, parking at the point the road turned to gravel and there were some of the biggest trees we’ve seen yet.  M. climbed onto just the roots of one and seemed dwarf like.  Not in height - though certainly that too, but in girt.  Forget enough width to drive a car thru - I think two cars might have been able to fit.  There was stump that was 2 times the size of the bathroom last night (which did I mention was painted tangerine orange?)  

Seriously, I lay down on the stump - and I couldn’t reach the edges in any direction.  It was stunning.  There was also a burnt center tree - though the  outside was still a good 5 inches thick and was growing new tree - that I one I could stand in and not touch the walls.  The size is …amazing.

The road as you progressed left the forest and entered the mountains.  Another narrow road bringing new meaning to the term snakes around.  On one side - the earth went straight up, on the other, straight down to a rocky river.  It was beautiful, particularly when the road widen a bit and there were guard rails.  Thankfully in those sections that were just about two car widths, there were railings.  Then the road would open out in the valley and become almost a highway with multiple lanes.  It went past small towns,  touristy towns, lots of chain saw art lots of mountain views.  We know mt are not my thing, but this was impressive and very beautiful.

The mt here, much like the ocean seem much bigger and pointer.  Oddly, this is less negative to me than the mt’s back East.  Still, don’t get me wrong, I prefer the ocean and I prefer the East.

Along this route we stopped at the Smoke jumpers museum.  It’s a small place, trying to get by.  It used to be a base, but the base closed in the 80’s,  They spent a lot of time fighting with local politics to get the base back as a museum and it’s only been such for a few years.,  It was being manned today by an elderly gentlemen who used to jump there.  He gave us a full tour.

While on the one hand, it was probably more than I needed to know, he was also very charming and it all was far more interesting than one might think.  The process of jumping into a fire area, then having gear and food dropped to you.  THEN after the fire out, having to take all the stuff and hike out of the forest… pretty impressive. 

Exciting for me was getting to see a parachute - I never realized how long they were nor how many ropes are involved - fascinating is how they are packed so the ropes don’t tangle.  I also learned that whole concept of smoke jumpers started when Japan sent balloon bombs to the US.  The idea was to catch the forests on fire.  But they sent them in April - rainy season and the plan was figured out, and stopped and therefore unsuccessful.  Had they sent them in July it would have worked.  There was a whole unit of Black soldiers, the 555 who were trained to jump and disarm the bombs.  It was pretty cool.

Leaving the museum we saw giant pinecones!  They’re the size of cantaloupes.

We next stopped at a location that billed itself as a Burl Gallery.  (this is the kind of art made from burls of trees - the gnarly like warts?  Lots of  Gandalf looking faces - not very exciting, but the guy who lived and ran the place was wearing a utility kilt.  Now, a regular kilt would be unique, but I’d never before seen a utility kilt - one with multiple pockets and places to strap things.  Interesting.

Joining the interstate with headed further north - seeing the edge of the Cascades.  Very different mountains.  So many pine trees, even though they are much smaller than the giants, they are still big.

We detoured to see Noah’s Ark - it was billed as an animatronics display and restaurant.   The building is made to look like an ark and there are pairs of cut out plywood animals surrounding it.  Unfortunately, it was closed.  Though as we were figuring this out - and bright blue Mazda zoomed in.  The woman driving had  a mop of blonde curls, a bright blue sparkling dress with gauzy scarves wafting off it and, my fav, a large floppy leopard print hat.  She told us she was closed b/c  the hotel across the street was open (a grand opening, I think?) and she had to do the food.  She’d be open again later.  We didn’t wait.

Getting to Eugene we got the lodging set and headed to see the Cascade Raptor Center.  A private/non profit raptor rehabilitation center.  There were about two dozen birds - hawks, owls, 2 bald eagles, plus.  All very nice, gorgeous birds - all with some kind of heartbreaking story as to why they couldn’t go back to the wild.  But they had a very nice home and that was good.

No strange food today and no other excitement.  We’re pretty tired.  Tomorrow we expect to be in Portland.

P.S.  I forgot to mention - we are just leaving Bigfoot country.  Driving 199 - I could see Bigfoot living in the neighborhood, but I did not see him.