Good day from the Oregon Coast. We are enjoying a typical evening in the R.V. Kim is reading a book while James goes stir crazy. Fat man in a little house, fat man in a little house. Tommy Boy fans will get the line. I spent an hour in vain trying to dial in some t.v. via satellite or antenna, but NO. I then picked up the guitar for a while and now I am typing on the blog. Kim is very content in the back of the r.v. under the 12 volt reading lamp. Kim is just content in general. It can be a challenge living with the eternally chipper. James says "this rain is a bummer." Kim says "but look at all the sunny days we have had." James says "$3.89 for gas, they're smokin' crack." Kim says "think of all the times we paid less than $3.00!" James says "This guy is a (bicycle horn)!" Kim says "he might just be having a really bad day." She is always sunny! It is tough to hang with, so I decided to stir the hornet's nest, as it were. Yesterday morning I engaged a rather hard corner coming out of the campground and the fridge door flew open, spilling it's contents onto the floor of the r.v. Kim jumped out of the passenger seat immediately to deal with the mess. I don't know if I was trying to drive home the importance of latching the door correctly (3rd time Kim has failed to do so) or I was just venting a little cabin fever steam, but I decided to take the next two corners really hard, rolling fridge contents and Kim around the floor. Let me assure you there was a consequence for this moment of indiscretion. When I finally stopped the rig, I walked around and opened the side entry and quickly closed it. I caught a glimpse of what I was pretty sure was the devil sans pitchfork and decided to keep it stowed inside the r.v. for a few more moments. Jekyll had turned to Hyde and I was not going to turn 'er back too easily. My pleas for a kiss went unanswered, my promises of chocolate went unheard, only time took care of this one, and of course an admission of utmost guilt.
We have made our way to Astoria, Oregon. Yes, Lewis and Clark made their way here to end their long journey in quest for a east- west trade route via the river system. This is where the mighty Columbia River hits the wild Pacific Ocean and creates one of the most hazardous river bars in the world. The wake where the two bodies of water hit is often 10 - 14 feet high and the river is miles wide here. Astoria was a huge salmon canning town until good ol' mankind raped the waters free of good salmon runs. HOWEVER, the most important fact about Astoria in Kim's mind is that the Goonies was filmed here, she insists that the house you see pictured along with this blog is the Goonies house. The first person to accurately confirm or deny this claim will get a prize. (t-shirt, jelly, nature sound c.d. or shot glass or something touristy like that) We went up to the Astoria Column and you should be able to tell which was the column in these pictures. Kim and her columns. Well , it was cool and there was something along the lines of 2387 stairs to the top. I felt like Fatty Mcghee when I made it to the top, "Yes, the view is beautiful, just don't ask me any more questions until I can get my lungs stuffed back inside my chest cavity."
The maritime museum in Astoria is awe-some. For all you Arkansas rednecks, maritime has to do with boats and oceans. It was very well done, so much info on fishing boats, dugouts, coast guard boats, sloops, schooners, and battleships that it almost made my head explode. We were in there three hours, I need to upgrade my hard drive to 80 gig 'cause I absorbed so much information that my brain locked up and now I can't remember any of it. I do remember that an astrolabe is a very ineffectual instrument for navigation and that being a coxswain on a Coastguard boat means you have big brass ones and I'm not talking astrolabes. The coxswain is a coastguard sailor or captain or such. The risks those boys put themselves under to save a couple of white trash fisherman on a Saturday salmon and beer junket is commendable. If you like oceans and boats, go to this museum!
Off to Newport. Take two rings, one smaller than the other with a net tying them together. Strap a piece of dead flesh to the bottom and throw it in the bay. Wait for 20 minutes and pull it up. Sift through the contents, usually too small or wrong sex and you have the all-consuming sport of crabbing for Dungeness Crab. I went out for 14 hours and caught four keepers (male over 5 3/4 " across carapace) I still had a blast. The people you meet and talk to are very nice and sometimes interesting. I left the pier at 11:00 p.m. with my four keepers to the jeers of the locals "if you're going to leave 'cause of a little rain, you'll never be able to fish in Oregon!" I reckon this is the only time I could come home at midnight with the crabs and it would be o.k. with Kim. I cooked them right then and we ate right then, they were delicious.
Crater Lake, or shall we say pea soup lake. We went towards the interior of Oregon to see the acclaimed beauty of Crater Lake. We stayed at a very nice campground on Diamond Lake, caught the sunset and it was perfect. It rained all night and we woke to a 48 degree R.V. We stayed in bed until at least 9:00 a.m. and then big snow flakes started to fall. I don't know what kind of primordial trigger this tripped in Kim, but she saw the flakes and kind of freaked. "We need to leave, we need to leave now!" "What, it's 50 degrees out, it's not going to stick!" With that bit of logic, she calmed down. We gathered up at our usual pace. Kim went to take a shower and I proceeded to empty the fridge. Three egg omelet with leftover Canadian Black Forest Ham and Tilamook Sharp Cheddar, and sliced.... oh come on I ran out of Bistro menu adjectives for my mushrooms. Anyway, it was a true gem of an omelet, perfectly cooked. I reached for a plate and in my haste knocked the jar of spaghetti sauce out of the micro pantry/ dish cabinet onto the floor. No forgivey. Cabooshgi! Sketty sauce on every square inch of the kitchen and my clothes. Fat Bastard haste gets me again. I had it almost all cleaned up before Kim got back from her shower. We found sauce bits for a couple of days after, but no lasting damage. We drove to Crater Lake, the higher we got the harder it snowed. When we got to the entrance gate and showed our get out of jail free card (80.00 annual park pass that has paid for itself twice now) the park ranger said "your best chance to see the lake is on the East Rim." Not a good sign. The lake was completely fogged in with snow and mist clouds. The visitor center ranger said it was going to snow for two days. We boogied back down the mountain to Ashland. It was a Bohemian little town where they have the Shakespeare festival and an very pleasant park with lots of cool foliage. I can see why my Uncle Tom the green thumb recommended it. We spent the night in a noisy rest area and headed back over the mountain to Gold Beach. I had decided earlier to take this route because it appeared to run along the Rogue River. My father said this was a pretty drive as he remembered. This drive was 65 miles of steep, very windy, one lane at times, rock slides in the road at times, nowhere to turn around remote road. It took three hours to drive 65 miles. We got to Bandon, Oregon where we found a nice campground in the sunshine. The surf is big from the storm that came ashore yesterday. We walked to downtown Bandon, which is picture book quaint. There are seafood shacks next to a perfectly maintained wharf area. We walked down the pier and met several nice old couples. One couple was from Grants Pass, Oregon which we had passed the day before. We told them the route we took to get over to Gold Beach. The lady said "Oh my god, are you crazy? In an R.V? Do you not know how dangerous that road is? There have been two families stranded on that road. One family got there R.V. stuck and they were up there for two weeks and only last year a Man died trying to walk out of there!" It was then that we realized she was talking about Mr. Kim, the man all over CNN last spring break who got off on a wrong road and got stranded with his wife and child. After burning the tires from his car and exhausting all resources he died trying to go for help. I remember asking myself last year "how in the hell could you get off the beaten path like that and then die trying to get help?" If we had had a quick coastal range snow storm and slightly colder temperatures. Let me tell you, there are no road numbers posted on this road, but the maps show it as a viable route from Interstate 5 to the coast. Sobering, no wonder the three people we passed looked at us as if we were just crazy. Kim's whole paranoia about snow kind of made a little sense. Women pick up on crap like that, so they can protect any babies they might have. It is info stored in the uterus, but good info nonetheless.
We had dinner tonight at a pizza place in Bandon. We have had seafood a lot lately and decided to give it a break until lunch tomorrow. After dinner we walked back to the pier to check the crab net I had left in the water. As we approached the pier I saw a freshly trailered fishing boat. In the dark I could make out the sign on the side of the boat. 'Memory Makers' Fishing Guides. Without surveying further I went into a spiel. "Memory Makers, yeah right! What, the memory of freezing your ass off out on the high seas, puking over the edge, and not catchin' jack squat!" Not realizing that the guide and his wife were only 10 feet from me cleaning their fish in the fish cleaning station. "Oh, hey. How's it going? See ya got some there" I said feeling like a jackass. "These are what they call King Salmon" said the short, grey-bearded man. He had a very gentle voice and I could tell he would accept my barrage of fishing questions, the usual where at?, what bait?, how deep?, how big? etc. He answered all of my questions without hesitation. I informed him I was from Arkansas and would never be a threat to his fishery. I asked him about the "Memory Makers" name to smooth over my previous embarrassment. "Oh, we take terminally ill children and their loved ones on fishing trips to try and give them lasting memories", he said. A wave of heat passed over my face and all I could think was "Please Lord, let me have bamboo shoots shoved up my fingernails by a hundred Chinamen for eternity, just don't let him have heard what I was spouting earlier about his slogan." My mom says I was born with my foot in my mouth, I guess at 41 years old I am still choking on my toes.
Well, I have rambled on. Kim is asleep. You would think by looking at her right now that she is awake and enjoying her book. She is on her side still holding the book in an upright position, but I know she is sound asleep. There is a 90% chance if I ask her "good reading" or "awesome book, huh?" she will come to, turn a page, mumble an answer and act as if she was never asleep. It is the cutest thing, but kind of selfish of me, so I think I will just carefully slip the book from her hands and turn off her reading light. My mom is right, I am lucky to have found such a sweet person.

Bandon is a cute place. The people here all seem to be retired and friendly. There is a whole community of crabbers, they come down to the pier around 9:00 a.m., come and go around meals and such and leave around 5:00 p.m. Everybody looks out for each other's stuff and they all act as if they have know each other since kindergarten. They are nice to me, but I'm not old enough to be included in the old fart's circle of trust. After 12 hours of crabbing I caught at least a three hundred crabs and only one was a keeper. I am officially done with crabbing for this year!

We headed down to the Redwoods today(October 3) There was beautiful coastline to be seen in Southern Oregon. I am quite sure that I found the spot where the Big Lebowski ends. For those of you that have seen the movie it is the spot on the coast where Walter (John Goodman) throws the ashes of their deceased buddy and they blow right back into The Dude's (Jeff Bridges) face. Here The Dude says "Everything's such a (model tee horn)..ing travesty with you Walter. Its that spot. I have included pic on the next page. Can I get a confirmation? We don't have the dvd.

The Redwoods are huge, but the Park isn't so awe inspiring. Don't plan a week long trip, but definitely see these trees on your way to Oregon or something. We are camped now in an expensive, no amenity campground in Northern California. One of us will update in San Francisco.

Hop on your Harleys and contribute to the noise pollution on Dickson St. this weekend.

Love, James