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A mellowing and meandering trip through this American life. Follow the adventures of Jan, Jack, and Patrick as they take you on a whirlwind trip through Washington, DC's seedy underbelly of cut-rate poolhalls, thrift stores, and temp agencies.

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Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Greetings from Central Oregon's Bend Public Library!

I am driving in a zig-zag fashion from California to DC with my friend Jan. We camped last night atop Mount Garfield on Crater Lake. It got a bit cold up there. We forgot our tent so that means we are camping under the stars. I think a bat landed on me last night (which is nice because it meant that the flies and mosquitos had to leave me alone for a bit). And the Lodge at Crater Lake was serving $3 dollar microbrews--which have a devastating effect at 6,000 feet--and made the night hike to the summit all the more tricky. Woke up for sunrise (because of?). Tonight we are headed to Hell's Canyon on the border of Oregon and Idaho to do a little fishing.

Apparently 45,000 people live in Bend, Oregon. They have a mercedes, BMW, and Audi dealership. Also, a sweet public library.

We've gone swimming everyday (to continue the Resing-swimming theme), first at a Orr Springs 200 miles north of San Francisco. Nice place, if a little official and hippy-ish. The road there was certainly much more interesting than the place itself. Fresh Blackberry bushes though.

Next we took the coolest road in all of California, Route 211 out of Humbolt State Park to Ferndale via Petrolia. We tried to find some fish amongst the wild Petrolia River, but were unsuccessful. The road, though, was a crazy one and a half lane affair through Redwood Forest, up-over-and-along the mountain and valley systems, and then a final descent to the Pacific shore. Fun driving.

The next day we headed into Oregon along the Smith River. At one point I saw a neat bridge in the distance, so we headed for it. And went over it. And drove along Craig's Creek for awhile. It looked pretty cool, so we pulled over to take a closer look and realized it was really cool. The water was aquamarine (sort of fake-green looking) and deep and the creek was at the bottom of a rocky gorge through the hillside. After a vaguely-disconcerting decent to water over mossy boulders we hopped in. It was bracingly cold and that combined with the altitude made me feel dizzy for pretty much the rest of the day. But it was fun swimming amongst the boulders.

The trip is pretty much up for grabs after that. There is a chinese place I really like in Butte, Montana. Grand Tetons? A little Northern Utah, too. Then a trudge across the midwest.

Any ideas?

patrick

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