I periodically go on Drives: by myself, out in the fresh air (generally with the top down, regardless of the weather). Over the weekend (Feb 20-22, 1998) I did a quick one. I left work at about 4:30 friday afternoon, and got back to seattle Sunday around 8pm. here's a short description of what I did. get a map if you want to follow along, or you follow along with this map in Expedia (which opens in a separate window).
4:30pm friday - left seattle. took I-90 from the eastside to I-5, then I-5 south to olympia. this took a long time: traffic was awful, there was a big wreck (7 cars, according to the radio) northbound out of tacoma that everybody southbound wanted to look at. jumped on the 101 in olympia & headed west to aberdeen (at gray's harbor). got there around 8, found a dive to have dinner at, and checked into a hotel. (the hotel room had its window open so the 43-and-raining weather permeated the place. I shut the window, cranked the heat & read for a couple hours before finally crawling under the covers & going to sleep.
8:30am saturday - woke up, showered & shampooed with hand soap. my hair is going to kill me. the rain had turned to drizzle, I dropped the top & headed south on the 101. drove along willapa bay, into naselle (which doesn't have a port, as it turns out), and over the long, high bridge over tankers moored in astoria, oregon. just south of tillamook head, 101 was detoured onto US-26 down to 53. it seems that mother nature had had her way with some of the road, so I missed the drive that include cannon beach. (Here's an picture from Expedia of Cannon's outstanding rock formations.) Because of the yucky (for some!) weather & the earliness of the season, I didn't have much traffic, so I was able to hammer along pretty quick. the miata & I were both pleased about that: the twisty road was happy under my brand new tires (& brakes & other misc from the 75K tuneup I got last week -- lucky me). and along the way, the sun came out & mostly stayed that way for the rest of the day (with a few breaks for some rain and even some tiny hail).
just south of yachats, I found a viewpoint (that's what they call scenic vista/turnouts in oregon) that overlooked heceta head lighthouse (http://www.tssphoto.com/travel_us/VSCE0080.html (it was daytime for me, but this was a great photo)), & hundred feet or so down the cliff, a pod (school? flock? mess?) of sea lions. you'd think they were rocks, but rocks don't bark or move around quite that much. they must be full-time residents, there's a "sea lion caves" tourist attraction just a couple miles down the road. just south of the lighthouse was beginning of the "oregon dunes national recreation area" (http://www.ohwy.com/or/o/odnra.htm). this means that there's a lot of sand, 100's of feet high and 50 miles long, that the sea just sort of ejects out toward the road. in some places, it's enjoyed moderate success, & there's a lot of work that goes into keeping the pacific coast highway open & (mostly) sand-free.
dusk brought me to bandon. I drove out to the north jetty & took a bundle of pictures that won't adequately express the massiveness of what the sea does here. dozens of huge logs (10 feet in diameter? larger?) have been thrown over the near end of the jetty; the far end is relatively log-free because it's regularly swept clean by the sea. oh, yeah, there's a once-operational lighthouse (http://www.harborside.com/home/r/richlite/photos/litehaus1.htm) too, but it's been replaced by a machine on the south jetty. (this picture is from the south jetty, looking northward.)
I shot pictures till the light went away (I had left my tripod at home & was only shooting 400-speed film), & then settled down for the night at port orford. I got checked in around eight o'clock, read for an hour or so, & was interrupted by the thrumming of hail on the ground. eep! it never got bigger than quarter-inch while I was awake (as if I could do anything about it) so I snuggled down & went to sleep.
woke up to partly-cloudy & cool (surprise, surprise) & no dings in my car -- the hail must have stayed pretty gentle. (happily, my roof is made of cloth, but the rest of the body's made of metal, which doesn't like impacts much.) more hand-soap for my hair. the drive out of port orford was awesome -- the road is frequently undermined by the sea & there were dozens of "sunken pavement" & "loose gravel" signs calling out where the road had been lapped at & then repaired. wow. nothing like hammering around a corner only to find the road drops out a few inches mid-corner. :) and the most beautiful haystacks just off-shore. if you've never done the southern oregon coast, it's not to be missed.
the rain came back with a vengeance when I hit the california border. california's quarrantined itself to protect its fruit crop, so I pulled into this little barn-over-the-roadway, was asked "do you have any fruits or vegetables," grinned, said no, & drove on. the only time I get wet is when I'm slower than about 30 mph, so stops are fine, as long as they're covered. 101 has a lot of little cities with traffic lights, so I get a lot of funny looks. I got to crescent city, had breakfast in the rain (340 miles to san francisco, 330 to portland, which should I do?), & turned northeast on US-199. only a couple miles out of town the rain turned into an agressive drizzle, so I put the top back down & wound my way through the redwoods. you can't do a redwood forest in a convertible with the top up. it's wrong. (I have no pictures of this portion, the trees were too big & I would have just gotten the camera all wet.)
about 1/3 the way into smith river NRA (http://www.delnorte.org/srnra.html), the tops of the nearby hills turned white with snow, & then soon the roadway followed suit. it was mostly slush, & the car tires never lost traction, but it was a little exciting wondering whether I was going to slide into the smith river or run out of gas first. :) (mom, dad, I'm kidding here. it's really hard to slide off the road & I *was* careful.)
the just into oregon, I decended back to non-snowy-elevations & gassed up at o'brien. I would have filled it up, but the attendant (oregon, like new hampshire, is a full-service-only state) said "we don't take credit cards, is that ok?" the other customer said, "have you been riding around with the top down? you're crazy." I nodded & smiled, got five dollars worth & headed on to grants pass.
once I got to grants pass and I-5, the rain was gone for good. I put on the cruise control, was in portland by about 4:30 (sunset in portland, with all its water (mostly the columbia river) ain't bad either), and home-again-home-again, jiggity-jig, was home by just before 8.
text and photos copyright david ethan zoller, 1998 -- last edited June 04, 1998 -- back home