Day 3

Today, I could write a love letter to Oregon.  So I think I will.

We started the day in Ashland (Talent, Oregon, to be exact) and got ready to head out for a long day of driving and beauty!  We stopped at the co-op in Ashland and grabbed some yummy vegan foods (prepared delis with well-marked salads and hot dishes as VEGAN are so appreciated).  I even got a vegan donut, which was good, but just a sad little prelude to the epic bingefest that will occur at Voodoo Donuts in Portland.  Then, we said goodbye to Ashland, which was a really cute and charming city.  It reminded me so much of Ithaca, New York -- eerily so.  I wonder if the West Coast and East Coast cities have any idea that they are little twinsy city sisters.  

Then we ventured out to Crater Lake National Park.  It was about a 2 and a half hour drive northeast, through pretty trees (God, Oregon, ENOUGH with the trees already!) and finally into the national forest and park.  We were up pretty high, and the temperature drop was radical.  There was snow on the ground!  Yesterday morning we were in Yuba City, which is like a sauna, and today, there was snow on the ground!  WTF, weather?!  WTF, elevation?!  Anyway, Crater Lake was like, shit-your-pants beautiful.  Like, majestic volcano dinosaur magic lake status.  I’m not sure what that means, but it’s basically just a long string of adjectives that came to my head to describe the lake.  We tromped around and took lots of pictures and like, sang some worship songs (this is a lie.  I am not religious, but if I were to fall in love with Jesus, it would likely happen here.), and posted a bunch of shit on Instagram and Facebook.  Turns out it’s the deepest lake in the U.S., and it was also crazy blue.  And the whole thing just smelled like awesome Christmas.  Seriously, Oregon, you have an abundance of trees, we get it.  

What followed was a beautiful, but long drive to Portland.  Lots of little po-dunk towns and trees (duh).  Observation: Only saw two cops in Oregon so far.  One was a sheriff car in one of said po-dunk towns, and another had a truck pulled over on the highway.  Dude, if this were California, we would have seen approximately a zillion cop cars!  Fuck da police, California!  California has as many cop cars as Oregon has trees!

Portland = awesome already.  Ate some delicious vegan burritos from a Mexican food truck in the NE neighborhood (Alberta to be exact).  We met up with Clark, who is on his mobile home pilgrimage, and he ate burritos with us.  Then we ate soft serve ice cream (with vegan caramel sauce) from an all vegan bakery called Back to Eden Bakery down the street.  Oh Portland, I cannot live in you, for you will make me morbidly obese!  But seriously, I am in a place with all vegan bakeries and a vegan menu at a Mexican food truck?  I am spazzing out and trying to act like a bear in the Winter storing up for hibernation.  I am still extraordinarily full.  The three of us stood on a street corner for awhile and then Michelle Sager (high school and childhood friend) came by and WE talked on the corner for a while.  She lives in that neighborhood and was wandering around, and it was really nice to catch up.  She gave us some bar/neighborhood/yoga recommendations for tomorrow and next week’s Portland experience.  Tomorrow we’ll eat donuts and do yoga (normal) and do other lots of cool stuff.

And oh yeah, we’re staying in Beaverton, which is a suburb about a half hour southwest of Portland with Mary Kay’s friend Beate and her family.  It is nice to stay in houses!  

So tired.  Goodnight, blog.