I left Portland last Saturday morning and headed south on I-5. The leaves are just starting to change color and there’s nothing in central Oregon but trees and hilly cow pastures. I entered Linn County and a huge sign proclaimed it “The Grass Seed Capital of the World.” As you can imagine, I nearly wet myself with excitement.

Around noon I pulled into Myrtle Creek, a small tourist town, and confirmed what Shelby had told me earlier - there’s no self-serve gasoline in Oregon. It’s actually against the law to get out and pump your own gas. I told the young girl who approached me to fill my tank with regular and asked her why the law existed. “I dunno, maybe to create jobs?”

^Myrtle Creek

Further south, I exited I-5 to head towards the Oregon coast. The land dried out and deciduous trees turned to pine. I entered California. I met up with Highway 101, the famous Pacific Coast Highway that skirts the western side of the state all the way down to Mexico. I passed through the mountains and at times had to slow to 20 for hairpin turns; it was becoming clear that this route would be much slower than the taking the interstate.

It was extremely foggy on the other side of the mountains and I could only catch glimpses of the Pacific Ocean from the road.

The towns in northern California are poor. Most are small conglomerations of trailers and gas stations, with hand-lettered plywood signs by the street that advertise used tires and homemade redwood furniture. I spent this week in Eureka, a semi-touristy coastal town of 30,000 people where the median household income is less than $26,000. Portland residents ride bikes to save the environment, Eureka residents ride bikes because they can’t afford cars. Picture a mixture of Key West, Mayberry, and Dodge City, with two heaping scoops of economic downturn stirred in.

The town does have some cool old Victorian houses, but I can’t forgive it for producing Brendan Fraser.

^ The Carson Mansion

After more than two months in large cities, it was good to hear people use phrases like “ain’t gonna” and “howdy”. Every other radio station plays country, which I appreciate. People in Seattle and Portland have no accent or local dialect - their speech is generic, like that of a national news anchor. At the Widmer Brewery in Portland the waitress gave me a small sample of a seasonal beer when I was seated. I liked it and asked for a pint, and when she brought it she said, “Here’s your burr, honey.” I thought she had a southern accent until I looked at the menu and saw that the name of the brew was “Brrr Red Ale.”

While I’m on the topic, a few blocks from my Eureka hotel is the Lost Coast brewery, where I ate supper on Wednesday night. I ordered the Pastrami Burger and was served a giant hamburger made of grass-fed beef topped with ample slices of grilled pastrami (yes, pastrami), swiss cheese, and Thousand Island dressing. It came with fries with a parmesan and mustard seed seasoning. Lost Coast also offered a beer sampler, which is several ounces each of ten of their beers, along with a flyer describing each one. I sipped them all and thought about how cool it would be to tour microbreweries around the world and write about them. Maybe that’s 2009.

Today, I quit working a few hours early and drove back north on Highway 101 to see the redwoods. It turns out they are really really ridiculously massive. This particular species is Coast Redwood.

^ To convey a sense of scale I took off my shirt and hung it on the tree bark. It’s a Large.

^ A placard introduced this specimen as simply “The Big Tree.” Several people took turns posing for photographs.

^ The Big Tree. I’d guess that it’s 18 feet in diameter, or more than 55 feet around, which probably makes it hard to find jeans for it at J.C. Penney.

A ragged one-story motel on Highway 101 with 8 or 10 rooms has a sign proclaiming that it was built from a single redwood tree. I’d believe it.

There are many road signs in the area warning of elk crossings. On the way back, I finally saw some wild ones in a large fire-swept clearing.

^ Deer are skittish and moose are shy, but these elk acted like dairy cows. I was thirty yards from them and they didn’t pay any attention to me or my truck’s noisy dual exhaust.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll leave Eureka and see how far I make it. When driving west and south on US roads, the mile markers and exit numbers count down, telling you how many miles you are from the edge of the state. I’m at 711. I’ve got a ways to go.