We are meticulously law abiding. When we come to communities that have banned overnight parking in Walmarts such as Galveston, TX or Glen Springs, CO, we don't throw up our hands and attempt to stealth camp. As tired as we may be, we accept that this community does not want our business and we move on. So when we got a ticket for overnight parking in Pasadena, CA, we thought it must be a mistake.
It is a maze of twilight truths. Darkened, mysterious rooms hold strange oddities that might have been picked out of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford or have been designed by an artist inspired by history and the occult. Rooms delve into ancient medical traditions, a tragic actress, trailer parks, early space travel, and a monk's studies into magnetism to explain the divine's intangible but powerful influence in the world.
We have always had greater ambitions for Dodgy than just a bed under a truck shell. You don't need a 3500 Dodge Ram truck to go camping in the redwoods. It's impressive. Maybe it might make some guys with the chromed out 1500s feel a little inadequate but that is their business, not ours.
After a delightful night in the Redwood Forest, we figured the rest of our return journey would be rather rote. It was time to dig in and get to our friend's house outside of Sacramento where we could take a break from traveling and get some work done. But little did we know what a truly beautiful remainder of a trip we had left. Well, we did rather know. I made a point to route us along the coast for a while before heading inland for a mountain pass. So I knew there would be beaches and sea side views. What I didn't expect was an elk crossing.
In keeping with our tradition of shoehorning additional stops into an already busy schedule, we extended our trip by a day to camp in Redwood National and State Parks. Parts of it are national. Parts of it are state. As far as we can determine, there aren't any drive in camping spots in the National park, so we found an ideal spot at the State Park. The site is flanked by massive redwood trees, within hearing distance of a sonorous river, and a hop skip an a jump from bathrooms that don't stink. To me, the perfect spot.
Oregon Caves National Monument preserves stalagmites, stalactites, and rock formations such as Joaquin Miller's Chapel, The Ghost Room, and Paradise Lost.
Deep in the woods of South West Oregon is Clear Lake. Deep in the depths of Clear Lake is an ancient forest. Trees that had grown on a prehistoric valley floor were flooded 3,000 years ago when a lava flow blocked up a river and flooded the valley to create Clear Lake.
I'm not sure if Willamette Valley pinot just appeals to a different taste than mine or if the people of Oregon are getting ripped off. We've spent the last few days touring vineyards and tasting rooms across the Willamette Valley and expected more than what we experienced.
Nearing the conclusion of our trip to Portland, we couldn't help but draw it out a little longer by taking the "fruit loop" around Mount Hood. As 84 got busier, we diverged onto 35 where produce stands sell fruit, nuts, vegetables, and other locally grown produce from the side of the road.
No, not that Stonehenge, the other one. The one along the Washington-Oregon border that some road baron built along with his utopian society. Samuel Hill had dreams of creating an ideal quaker community. Instead, his home is now an art museum and he is, possibly best known for his concrete reproduction of Stonehenge. The Maryhill Stonehenge happens to hold the distinction of being the first WWI memorial in the United States built to honor the dead. It may have helped that it was built before the war was even over. At the time, scholars considered Stonehenge to be a place of human sacrifice. As a Quaker, Hill considered building his Stonehenge as a reminder that people were still being sacrificed to the god of war.