Oregon Daze

I spent three days in Oregon last weekend and am just now recovering. Was it a dream? I think not! I have photos! And a few foggy remembories! Perhaps some of you old codgers out there remember the movie "Stand By Me." It's a 1986 coming-of-age film that was shot in the town of Brownsville, which I passed through around 8 o'clock Monday morning. Brownsville is historic by Oregon standards, settled in the mid-1800s by hearty souls who thought the chest-high grass around the Calapooia River would be good forage for their cattle. Brownsville is where the pool table flat fields of grass seed meet the knobby hills that are the goose pimples of Oregon's Cascade Range. It's also home to the Moyer House, which again at circa 1881 is almost pre-historic by Oregon standards.

My trip to Oregon was fruitful in more ways than one, though it was a bit harried by meetings and being tied up in Eugene all day on Monday. On Saturday I managed to stop in at a roadside stand outside of Portland for Red Haven peaches that were delightful. And as you can see above, I skedaddled from Eugene to Portland Monday evening to catch my flight home, but not before stopping at the Burgerville at 26th and Powell in the Rose City for an Oregon blackberry shake and Tillamook pepperjack cheeseburger with bacon. That meal alone was worth the trip. Oddly enough, that same Burgerville made the news two days later when it refused service to a mom on a bike rolling through the drive-thru. The outrage in Portland -- a biking mecca -- was palpable. You never know what people will get worked up about. On a side note, my buddy Sol Neelman is a professional photographer and shot the Burgerville photo with my little point and shoot camera.

My trip was all too brief. Next time I hope to spend more than a few harried days running around the state. But I definitely had an Oregon moment Monday morning about 7 a.m., when I strolled out of a friend's house in Lebanon to walk around the block. I nearly got frostbite. Wow, it was cold! It was like 50 degrees! Oh yeah, I thought, it's cool here in the mornings in summer. I managed to take a couple laps around the block without getting eaten alive by a polar bear or having to call 911 because I was on the verge of hypothermia. This morning I just got back from a run and it was a relatively cool 72 degrees, but the humidity was about 1,000 percent. Needless to say, I didn't have to worry avbout any polar bears.