Sugaree: Astoria, Oregon

We left Eugene mid-morning headed for the Coast. We drove about an hour to Florence and had lunch. After lunch, we just bopped up the beautiful Oregon Coast for another 3-4 hours towards Astoria. Driving along the Oregon coast is so pretty...the mountains jet up out of the Pacific Ocean and with the sun setting, it’s a scene right out of a painting. Most of the drive is like driving through the middle of an old growth forest, with giant Douglas firs, spruces, hemlocks and big leaf maples. The trees are huge and so cool to drive among them. We stopped along the way for gas. Oregon has a funny thing…in their effort to provide for the needy, they decided it was a good idea to make it mandatory that every gas station has a gas attendant to pump the gas. This was originally done as an economic stimulus to create jobs during difficult times, and now Oregonians are stuck with lazy gas attendants that feel entitled to a job that they do little to keep. When we pulled up, there was nobody around so I started the process. Immediately, a ruffled gas attendant came over and said, “Didn’t you hear me yelling at you?” “No, I said…I didn’t realize anybody was yelling at me”, I replied. After a few more grumpy exchanges, I offered her a clown nose. “A clown nose?”, she said? “Yes…I replied…it will make you happier. With that, she apologized and said that she probably hated the stupid gas attendant law more than I did. I think the clown nose may have started a thawing of her attitude, and it's my hope that she'll be wearing it and pumping gas to happy customers for the rest of the day.

It was late in the afternoon when I realized that our headlights weren’t working. This is a problem I’ve had before and had it “fixed” a few times. As the sun was setting, and it was still another 40 miles to Astoria, I decided to pull over for the night into a beach parking area that the surfers use. Immediately, a couple surfer dudes came up to check out the bus. We told them of our plight, and they said that the police would certainly come kick us out, as they do all the surfers. Around midnight, an officer drove up shining his light into the bus. I opened up the door and told him that we had to pull over because of our headlights, and he said we were fine and that he would let the other law enforcement folks know. He said that a park ranger would probably stop by in the morning, which he did, and all was good. With daylight upon us, we finished our drive up to Astoria and went and hung out on the beach for a couple hours. There was a shipwreck there, which was kinda cool and some giant sand dunes. In fact, you can sandboard just like snowboarding here.