Yesterday took us to the Oregon Zoo in Portland. It was a gorgeous day for the zoo, bright and sunny and warm, but not miserably hot. Even the driving wasn’t bad — I-5 was busy, but not too awful. The zoo’s parking lot was packed full, so we had to stalk a lady with a stroller back to her parking spot and lurk until she drove off, so we could have it.
The zoo is sizable, and really pretty, but we missed the most active time for the animals, so many of them were hiding. Mike was particularly disappointed that we couldn’t see the tigers or leopards. Still, we did see a lot of cool animals.
This is the Oregon Zoo’s allicrocigator. Okay, so I don’t remember what the sign said, and can’t tell which this is. Fine. It’s much more fun if it’s an allicrocigator.
I got a pretty good shot of these two bald eagles, largely because they had turned around to give my Jim the shit-eye. All birds, except for owls, hate Jim. It’s a little creepy the way they go after him. In fact, he got buzzed by the ducks a little farther down the path.
This is an Asian Elephant. He stopped to pose for my camera, which I thought was very polite of him.
The hippos were huge. Like, the size of my Yaris. Jesus, those are big animals.
The mountain goats are the first animal you see when you walk into the Oregon Zoo. They’re very placid, and could not care less that there are people about.
The Polar bears were very active. They were putting on quite the show for their viewers, jack-assing around in the water, chasing each other. The big fellow with the red ball was having a blast balancing the ball on his nose and doing back flips to launch it into the air.
I got him just as he was about to flip the ball. How cool is that?
I also got a great shot of this somewhat shy owl. She was hiding, but turned her head to peek at me when I when to take a picture. I told her she was a very pretty owl, but that didn’t seem to help much.
Bad Mike! What are you doing to that poor bear?!
Monday, we picked Mike up at PDX and took a drive down the Columbia River Gorge to Multnomah Falls for lunch. In case anyone is wondering, the gorge is still gorgeous. Heh. See what I did here? Yeah.
Here are two shots of Multnomah Falls, from the parking lot. Unfortunately, I was a bad photojournalist, and forgot to bring my good camera with me, so I had to rely on my cell phone for these shots.
After lunch, we drove out to Hood River, aiming for Mt Hood. We missed the turn-off to go up to Timberline Lodge, which was annoying, but we did end up driving through the high desert in eastern Oregon, through the Cascades. I’d never been out there, so that was pretty cool. It’s just weird how you can drive from the lush, verdant Columbia River Gorge into frickin’ high desert in, like, an hour. Well, more like two, but still. It’s like Oregon is made out of left-overs from all the other states.
This is just outside Terrebone. We drove over the bridge, there, and pulled into a turn-off on the side of the road to get some pictures of the gorge. From there, we drove down through Redmond and caught 126 to Highway 20, taking us through the Cascades. Where it snowed.
Now, I’m a Michigander, so I know a bit about driving in the snow. However, I know absolutely nothing about driving in snow through mountains. The road is about two feet wide and twisty-turny-uphill-downhill, and granted, I wasn’t driving through snow on the ground, but the road was wet, and it was snowing as I drove. I’m fairly sure that everyone behind me hated me.
On Tuesday, we took Mike out to the coast. The plan was to hit Depoe Bay so we could show Mike the spouting horns, but the horns weren’t spouting when we showed up. Fail. Still, we did get to see a whole bunch of pretty along the coast, as well as see the nastiest port-a-john in the history of ever, outside the Depoe Bay Whale Watching Center. Seriously, y’all. Ew.
After puttering around Depoe Bay for a bit and finding most everything closed, we decided to head for home. On the way back, we turned off Highway 101 along the … um … Otter Crest Scenic bypass … thingie … yeah. Look, it was pretty. I wasn’t exactly reading the signs. This thing.
Along the scenic loop, we found this little cove, so, of course, we had to pull over for more pictures.
Still images don’t really do the thing justice, though, so I took some video to go along with it.
After soaking up plenty of pretty in this spot, we drove further along the bypass, and came to Cape Foulweather (here). It was breathtaking. All the pictures in the world don’t do the sheer scale justice.
Tuesday night, Mike treated Jim and I out at Aqua. Ladies and gentlemen, this was the best meal I have ever had in my life. The food was made of mouthgasm. Words cannot do this food justice. I had the Seafood Pappardelle Pasta, and it was absolutely divine. Mike got the Ginger Chili Hawaiian Mahi Mahi, which was a magnificent blend of sweet and spicy and savory. Jim had the Seared Diver Scallops, which melted on your tongue like butter. OMG. I need a cigarette just thinking about this meal. We also had the Lokelani Prawns for appetizers, and those were just brilliant. For dessert, we indulged in the Kilauea Lava Cake, a bit of chocolate-filled chocolate cake floating in a gorgeous, deep red raspberry sauce, which made for a perfect blend of sweet and bitter. Mike and Jim each had a slice of the Raspberry Mango Cheesecake, which was beyond words. It was sheer heaven.
Stop what you’re doing and go eat there. Do it. Now.
Wednesday, Mike and Jim went on a wine tour up around Salem, with Jim’s sister Kaci, and they had a great time. I took the day off to do school things. Today, we had slated whale watching in Depoe Bay, but Mike woke up sick, so we scratched that plan. No idea what we’ll get up to today, but we’ll get more pictures. Expect further updates later in the week!
Look! Pictures! (Finally, right?) Jim and I took a trip to the coast today. We took Jazz along, and she loved it … until she got wet. Then it was not cool at all. But, anyway, there’s a ton of pictures here: road trip pictures, coast pictures, photos of the new apartment, all kinds of fun pictures. I didn’t get them all labeled yet — I’ll try to go back and do that later on. Until then, enjoy!
Jim and I have determined that you call people from Wyoming “Wyomers”. That must be right — it’s proper conjugation. At any rate, yesterday saw us through Nebraska, and to a neat little motel run by the cutest little old Asian lady ever. (Korean, apparently — Jim saw her with a Korean/American phrase book.)
There’s not much to say about Nebraska, really. The eastern half of the state is pretty blah. Corn and cows and minor hills … and a whole hell of a lot of sky. Iowa had that too. I think it’s just because there’s not much getting in the way of the view. Michigan’s all clogged up with trees, so we don’t get that expansive view of the sky, like they do in Nebraska and Iowa.
At the very western edge of the state, the country abruptly turns cowboy on you, and suddenly, instead of cornfields, it’s all ranches and cows and horses ranging everywhere, and the scenery goes from green-yellow with prairie grass and black-eyed susans along the edge to all brown, with lots of bluffs and cliffs and steep, rolling hills. It doesn’t quite work up to real mountains, but it tries hard.
Also, Nebraska and Iowa? Very windy. Like, pain in the ass windy. It’s blowing my little Yarrr-is around a bit. Makes driving fun, particularly when passing semis. Although the fields of gigantic industrial windmills are pretty cool to see. Kind of ominous, really, all of them facing the same way, blades slowly turning … like they’re standing watch.
Oh! And a word to the wise about Nebraska — careful getting off I-80 through there. Just because the road signs say there’s a gas station or a something off the exit, doesn’t mean that the actual gas station or whatever is actually anywhere within 50 miles of the exit. And if it is, it’s the only damn thing within sight.
We found that out by pulling off to find a place for lunch. We drove and drove and drove and drove … and finally got a bit nervous and turned around. Actually, we probably only went about ten miles or so, but still.
And now, we’ve had our breakfast at a Shari’s (with Wi-Fi) just down from our motel (which did not have Wi-Fi), and we’re ready to take off for the day. We’re considering a detour to see the dinosaur graveyard a bit north and west of here, and if we do that, I’ll get pictures for everyone!
We made it through Iowa yesterday — four hundred some-odd miles, and about eight hours of driving. It wasn’t bad — we hit a nasty storm in the afternoon, and I actually had to pull over on the side of I-80 for awhile. 
The storm itself would probably have been drivable, if it hadn’t been for all the blow-back off the semis. Other than that, there’s not much to report for Iowa. The driving is pretty enough, with all the hills, but it gets hypnotizing after awhile. There’s just nothing but hills and corn, seriously. You get excited when you see some trees.
We did spot a hotel, Days Inn, I think, square in the middle of a cornfield. No, really. There was no exit off I-80 to get to the hotel, and what looked like a dirt access road going by it, but other than that, it was smack in the middle of a cornfield. No real lawn or anything, just corn. It was bizarre. Jim and I finally decided that the farmer’s cornfield must be so goddamn huge that he had to have a hotel at one end. We also saw a barn-stormer, some guy in a bitty prop plane swooping and diving and rolling over the hills. That was pretty neat.
Also, a note to the Iowa-Illinois border people around I-80: Guys, you should put some sort of scenic pull-off there by the Mississippi. I’d have liked to stop and have a look when we drove by, but all the exits there went on to other highways. There was no place to stop and sight-see. Poor planning, I think. I mean, I-80′s a major through-fare, and travelers would probably like to stop and gawk. Just saying.
So far this trip, going by the doggy “if I piddle on it, I own it” rules, Jazz owns my brother’s barn, my Mom’s rug, a rest stop near Lansing, MI, one in Illinois, a Super8 in Morris, IL, a couple of rest stops in Iowa, a Casey’s General store in Adair, IO, and a Quality Inn here in Lincoln. We’ll keep you posted on that.
Oh, and Colbert’s I Am America (And You Can Too!) was pretty good. We listened to it on CD the last couple of days. We may try Lewis Black’s new one, today.
(Psst! The pic is from Jim — a shot he snapped in Iowa. He made the poster for me last night. 
Click to enlarge!)
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