Portland, I (heart) you

I am relaxed for the first time in days. Father Jaye's relentless globetrotting for work garnered him some serious Marriott point and we've got a 2 room suite that costs a month's rent for free. They gave me a separate room because of my intermittent surliness. God bless my erratic temper.

Once rested and showered, we struck out to walk around the town. Being next to the river and having unnaturally clear weather for portland, we wandered along testing the restaurants for financial feasibility. Somewhere near an adorable little park, and across from the indutrial buildings doubled in the river refelection, we stopped at this great steak house you'd expect to accompany your parents to and settled in to feast on Pork Sliders with cole slaw. Fantastic, I must say. After a microbrew or two, I am happy to say I am in Portland. Finally.

At least, until tomorrow.

Day 4. Tired. Tired. Tired.

We only had 5 hours left of driving. Amazing that we held our tempers so long. Talking is at a minimum. Landscape pretty. Stopped in Eugene for the loveliness of Kowloon's although, god help me if that town wasn't designed by stoned hippies. It makes no sense. Dropped cousin J at Junction City. What it's junctioning to, I couldn't tell you.

Arrived Portland to insanely frustrating traffic patterns and extreme annoyance. If someone ever needed an effing nap, it's now. Will shoot anyone who comes to my door.

Ashland, would that you had an enviable infrastructure.

Day 3 driving North from the Diego of San.

Obviously, we're getting a bit cranky. Cousin J showed up tossed as an English Football Hooligan, but gamely went to sleep after 40 ounces of starbucks and two hours of Harry Potter on tape. God bless that man and his mysteriously soothing british accent. After yet another like 800 hours of driving, we ran into Dottie's man, R, on the great vastness of I-5. After a surfeit of increasingly vague cell phone entreaties, we all landed at the side of the road somewhere near the cali-oregon border. Needless to say, the scenery picked up mightily north of sac-town as there was now foliage present. Still a mess of desert intermingled with pine trees, but at least there's green where there was only dirt with a side of dirt yesterday. Cousin J took off with R in his company car to Grant's Pass while Dottie, Penny and I prevailed ourselves on Ashland. Unfortunately, I have extremely selective hearing due to my eroded attention span and took an inventive track to the Ashland hotel. This concluded my auto tour of most of Ashland and I found it to be a charming and quaint town. I say quaint with the highest regard as it is four times the size of my hometown.

Realizing that we would be left destitute should we not find sustenance before the sidewalks automatically rolled in at 6PM, we ventured out. Penny guided us to the local park (having spent high school years here) then around downtown. Adorable little city, but the prices in shops liken themselves to california. Should I live there, I would be able to afford none than the Salvation Army. After assuring us that our souls would be sucked out of our brains if we settled there, Penny left us for family dining with multiple children. Dottie and I got the local sourdough pizza and retreated to our cave to never speak again until the dawn.

Morning came and I snuck out with my camera as the landscape was breathtaking so long as you took care to walk a few blocks, cross the highway and lean over the fence into the blackberry bushes no longer bearing any fruit. I shall post pics if I can ever find that infernal cord to connect el computadora.

Day 2: Shall we be conquered by Sac-Town?

Buoyed by the Pirate Party, we cut careful swathes up the I-5 in our prized Honda and Scion (mine, totally not the box one). Good lord, I had thought San Diego a bleak prospect when one leaves the moneyed areas, but it is no competition to the wanton barrenness that defines the middle part of California. Certainly, I am aware of the unadorned nature of the "flyover states" separating New York from Frisco, but the middle of Cali is awful enough to convince one that even Laura Ingalls Wilder had it good landscape-wise. Sure, we could have taken a little detour and visited Death Valley for the sheer cheek of it, but none of us wished to prolong our tour through the 98 degree (it's nearly october, dammit) impersonation of a blank slate.

As we hit the pillows on discomfiting (and alarmingly small) hotel mattresses, I would like to send a shout-out to cousin J who may or may not be getting blind drunk at this very second. I shall never forgive you, sir, if you vomit in my car.

Lap of Luxury

Pirates were afoot at the Marina Del Ray houseboat contingency this evening. Rumor has it that partook in vast amounts of Benedryl and organic free range cheeseburgers. Terrified onlookers blanched as their terrifying cries of "yet another crepe, my good man" rang across the icy waters of a bay of indeterminate depth.

Day 1 is complete of the northern pilgrimage of the Sisters Jaye. We were housed by the excellent Penny and her longtime beau who fed us and even housed Dottie's vindictive feline. A fantastic breakfast was set before us and even attended by Eliza and her new man. It was one of those wonderful meals that wants for neither conversation nor a meteor to break up it's interminable boredom. However, the nonstop laughter was a bit trying on my nerves. Is it possible to be too diverted? To like your company in excess? It is hard to keep a severe countenance with chocolate milk spilling from your nose.

In closing, several notions were decided on the Houseboat: first, I am to be known heretofore as BetaWhore; second, Oprah is in all likelihood the same person as Bill Gates and one day, not long from now, will rip her "rich white man" mask off during a press conference a la scooby doo and require PC users to read White Oleander; third, I require more than 4 hours sleep to be sufficiently entertaining.