Come As You Are - Then Go Home!!

Aberdeen, WA

Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend - Monday was BC day. Believe it or not it was the first bank holiday that came that didn't happen to fall on an oncall week for me which meant we could leave the city for a few days. So we decided on Wednesday to head south the the states - maybe end up in Portland. I tried hiring a car downtown on Tuesday and was told there was none to be had! So I had to venture further afield to a suburban branch of Budget car hire. That would have been just my luck - 3 days off in a row and not being able to leave the city because all the hire cars in the city were taken. But we eventually got one, and early on Saturday morning I got a taxi out to Kingsway driven by Greg7. Greg had moved from Montreal over 30 years ago on his way down to California but unfortunately has yet to make it south of the Canadian the border.

This sign recently replaced the original bullet holed one

As it turned out, the trip turned into a mini rock pilgrimage. After waiting in line for over 2 hours like a good Canadian to cross the border we skirted around Seattle - home of the bringers of undanceable "first dance" music - Minus The Bear (we still have to drop in to the city to take a look) and headed south towards Tacoma and Olympia in Washington. Aberdeen Washington is the hometown and birth place of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana - kind of like a Grunge Graceland - so we (I) went about 100 miles out of our way to check the place out. A very scary place indeed. We were abused energetically and vociferously no less than six times by groups of local men with spare hair in pickup trucks. It was hard to make out exactly what insults they were throwing as they sped by but "Go Home!!" was a common one I believe. When you think about it, the place is a complete out of the way dead-end where nobody would even consider visiting unless spurred by a morbid voyeuristic rock n roll curiousity like ours (mine). The town's most famous son (if you don't count Bill Boeing he of 747 fame) a manic depressive junky who ran out of the place as soon as he got the busfare together, spent the rest of his life insulting the indigenous redneck population and bitching about how awful a place it was to grow up ....and then promptly blew his head off. Not exactly a shining ambassador for sunny Aberdeen. The place is pretty impoverished and very run down. Mullet Hairdressing and Logging are its primary industries - all the cardboard houses have big dirty dinosaur logging trucks and pickups propped up on bricks parked crooked outside. It's kind of like The Glen Of Imaal with uncontrolled sprawl. A huge hispanic population aswell which we found kind of weird - maybe because it doesn't tie in with my Glen of Imaal comparison. We didn't have any information on addresses or places of interest (the Haggard practiced in Sarsfields clubhouse in Newbridge for example - no blow-in could possibly know this without having Poggy or Pop or Keg as a guide) and Aberdeen sure as hell doesn't have a rock n roll stroll, so we kind of just wandered around, abuse bait for rednecks.

As defence I'm neutered and spayed - synchronicity in Aberdeen

We passed through Montesano aswelll - home of the Melvins (who play here next month - woojoo!). A very unlikely place of origin for the kings of stoner rock. I would liken Montesano unfavourably to Prosperous Co Kildare .......but with a cathedral. We also drove through Ellensburg WA on the way back - home of The Screaming Trees. Why such a concentration of amazing bands from such an unlikely corner of the the Northwest? We came to the conclusion that just like theres about a million metal bands in Allenwood and an above average concentration of soft rock bands from Port Laoise.... there's feck all else to do in these places if you're not into becoming a mechanic or a mullet technician. That theory does beg the question why isn't Port Laoise soft rock or Allenwood metal any good? We passed Sleater Kinney road on the way through Olympia aswell. So thats where they got the name.... Apologies for all the boring music references, but it really was great fun for me visiting all these places I'd read about years ago. Poor M, even with her proud grunge-kid heritage didn't seem to enjoy the magical mystery tour nearly as much as I did.

What spending a few hours in Aberdeen can do for your IQ

We camped overnight in Schafer State Park near Brady WA then headed for the Columbia River Gorge near Portland in Oregon. We knew absolutely nothing about this place before we arrived other than it was meant to be purty. Apparently it's also the windsurfing capital of the world - the gorge acts as a wind trap generating year round dependable gusts of wind against the current. We pulled into Hood River a gorgeous little town right on the banks of the mighty Columbia River. The place was full of surfer dudes in RVs and pickups with bikes, surfing gear, dogs, jet skis, female companions and even kids all strapped on to the roof.

Outside Brady, WA.

We got in early to the campsite, cute hoors that we are, and got a lovely spot right beside the river. Our most recent camping purchases were 2 blue collapsible camping chairs - deluxe deck chairs basically. Every campsite is full of them and you're really not at the races unless you're sitting beside a campfire perched on one of these things with a bottle of beer in one hand and a Canadian flag in the other - the Canadian flag becomes even more indispensible if you're in the US. We went looking for firewood and bumped into a lovely man on the beach who said he had tonnes of the stuff, brought us back to his house and there in his garage was a small pile of what used to be some kitchen units and some other bits and pieces of miscellaneous furniture. Whatever he gave us burned like the hob of hell though. We melted a few of our neighbour's tents with our campfire that night.

Tacoma WA

On Monday we drove back through Portland spending the day wandering around record shops and bookstores. We had a delicious cinnamon bun breakfast in a gorgeous cafe near Burnside somewhere (see photo below). It's a very laid back city with a very vibrant music scene and very similar to Vancouver in that it's constantly voted one of the best cities to live in. We spent a couple of hours in Powells City of Books - apparently it's the largest bookstore in the US, taking up one and a half city blocks, ate lunch at a swish vegan restaurant (swish and vegan are words which you don't see together very often - normally vegetarian restaurants are dark malodorous places which leave the bang of soup on your clothes for days - anyone remember the Winding Stair Cafe in Dublin?) and were on our way back over the Columbia river for the epic soft rock accompanied return leg home to BC. American radio is tragically bad, sucky to the max. A suck sensation. Total journey was 1800km. We were both very happy to see our bed that night and thankful to Nickleback for keeping us safe on our journey home. These five words in my head scream are we nearly there yet? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no.

Portland, OR

Portland, OR

The brother of the man who gave us his kitchen to burn

That's not a deckchair, THIS is a.... Is your dog OK?