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Sonoma County

 Latest
Sep 132011
 

We leave the coast and Highway 1 at the Russian River and head inland to meet the Blue Team at their place near Sebastopol. I’m pretty happy to leave the endless twists and turns behind for a while and keen to experience proper American Interstate Freeways  - however, the last piece of Sonoma Coast was looking fascinating: Dry, brown, yellow and red hills scorched by the sun, falling into a turbulent ocean, a thin strip of dense fog covered the beach and played with the views from the cliff top.

Finally reunited, Earthcircuit spend a relaxed evening together. The last time we were together was at Big Bend Hot Springs.

The hunt for Burning Man tickets continues and ends suddenly in the well-mannered figure of a Dutch guy called Joost who can no longer go and has identified us as the deserving Burners. A tense couple of days while we validate the tickets, transfer the money and change the name, hoping everything’s OK. $600 for something as intangible as a ten-digit code to be presented at an office in the middle of the desert…. Hmm.

Interstate 5 and the Global Highway

 frontpage, Latest
Aug 062011
 

Global Highway Route Map

We need to get some names. Andy and Dunia-How-Do-You-Spell-That just doesn’t do the job any more. Today I met two people called Mud and Friday. We met a Free Eagle and an Angel – though, actually, I think Angel was her real name and Free Eagle got unstuck when trying to remember if his email address had two or three ‘e’s in the middle. But we’ve had Leafs, Trees and Winds. Their school registers must read like Led Zeppelin lyrics or something.

Dunia has suggested I start calling myself Ropey. In English English, ‘Ropey’ means feeling a bit ill or when a building, structure or vehicle looks unsafe. I’ll have to find out any American connotations. She, of course, has the biggest problem with her name; trying to get the locals to understand it. I think the difficulty is not so much that it’s an unusual name but that they are not sure about her accent and whether Dunia just said maybe an actual word if only she had said it with an American twang. We worked out that Dunia has to ask unknown Americans to say her name on being presented with it on a piece of paper so as to hear how it should be said. Let’s hope they can read.

Interstate 5. Beautiful country south of Oregon where a range of hills divides the green from California’s brown. First the fields go but the lush trees remain. Then 100 miles on, there are fewer trees. By then, the road is dominated by Mount Shasta, another massive, majestic volcano. Interstate 5 is part of the Pan American Highway – we’re seeing signs for Los Angeles and we can imagine the Mexico and Panama Cities coming up… Beyond even that, as the Interstate 5 straightens out across California’s northern plains, the landscape opens and you can imagine being part of a Global Super Highway – the world connected. The Earthcircuit.

Portland

 Latest
Aug 012011
 

After a smooth drive down the Columbia River Gorge, we hit the Interstate’s tangled flyovers and arrive in Portland. Our first impression’s it’s a city with a small downtown, through which we cruise looking for somewhere to park, blagging a space in St. Mary’s Cathedral parking lot. And it turns out that we are only a few minutes’ walk from Powell’s – a massive new and used bookstore that the guidebook states is Portland’s ‘biggest draw’. Well, yeah, it’s a pretty cool bookstore – with coffee shop ,I Love Powell’s t-shirts, buskers outside, etc – but what does this say about the rest of the city? We spend a couple of hours looking at the books which are all new and second-hand on the same shelves. I mean some are like a few bucks when it always seems like the one you’re really into is 20 dollars. How do they know that?

Later on, strolling around the neighbourhood, we find the inaugural event of PDX’s First Thursday – DJ, artwork, free booze and people chilling out in the large underground parking space used by PDX pedi-cab company. I   meet some push-bike  couriers who tell me Portland has half a dozen company of a few riders each – they all get like an hourly wage which is pretty low but Portland is a chilled, easy city to work, I’m advised, where couriers come to retire. I also meet a Deafie. My third so far in the USA after 12 days and more than I met in Europe in years… I had met a couple of people at the Rainbow who had cochlear implants. One of them had to show me his before I noticed – the other seemed to have a way to go deciphering sounds and modulating his speech. But this third guy has no gadgets or implants and is 100% hearing impaired. He’s pissed; pissed on alcohol and pissed that I’m only 50% and can’t do sign-language. Have to learn Sign. But ASL or BSL?

The next day, we hook up with some friends of friends in another part of town close to Alberta Street which is the trendy area, 200% Shoreditch. In amongst the crystal shops and stores selling home-raised, dolphin-friendly tacos with free Wi-Fi, we manage to find hamburger and fries for $3 at a Mexican place. The amount of Spanish-speaking people is unreal – always the guy at the gas station or the custodians of the cheaper stores – our Spanish software has started to boot up, turning over and firing into life… And, proving the smallness of the planet around which we orbit, I get to meet a good friend of an old, good friend from back in London. We are beginning to like this city quite a lot but we’re impatient to see the ocean. We drive southwest out of town that evening.

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