An almost perfect place to live

These are the first photos I took from my new apartment. This is the place I had phoned about that wouldn't be available to see until Monday. From the first moment I saw it, I knew it was right. Especially after what I'd seen over the weekend, there was really no question. The manager was nice, the place was clean. It had space, the price was right, the views were incredible, it had a stove and refrigerator. It seemed like a miracle. If I could have changed something, I would have opted for hardwood floors and acceptance of pets. But that seemed like a small sacrifice at the moment. I could live with the blue shag. This was home. Kate and I had moved into the Lamplighter Motel for our third night in Astoria to save some money. It was simple and basic and there was soup served in the lobby. We'd tried a motel up the street, but when the proprietor handed us a can of Raid saying the roach infestation (or was it ants?) wasn't that bad, we moved along. Again, I'm telling you this is not the slums. It's just - I hate to say it, but it's just Astoria. Erby had wanted to delay my move for another day so the just-cleaned carpets could dry, but I prevailed and pushed up moving day. Erby's son Alex and a friend helped Kate move the whole truck-load of stuff down four flights of stairs and did it all with a smile for the small sum I could pay them. It was quite a welcome. I was exhausted and stressed, and did what I could, which was mainly tell them where to put things and sort out what came in the door. The apartment was on Bond Street hill, and I felt I had the best of all worlds. Shielded by the hillside, my apartment would stay cool in summer, and yet, even on the bottom floor I had a treetop view over the Columbia River. It felt like heaven.

This is the view out my living room window - the Astoria-Megler bridge and its four mile span over to Washington.

Looking for a place

Finding the right place to rent turned out to be more discouraging than I'd expected. Describing Astoria in a few words is not so simple. I've never found the town that easy to categorize, so I won't try to generalize it now. I'll have a lot more pictures and descriptions as time goes on. I was on a budget, and I needed to find an apartment fast. But I'd been doing that all my life, looking for houses and apartments on a budget. I'd only owned my own place for a brief few years in Palisade, and even when we found that, we were renters first - and on a budget. But, except for the experience in Palisade, where we were looking for a pet-friendly place, I've never felt I had as few choices as when I came here. I was told it was not yet the season when rentals opened up. Still, the one I finally took was the only one I would really have wanted to live in. I don't know what I'd have done if it had not been for that one apartment. I've never seen as many "available and ready" apartments that had so much wrong with them. Let me emphasize: I'm not talking about the slums. Astoria has no slums. This was not even in a "bad part of town." There's virtually none of that, either. It's just inscrutable Astoria, and I had no clue about any of it yet.

Kate had gone out and gotten us a newspaper, but we arrived in Astoria on the weekend, and the place that looked most promising (the one I finally took) wasn't available to look at until Monday. I told the lady it really, really sounded good, and they'd just lowered the price on it, too, because it had been empty too long. But meanwhile, we went out looking for backups or for something that might be better. I'd hate to wait till Monday and then find out I didn't want it. We looked at several. All of the photos on this page are from one apartment. We had to drive out to a neighboring town to pick up the key at a rental agent's. I actually liked the place, and might have taken it despite the work that had to be done to make it livable. It had a lot of space for the money and a decent view. The layout was purely weird. The way each room connected to the next, and sometimes the actual shapes of the rooms were like a bizarre labyrinth. I found it charming, if somewhat confusing. I couldn't believe they were showing it in this condition, but the windows could have been fixed.

The fridge (yuck) could have been patched up or replaced.

The screens could have been put back on or thrown out.

And the door fixtures could have been replaced. I think the two things that finally turned me off about this place were that although it was an upstairs apartment, it was on such a hill that anyone could have stepped from the back lawn into the house through unsecured windows in back. I'm not sure why that seemed more unfixable than the other problems, but maybe the rental company had already said they wouldn't do anything about it. I don't remember. The worst turn-off was the smell of cat pee on the landing and the fact that I'd have to haul everything up a steep flight of narrow stairs. After giving a lot of thought to the space and the charming funkiness, I said, "No." I'm so glad I did.

Other possibilities had included a teeny, dark basement apartment with mould in it and neighbors that I hadn't felt good about, an apartment of a decent size, but it had zero charm or character and was totally flat and uninteresting inside. It had a bit of a view, but not much. I know myself. I'd get massively depressed in a very short time. Funky works. Bland is intolerable. There was also a much smaller apartment with the same issues, only worse (these were both built in this half century with tacky carpets and horrible cabinets). The the other one I looked at was old and funky and charming, and I almost liked it. Again, the layout was weird. I didn't realize that this seems to be a prevalent feature of Astoria living. Like the first, it was upstairs, long and narrow. The banister rocked and nearly came off in my hand, but I think the real problem was that it had no stove or fridge, and neither did I. I can't remember what else about it bothered me; I think I could have enjoyed it and made interesting use of the space (especially as a studio) but we waited till Monday and hoped for something better. In hindsight, I wish I'd taken more photos. Looking for digs in Astoria can be either really entertaining or really distressing. When you realize that the pix on this page were of a place I LIKED, you get the idea.

Day 5: From Umatilla to Astoria, Oregon; could this be home?

We were driving through brown countryside again, but there were some hills to look at, and the great Columbia River by our side. I was surprised at how much of Eastern Oregon moving into Central Oregon was brown desert. It was beautiful in its own way, but I was getting tired of it and tired of sitting in the truck all day. By the way, everything on the other side of the river is Washington, and everything on this side is Oregon.

There were small changes in the hills as we travelled along, but the barren land did seem almost endless.

Desert hills and sage along the Columbia River.

Here the hills change to rim rock, one of the trademarks of the area.

We're approaching the famous Bonneville Dam.

There was a good rest stop at Bonneville, so we walked around for quite awhile.

I took a few photos. The mountains are getting taller. Those across the river are in Washington. I had to get used to it. "Hey, Toto, we're not in Colorado any more."

Looking back, you can just see Bonneville Dam. This was great. It was peaceful and pretty, and almost nobody was about except for Kate and me.

More trees and grass at the Bonneville rest stop. Can you tell I was starving for them?

We've taken off again, and the countryside is changing rapidly. I didn't know what to expect at each turn. It was starting to be fun again.

This may be part of the Columbia Gorge.

Remember, I'm writing this from the future. I couldn't find the name of this bridge, but Lee finally found it for me. It's at mile post 168.8, and its name is the Hood River Bridge. It's hard to find on Google Earth if you don't know the name. The town is called White Salmon.

Rain! The first rain of the trip. But what did we expect? This is Oregon. It was welcome, too. I stopped taking photos for 3 or 4 hours. As the landscape got wetter and leafier, I began to think of Ken Kesey and Sometimes A Great Notion, which I'd read 30 years before, but didn't remember very well except for the feel of the wet forest and the river, and of course the scene at the end with the big tree and the dead man's arm! It was *this* river, I remember thinking. Amazing. In Troutdale, just this side of Portland, we had another minor catastrophe. We drove the truck into another parking lot for a quick bite, and the driveway was just steep enough that the trailer hitch bottomed out and came loose. Thanks again to a trucker couple (man and wife) who were incredibly nice to us and didn't make us feel stupid, we got it put back together again.

The sign says, "Todd Road, Port of Kalama." I don't think I have any relatives here. So, we drove from Troutdale through Portland. I'm sure we crossed the river at Government Island near the airport. It seems familiar, not that I knew any of this by sight. After you cross the river you're in Washington. We had to go north, because the road and the state line both follow the river north for an hour before they go west again to Astoria. The freeway side of the river runs through Washington. I remember George Washington's head on the freeway signs, and I remember how much I loved the forested roadside. I was creeped out by the freeway, though, and it is clearly a freeway. For the eight years I'd lived in Colorado, including the times I'd either ridden or driven over the Rocky Mountains to Denver, I hadn't realized this, but the comparative narrowness of the Interstate had made me forget what a real freeway felt like. And this is from someone who had lived 40 years in Southern California, including ten years smack in a number of the burghs of Los Angeles. There were too many lanes of cars and trucks going too fast for comfort. It would take awhile before I'd get used to it again. I actually felt a little panicked.

We turned off the freeway at Longview, and somehow found our way to the bridge that would take us into Oregon and along the much smaller Highway 30 to Astoria. For years Longview would confuse me, but it didn't take too long to get the shortcut nailed, and as long as I didn't miss any turns I was OK. I don't think we realized how close we were to Astoria when we turned off the highway, but the Crest Motel sign caught our attention, and we decided on the spur of the moment to check it out. This was one of the best choices we made on the trip. Now that we were here, I was getting separation anxiety, or starting-new-not-knowing-anyone anxiety. A couple of splurge nights at the Crest were just what I needed, and just what Kate needed, too, after the long drive. Our room had big windows overlooking this incredible view, and I began to feel very good about having made the choice to come here. And we found a place to stock up on food. Hauke's Market was just at the bottom of the hill. We were still saying, "If it's not right, we can keep going on down the road." Kate knew just what to say to make everything feel OK. I don't know what I would have done without her. She was a miracle in my life - a miraculous tapir-frog of the best kind.

This was our view of the motel grounds. I think we mainly vegged. I don't even remember. But the truck needed to be returned to Longview soon (an hour back down the road - silly me, I still thought it might be possible to do something like that here on the coast), and for that to happen, I had to find a place to live. I had no idea it would be so discouraging until we hit on the right apartment.

Day 4, Part 1: Bridge over the Snake River, Idaho

It was hot when we arrived at the Best Western in Twin Falls last night. There was a nice easy place to park the truck, and that was alluring for sure. And this morning it was nice, so we went down to take a look at the river.

The Snake River and the canyon were certainly a nice break from such boring countryside. You couldn't even see it until you got close. It was a nice surprise welling up out of the flatland - or down - we hadn't expected this.

I didn't find an angle to get a picture of the bridge, but his is the monument to the man it's named for, I.B. Perrine.

The parking area near the bridge allowed breathtaking views in both directions.

Time to get on the road again. That's the Mazda I bought slightly used in Santa Barbara and had had for the whole eight years I'd lived in Colorado. My mom helped me buy air conditioning for it, which had certainly been a big help.

The idaho high desert. There was lots of this. Miles and miles. The interesting (sight for sore eyes) Snake River was now left behind as we continued to travel west along the southern part of Idaho - brown like a potato.

Go to Day 4, Part 2

Day 4, Part 2: The first two photos I took in Oregon

This post (except for these four sentences) was written before the story of the rest of the trip. I'm going to leave it intact. The first part of the day and the last part of the day can be found in parts 1 and 3. I was charmed to be welcomed by a place that was green and floral.

Kate and I had just driven across the border from Idaho, having spent the night at a hotel on the Snake River. I expect I'll put more pix up later that tell the story of my move, but for now these will do. The picture I had taken before the welcome center photo at the top was taken in Idaho. I took more as we drove across Oregon and came to rest in Astoria, still not sure if that was going to be the final destination. And of course I took many, many more after that. My picture files for this period are still pretty limited. As we know, that would change.

I don't remember that much about my first impression of the state. I remember things in the hours after this, but I don't remember a lot about how I felt on first entering the state. I feel sure I was very glad to be there. I'd been through Oregon as a child once or twice, but not as an adult. I was moving here, and I hadn't even come for a prior visit. I think I was glad to leave the flat, brown, mostly boring country of southern Idaho, and was glad to be welcomed. The cheery visitor center made me FEEL welcome. I was a little worried about the heat, because I wasn't tolerating it well at that time, but I knew the coast would be cooler. I remember how pleased I was to see the flowers in bloom - there was some color, finally. It was manicured and clean, and there were bathrooms. It was an anomaly in the midst of the untamed wilderness (or something approximating that) on all sides. We learned a little about Oregon at the center. I wanted to take advantage of it, but I didn't have the capacity that day to learn very much through reading. We wanted to move on. I knew Oregon would be diverse and wild and different, and I wanted to see it. I also wanted the trip to be over, and to know what place I'd be calling "home." I was assuming it would be Astoria, but I'd left the option open to find somewhere else. It had been a long trip, and we still had a very large state to cross to reach the ocean.

Go to Day 4, Part 3