Day 5. Vancouver to Oregan coast.

Day 5.
We rose early to the roar of trucks & tried our luck hitching with grumpy, early morning commuters. We were about as successful as a Baptist preacher with terrets.
So we hiked the bridge once again, hoping the view would lift our spirits a little.

Along the way found TJ, sleeping. It struck me as amazing that such a sharp minded, big hearted person would end up in the same position as one would expect a wasted life that is no longer functional. He woke & even in the grog of sleep, his eyes were clear & he was as polite as he had been yesterday. I keep asking myself, what has happened here? Where is this life heading & what depth will this experience he’s in bring? There is so much we don’t understand.
We sat on the truck road again & Paul cooked breakfast. The truck drivers were perhaps concerned that the truck-stop policy holders were watching, because despite waving, none were prepared to pick up the ferals in dresses.
So, once again, we headed over the bridge.
Just when we were thinking we should just walk out of the warmth & accepting embrace of this town, a bird dropped a load right in Paul’s eye. Apparently this is an ancient sign that one should change the course one is on. (Where I come from, it’s an ancient opportunity to laugh lots.) So, we re-directed our path & surely, within minutes, a genuine saint came by & saved us. She had a beaten up old pick up & pick us up she did. We cuddled our bags in the back & she delivered us down a few exits, where she had to do some errands. About 10 minutes later, she pulled up once again with a mattress in the back for us to lie on & drove us all the way to Clatskanie. This was well beyond Long View, where our sign was asking. The only stop along the way was to put air in the tires & present us with bottled water & a big bag of chips. She dropped us off, turned around & went back to where ever it was she was heading. Where do people like Betty come from? What a queen. I wish she’d open a school, or volunteer in a cloning programme.



Not 2 minutes after she dropped us off, Della pulled in to break bread with us. I’m not sure what to say about her. I think the video perhaps says it best.
Once you watch it, you can perhaps suggest what I should’ve written.


Timothy picked us up next. He’d driven by with his daughter, but being a teenage girl, she wasn’t keen to ride with a couple of freaks & probable crack-heads in robes, so after dropping her off, Timothy, full of faith & valour, came back & took us to the next town. He wasn’t going that way, but had a little time & curiosity on his hands, so did it anyway. He also dropped us & turned around & went back where we’d come.
From there, we got a lift in the back of Jessie’s truck
& on arrival were given a couple of beers, a map of Oregon, a tide chart, directions to a good camping spot & his phone number, should we need anything.
As we moved our packs to the curb, Stan came out of his restaurant with Troll, his poodle to see who the strangers on his roadside were.
When he heard, he asked if we’d eaten & invited us into his fine dining establishment, re-opened the kitchen & had two tasty pasta meals brought out for us. As we ate, he discussed politics & was very tolerant of my ignorance.
When we were done, he fed us with some incredible, tasty fruit pie (A specialty of The Berry Patch) & ushered us back to the road, before calling his friends & asking them to drop us into the next town. Perhaps it’s Oregon that needs cloning?

So, after a few moments standing in the rain, sure enough, his neighbours pulled out of their drive, picked us up & took us not only to the coast, but drove us along the beach. This experience allowed Paul to let go of his resentment of Rangers for their ability to drive beaches while he’d only been able to dream of it.
The RV park we got dropped at was charging comparable rates for a piece of grass as motels charge for pieces of grass with a building, plumbing, electricity & appliances on it, so we politely declined the undeveloped earth & instead walked about a mile down the road to a surfboard shapers house. Here, Lanny was more than willing to allow us to use the undeveloped land in his back yard for free.
I fell into the tent & remember no more.