Port Angeles to Victoria

Entering the port at Victoria, British Columbia

At the ferry terminal, one woman operates the ticket booth, which explains last night's attempt to get information by phone. “There is a boat leaving just now,” she had said before putting me on hold and rushing off to ensure that it did so without incident.

We buy tickets, fill out forms, show our passports, and board the ferry.

Back in the 1980s, when Americans didn't need documentation to enter Canada, I was visiting family in Michigan one summer. One day we drove across the Detroit River to spend an afternoon in Windsor for some forgotten reason. The gentleman at the checkpoint asked us our purpose, and I blurted from the back seat–I was a teenager and knew everything–“tourism.” This fellow's eyes lit up and he asked again. My father and stepmother made it clear that my involvement in the conversation had come to an end, and after they discussed the issue further with our wide-eyed checkpoint friend, he let us pass into the Great White North. Later, I realized that he must have thought I said “terrorism,” which would indeed provoke a wide-eyed response. Something rather like terror, I should think.

We sit at a table inside. There are chairs outside also, but it is cool and windy. An upper deck offers views of the mountains behind us, although they are obscured by clouds this morning. Also, this is where the smokers congregate to form their own clouds.

After snapping a few photos, I return inside to the galley and buy some Boyd's Coffee and Ivar's Famous Chowder. When we visited Seattle in 2000, Sandra enjoyed the clam chowder on a ferry to Bainbridge Island. She still talks about it.

Ivar is Ivar Haglund, a folk singer from back in the day who opened a fish and chips bar in 1938 as a companion to Seattle's first aquarium, which he built. Ivar's Acres of Clams opened in 1946, and two more locations have opened since. Ivar's chowder is famous, as is his saying, “keep clam,” which calls to mind Spinal Tap's “Clam Caravan.”

Haglund, for his part, kept impressive company as a folk singer. He hosted Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie when they traveled to Seattle in the 1940s. And Haglund's “Old Settler's Song” served as the theme for his restaurant, the song's first stanza concluding:

No longer the slave of ambition

I laugh at the world and its shams

As I think of my happy condition

Surrounded by acres of clams.

We can agree that not everyone would think to rhyme “shams” with “clams.”

Meanwhile, the jaunt across the Strait of Juan de Fuca–that 95-mile-long strip of water that separates the Unites States and Canada–takes about 90 minutes. Plenty of time for us to enjoy Ivar's chowder and contemplate this Juan de Fuca fellow.

So named because he served under Phillip II, King of Spain, Juan is Ioánnis Fokás, a 16th-century navigator who claimed to have explored what was then known as the Strait of Anián. The veracity of his claims likely will never be known, but the English captain Charles William Barkley renamed the body of water in Fokás' honor in 1787.

To further confuse matters, it is called Juan de Fuca Strait in Canada. Whatever the appellation, we cross it and arrive in Victoria, where we pass through customs and walk up to street level in search of the coach (Canadian for bus) that will take us to Butchart Gardens.

Between customs and the street, retired folks in bright red tops greet visitors with a smile and a map of Victoria. The man who gives us our map asks where we're from.

“San Diego,” I say.

“Oh,” he replies. “That used to be a rough town but it's nicer now.”

He gives a knowing nod. I respond in kind (when in Canada...) but have no clue what he means. Sandra suspects he is thinking of downtown. I suspect he is thinking of Bangkok.

Forks to Port Angeles

Looking back at Port Angeles, Washington, from the Strait of Juan de Fuca

Half the motel decides to leave Forks at 6 a.m. A smiling gentleman in his mid-sixties mentions this to me as we pack our respective cars. Everyone has somewhere to go.

Sandra and I are headed to Port Angeles. The drive takes us along Lake Crescent, which looks beautiful and serene but which is also the site of at least two nasty car wrecks. Russell and Blanch Warren lost their lives to the lake in 1929, while a 1960 accident had a happier ending, with all four occupants surviving a plunge into the icy waters.

The road winds along the south shore, through the massive (i.e., larger than Rhode Island) Olympic National Park. Sunrise reflects off the lake's surface, illuminating cabins on the other side.

We finish yesterday's Tillamook cheese. Nothing says “good morning” like chunks of garlic chili pepper cheddar.

The drive takes 75 minutes. Once at Port Angeles, we find the ferry landing and park. Leaving the car alone in a lot for 10 hours as we sail off to some other country fills me with an unexpected anxiety. Who will feed it? What if it has to go to the bathroom?

But these are silly concerns. It can always pee on the asphalt.

Recap: First Five Days

In case you missed it, here's the story so far...

Day 1: San Diego to Paso Robles

San Diego to Ventura
Ventura to Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo to Paso Robles

Day 2: Paso Robles to Bodega Bay

Paso Robles to Prunedale
Prunedale to Mountain View
Mountain View to Point Reyes Station
Point Reyes Station to Valley Ford
Valley Ford to Bodega Bay

Day 3: Bodega Bay to Eureka

Bodega Bay to Sea Ranch
Sea Ranch to Point Arena
Point Arena to Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg to Leggett
Leggett to Eureka

Day 4: Eureka to Newport

Eureka to Crescent City
Crescent City to Harris State Beach
Harris State Beach to Port Orford
Port Orford to Umpqua River Lighthouse
Umpqua River Lighthouse to Heceta Head Lighthouse
Heceta Head Lighthouse to Newport

Day 5: Newport to Forks

Newport to Pacific City
Pacific City to Tillamook
Tillamook to Astoria
Astoria to Aberdeen
Aberdeen to Kalaloch Lodge
Kalaloch Lodge to Forks

I hope you are enjoying the journey. Feel free to say hey...

Kalaloch Lodge to Forks

From the log book

We drive past Destruction Island and its lighthouse, as well as the Hoh and Bogachiel rivers, finally arriving at Forks around 7 p.m. Just before twilight.

Before Twilight, published in 2005 as the first of what I later refer to as “a popular emo-vampire book series whose essential message is that women are only as valuable as the men they covet,” Forks was a small logging town in a remote corner of the United States. It is still that, but because the characters from Twilight live in Forks, it is also a town full of shops that attempt to capitalize on the series' popularity by slapping the name “Twilight” onto everything.

The motel we stay at offers Twilight-themed rooms. You pay extra for those.

We stay in one of the cheaper, less creepy rooms (these are teen-aged lovers, after all) that is best described as being devoid of anything to do with Twilight. This is its charm, and so we celebrate by sharing a bottle of MacPelican's Scottish Style Ale brought with us from Pacific City.

Sandra tries to make reservations online for tomorrow's ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria, but that doesn't work. So we call the ferry company. The woman at the other end of the line says that they can't offer reservations this late but assures us that there will be plenty of room for passengers and cars alike on the 8:15 boat.

Aberdeen to Kalaloch Lodge

Kalaloch Lodge, Washington

WA-109 is supposed to hug the coast and span from Hoquiam to Queets. However, this crosses the Quinault Indian Reservation, and the tribe does not wish the road to continue so it does not.

We continue instead along US-101, through dense forest. An isolated nation lies to our left, and beyond it the ocean. Eventually the highway returns to the coast, and we stop at Kalaloch Lodge for dinner and one final glimpse of the Pacific.

The lodge is part of the Olympic National Park and Forest, which means that although this appears to be a restaurant, it really is a catering service. People around us complain about the food's price relative to its quality (similar laments appear in various online reviews), but there is nowhere else to go and besides, the view makes up for a lot.

A middle-aged man (not much older than me, come to think of it) sits with his teen-aged daughter at the next table. She has blonde hair pulled back and spends much of her meal trying to text on a phone that gets poor service in this remote area.

They have returned from Forks, home to characters in the Twilight series that is popular among teens and other people with questionable taste. To his credit, the father attempts to engage the girl, feigning interest in Edward and Jacob. She occasionally looks up and says something excitedly, then notices his glazed look and returns to silence. Nobody understands her.

Ah, the joys of adolescence. Someone on one of the podcasts we've been listening to asked, “If you had only 15 seconds on the phone with yourself when you were that age, what would you say?”

I would say, “Hi, this is you in the future. Weird, right? So life sucks, but it gets better. No time to explain, just trust me on this one and be nice to Mom.”

Astoria to Aberdeen

Ubiquitous purple flowers, somewhere in Oregon or Washington

These flowers are everywhere along the coast. They look vaguely like Physostegia virginiana, but that plant is not found west of Utah. More likely they are Physostegia parviflora, although it is equally possible that I am clueless.

An earlier version of our itinerary had us spending the night in Aberdeen, where Nirvana's former lead singer and guitarist, the late Kurt Cobain, spent his formative years. I didn't adore Nirvana's music the way many did, but I liked it well enough, and Cobain symbolized a post-modern apathy that spoke to my generation.

After he committed suicide in 1994, I wrote a poem based on a photograph of the death scene. I also wrote a song for a band I played in at the time (our singer named his first son Kurt and had invited me to see Nirvana live on the In Utero tour; “next time,” I said). The poem was called “Burning, Not Fading” and ended up in a chapbook I published a year later for my own amusement:

Two glass doors with wooden frames,

one open, the other shut;

branches of a tree or bush not quite in focus;

pills or gun shells on the linoleum floor

laid out in perfect, retreating squares;

a bald-headed man in a dark suit

behind the door that is closed;

an open box, socks,

a baseball cap, towel,

unfolded wallet, driver's license;

a man in black shoes, squatting,

holding a notebook in his hands;

to his left a tennis shoe

whose toes are slightly off the ground;

to his right another shoe,

dark, canvas, with a star on the side,

neatly laced and tied,

wrinkled jeans,

long-sleeved shirt,

a wrist,

and a clenched white fist.

I will never forget the photograph, nor the experience of studying it. Neither will I forget the feeling of helplessness at knowing this young man wasted his future. He was 27, which is when all the great ones seem to die–Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison. It's a romantic thought, but also a sobering one for this then-25-year-old trying to figure out what the hell to do in life.

This is my role model? A guy who mumbles, doesn't shave, then shoots himself?

The title of the poem was supposed to be patterned after Stevie Smith's “Not Waving but Drowning,” only I got it wrong. I forget the name of the song I wrote. Maybe “No Apologies,” as a play on Nirvana's “All Apologies.” It is the sort of title I would have liked.

I forget many of the lyrics as well. The chorus went something like this:

Anger of a generation

Forgotten but not gone

You were seen as their salvation

Something they had won

No apologies will be

Necessary

Musically it borrowed from several Nirvana songs–an homage–starting with a low murmur in the style of “All Apologies,” rising to a frenetic “Smells Like Teen Spirit” style chorus, and ending with a call to “Heart-Shaped Box.”

This was a long time ago, and all I have now are fragments... “Bullet to the head, better off dead... you could teach them something... bitter, angry words.”

I am 43 now, and what little sense of romance there may have been in suicide at the time is long gone. Days, weeks, and months are cherished as singular, unrepeatable events on a one-way trip.

This afternoon, Aberdeen is a balmy 74 degrees. We stop at a convenience store to buy water, then drive through town, with its front yards full of beer-gutted women. I have been to places like this, but in very different parts of the country. The scene runs counter to my stereotype of the Pacific Northwest, reminding me that stereotypes are rarely as useful as reality.

In a flash, Cobain's angst makes sense to me. His death, not so much, but I get him in a way that I didn't before spending 10 minutes here. Aberdeen had no clue what do with him, and vice versa.

Back in San Diego, I will ask a friend who grew up in the area about his impressions of Aberdeen. I want to be certain that I am not making a snap judgment based on an insufficient sample of the place, that I am not reporting a stereotypical view and feeding the romance of Cobain's life and death. My friend will assure me that what I saw is what there is.

This is both comforting and disturbing. We continue driving.

Tillamook to Astoria

Bridge from Astoria, Oregon, to Washington

“Padres!” exclaims a twentysomething outside the Wet Dog Cafe and Brewery, which overlooks the Columbia River. It appears promising, but our schedule calls for the briefest of stays in Astoria and keeps us from conducting a proper investigation.

“Right on,” I reply. I am wearing a blue Padres shirt with Trevor Hoffman's name and number 51 on the back. As we walk past the young, excited bar patron, he notices the back of my shirt.

“Hoffman!” he cries. “That's old school.”

He then mimics an exaggerated version of Hoffman's delivery that looks more like Juan Marichal with the high leg kick. But he's excited, and it's rare to find Padres fans outside of San Diego (or even, if we are to be honest, in San Diego), so I smile and give him the thumbs-up.

Then his friend drives up and he gets excited about that. He's not excited to see me in a Hoffman jersey, he's excited about everything. There are worse ways to go through life.

Sandra and I stroll along the river and pop into a used bookstore. It's hot and muggy here, at least compared to where we've been.

Repairs on the bridge connecting Oregon to Washington force us to stop and wait 5 minutes. This is an inconvenience to locals but allows us to savor a spectacular view and me to snap a photo from the driver's seat.

The bridge, formally known as the Astoria-Megler Bridge, spans 4 miles across the Columbia River and is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America. Construction began in November 1962 and was completed in August 1966. The bridge has appeared in movies such as Short Circuit, Kindergarten Cop, and Goonies, which probably isn't sufficient reason to see any of those, but there you go.

And here we go, headed into Washington, searching for Nirvana.