I have finally reached a point where I can stand still….. Karla – my navigator, co-conspirator and friend has flown back to her real life and things here are quiet – if you don’t count the vibrating base coming from the downstairs apartment.
Since arriving it’s been an interesting quest and a strange stage of life. On one hand this feels like just another trip – a place I will be for a while to explore. Then again I’ve never driven a thirty foot truck full of my life to get to “just another place.” Periodically, when I have a moment that’s not dedicated to figuring out which lane to be in, I shift into another state of awareness that remembers I’m moving my life half way across the country. And while I have planned this, looked forward to this and am excited – I am also periodically enveloped in a cloud of angst and uncertainty about what comes next.
One thing I have not been is BORED. I think you have to go through Boring to get to Bored… I’ve been near, but not there yet… Here’s the sign.
As we were leaving Austin and waiting for the light to change at the intersection of Hwy 183 and Loop 360 a beautiful white haired black homeless man sitting on the median locked eyes with us and gave us the most beatific smile and the thumbs up. We exchanged smiles and from that point on the trip felt blessed. I am holding on to that sense of blessing and exchange of goodwill and remind myself of the joy exchanged in that moment as a harbinger of good things to come. And thus far this journey has felt very synchronistic: every time there has been a question or a need, the answer, place or person has appeared. I like that.
In some ways, this is feeling more like another country than another state. This one has mountains, big green trees, fog, cooler air, lots of water and lots of bike lanes and new traffic rules. There are strange signs: “drag chains required…” and we were stopped in Seaside for our wheel going over the 8″ white line separating a bike lane from traffic. Not that I’m unfamiliar with bike-lanes and the need to stay out of them, but there seems to be a difference in the way one handles an 8″ line and a 4″ line. I feel a new vocabulary coming on. And there is a strange white substance that falls from the sky – not yet – but warnings appear everywhere. I think this is going to require a different wardrobe.
When I started out, I was confounded as to how I was going to handle the logistics of finding a place, unloading the truck, turning in the truck, renting a car, seeing Brett off on his great cross country adventure, getting Brett’s car, returning the rental car and getting Karla to the airport – all of which had to be done in three days. All of it was impossible to plan, because there were too many missing pieces. Ultimately. I had to just allow things to develop in their own time and all of it fell into place in a sequence I couldn’t have predicted.
The day spent at the Japanese gardens was a needed escape, especially since the day spent investigating the coast and all days thereafter produced nothing in terms of lodging. It did, however, give me information about where I really want to be and that’s Seaside or – preferably – Cannon Beach. Since each of these little communities has a very specific personality it was time to spend some actually time on the beach and literally get the feel of the place. We ate great seafood, watched a fabulous sunset and found a fun little motel near the beach, everything having cleared out of holiday revelers except a large contingent of young Russians.
We headed back to Hillsboro and wandered into the old historic district for dinner and to our great surprise, discovered the Tuesday Night Art Crawl with free food. By the next morning it was time to get the truck back and that mean unloading. No place to move meant unloading into a storage unit in time to get the truck returned and I dreaded the idea of driving it through Portland again to get to Mt. Hood area to return it where I’d originally planned. Once again, a better option presented itself and I was able to unload two blocks down the road and return the truck to the same place. Since we rented a car under Karla’s name (hard/ expensive to rent a car with no car insurance) we now had wheels that were not attached to a 30-foot truck. A snappy little red Hundai, it was soon dubbed Hot Little Number.
Lucky gals that we are, we found these cute guys to unload Guadalupe into the last 10×10 unit available! Wow – what a feeling to be free of the truck and have my “life” safely installed in a free-for-thirty-days-climate-controlled unit! Three of the big things had resolved themselves.
The next day, was the first day of Brett’s great adventure – a cross country trip on his new Kawasaki 650 motorcycle from Port Flattery, WA to Key West, FL. And in another stroke of luck, we were able to meet and I got to give him
and hug and see him on his way. Funny that the place most convenient was a Krispy Kreme Donuts! I didn’t even know they had them in Oregon – it was my secret guilty pleasure in Austin! All sugared up, Brett left on his journey and we headed in the opposite direction toward his apartment in Welches to pick up his car, return the rental and hold up in the midst of tall green trees with hiking trails nearby. The last three pieces fell into place!
Somewhere in the confusion of vehicles and moving here and there I got a response from a craigslist advertisement for a “Cannon Beach Cottage! So I’m hopeful. Can’t look at it until September 14, but am at least in contact with the owners. It looks cute so far – furnished with basic neutral things so I can move my few accent pieces in not have to buy bigger pieces yet. So hold good thoughts for me while I wait.
Thanks to Garmina, I found the Portland airport and dropped Karla off for her flight back to normalcy. Now to find a car…
