Category Archives: Travel

November wrap-up

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Much of November was uneventful—it mostly consisted of the usual routine for the first few weeks minus a kid’s birthday—but for the week of Thanksgiving we visited Burbank to spend the holiday with my brother and his family.

That trip started out slightly awry, as we tried to leave town on Friday the 18th, right after work, and only managed to travel all of 50 miles or so to Crescent before being stopped for several hours only to learn that the road (Highway 97) was closed entirely. See, that was the night of the big statewide winter storm that dumped snow and ice everywhere. So instead of getting to Redding that Friday night we ended up turning around and coming back home (after about 5 hours on the road) and left again the next morning. That was more successful; there was still snow on the roads but it was daylight and the road was open, and once we crossed over into California the roads were pretty much cleared up.

So we drove all the way through to Burbank (north of Los Angeles) in the one day. Which isn’t as bad as all the way to San Diego in one day (we’ve done that one too) but still makes for a long drive all in one sitting.

The rest of the holiday week was good; we drank a lot of good beer, toured the Warner Brothers Studios lot, checked out Burbank and the area a bit, and had a nice Thanksgiving.

Coming back was easy in some respects—as far as the drive went as we split it out over two days—and hard in others (whaddya mean I gotta go back to work?). We got back Sunday relatively early which left time for unpacking and cleaning and such but not a lot of decompression time before going right back into the routine.

Let’s see, what else went on in November… read a good book that I’d recommend, Ready Player One, which has its flaws but is a fun, clever, engaging read. It’s essentially a caper novel masquerading as a near-future/video game/pop-culture/MMO sci-fi adventure, set some 30 years in the future and mostly taking place in an online game/virtual world. And it heavily mines the pop culture of the 80s (and 70s to a lesser extent), particularly that of music, movies, and videogames, which makes it catnip to the contemporary Gen X geek who spent a lot of time playing with computers and videogames during the 80s.

Hmm… is it bad when that’s all I have for the highlights for the month? The rest has been filled with work, and the family stuff—a school concert and other school functions, birthday parties, the usual kind of things.

But! We’re going into the Christmas season, which is one of my favorite times of the year. That always livens things up!

Bandon

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My wife and I just spent an anniversary weekend over on the Oregon Coast, in the southern town of Bandon. I think I’ve written before about how I really like this town; we’ve been three times previous but the last time was some nine years ago, which is too long.

Bandon is small (about 3300 people) and relatively touristy; it has a mix of the cutesy tourist shops (used books, candy stores, ocean art, antiques and gifts), a small but decent selection of restaurants, and mostly-nice lodging combined with the working-class presence of an Oregon coast fishing town. Add in several good state parks and fantastic beaches, and very decent weather (by Oregon Coast standards), and I do think it’s one of the coast’s gems.

Without going into full travelogue mode, I will say both Edgewaters and The Loft (both right downtown in the Old Town Bandon area) are fantastic restaurants, and the two candy stores of Cranberry Sweets and Coastal Mist are must-visits.

One thing I do notice however, is a distinct lack of beer. Not to say there’s no beer there—there is—but ironically the best selection of craft beers that we found on this trip was at the Mill Casino up north in Coos Bay/North Bend. In fact the entire southern stretch of coast below Florence is completely devoid of breweries, probably making it the most under-served area of Oregon in that regard.

To that end I have to say I think Bandon would be a natural location for someone to open up a brewpub; I suspect it’s got the tourist traffic that would support at least a small one, plus you have a population of at least 25,000 some 20 miles to the north from “Oregon’s Bay Area” (which, no joke, we saw on a sign entering Coos Bay). So naturally, I’ve already started formulating beer ideas in my head and wondering how the numbers might pencil. (You’d ideally need to be located in Old Town Bandon, I think, where you’d get the majority of foot traffic and tourists.)

So, who’d want to go in on such a venture…?

Cowboy Dinner Tree

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Tonight my wife and I are driving down to Silver Lake to eat at the Cowboy Dinner Tree. This is actually something we’ve wanted to try out for years, but it was this article in the Bend Bulletin which finally prompted us to make reservations.

Probably the best description I could give is one I’ll lift from the Bulletin article:

The Cowboy Dinner Tree, about 85 miles from Bend, is about as rustic as a restaurant can get. Made of rough poles and barn planks, the building itself has the look of a hermit’s cabin. A sign on the wall proclaims “No electricity – No credit cards – No kidding,” and it’s not. A 12-volt solar-powered battery provides the juice for a couple of bare light bulbs in the dining room, but when the sun sets, the lights dim. All the food is cooked from scratch with propane.

When you make your reservations, you get the choice of either the steak or the chicken for dinner. And their serious about they’re food; when they say chicken, they mean a whole chicken. And the steaks are 26 to 30 ounces. That’s almost two pounds of steak!

Should be an experience, one I’ll write about sometime in the near future, if I’m not comatose from that much red meat.

Lodging

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On our trip to San Diego we stayed in several hotels while on the road, and with my brother and his wife while there. Here’s some thoughts on where to stay—or not stay—if you find yourself on the same or similar trip.

Avoid, at all costs, the Best Value Inn just off the freeway in Stockton (California). It’s on our list as one of the top two worst hotels we’ve ever stayed at (the other was the Knight’s Inn in Ashland), and is definitely the skungiest, dirtiest one: the carpet has sticky spots (like gum, I hope), there were some dead ants on the bathroom counter, the bathroom floor just felt wrong—in fact, most of the bathroom just gave an icky vibe. It’s also right off the freeway, so you hear the traffic all night (no biggie for me, since I sleep just fine with white noise).

On the way back, we stayed in Fresno. The Quality Inn there on Shaw Avenue off Highway 99 was the best of the hotels we stayed at: very roomy, free WiFi, good continental breakfast. And relatively cheap.

The next night we stayed at the Railroad Park Resort in Dunsmuir, about 50 miles north of Redding. Neat little place, rather rustic, nestled up against Castle Crags State Park. Totally worth it for the kitsch factor, but you might want to avoid the restaurant they have there: I found the food to be entirely mediocre and a bit over-priced. You’d probably be better off finding something in Dunsmuir.

Back to it

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Yes, we’re back from our vacation to SoCal. Actually, we got back yesterday and today was back to work and routine, but I just wasn’t quite ready to “return” to the blog, as it were.

It was a good trip, but tiring. San Diego is a neat city, but in general I wouldn’t want to live in Southern California; there’s too many people and too much traffic and it’s just too big… I’d go nuts. And it’s too damn expensive. I’m glad to be back in Bend.

I’ll dole out travel stories gradually, rather than writing everything up in one giant blog entry. It’s easier on everybody that way :)

Vacation starts…

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Vacation is about to start. Once I leave work, we’re pretty much on the road, and while we’re bringing a laptop, there’s no guarantee I’ll be online much, so this may be the last post for a while. Or not; I’ll try to update from the road if I get the chance.

Au revoir!

San Diego or bust

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We’ll be on the road all next week—well, starting this week, really, since we’re leaving Friday night—on our way to visit my brother in San Diego. Road trip!

From Bend, San Diego is about a 16 or 17 hour drive. Since the kids are little, we’re spreading that over three days each way, taking it easier than just plowing on through. Of course, the portable DVD player we bought for the car should help out, too.

Needless to say, I’ll be mostly offline for nine or ten days, starting Friday afternoon. I have a slightly older laptop computer that I’m taking, but I just got it and it doesn’t have network access, either Ethernet or wireless (has the slots for them, though). I may be able to get it set up for network before we go, otherwise I’ll just rely on the modem in a pinch.

Or not. We’ll just see.

Greyhound quits Bend

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As reported on Bend.com, Greyhound is leaving Central Oregon:

It is eliminating 260 stops, leaving 99 in the 13-state region.

In Oregon, the list of 35 communities losing Greyhound service ranges (alphabetically) from Albany to Zigzag, with Bend, Klamath Falls, La Pine, Madras, Redmond and Warm Springs among those in the middle.

Too bad. I suppose it’s a bit odd to lament the loss of a transportation service that’s in decline and is (let’s face it) mediocre at best, but I have some fond memories of Greyhound. For instance, growing up, every year my grandparents in Portland would ship our Christmas presents in a big package via Greyhound. And they were the best presents; they always got us the cool toys and video games.

(Strange in this day and age of UPS and FedEx everywhere that people would send packages via Greyhound, of all things, but there it is.)

Or the time my brother, when he was still living in Portland, made a surprise trip to visit the family on his birthday. I was in on it; he made an evening call and had us pick him up at the bus station around 10:30 that same night, and then surprised everyone the next day. That was a helluva lot of fun.

I even remember when the Greyhound station was downtown on the corner of Greenwood and Wall—when they had an actual station instead of sharing a gas station somewhere (as they’d been doing the last few years).

Ah, well. It’s a shame.

Zoo

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This weekend we were in Portland, visiting the Zoo and hanging out with our friends Justin and Raegan. It was a good trip, but damn hot; fortunately, we had brought the kids’ wagon along and I pulled them around the Zoo rather than having them walk/run everywhere in the heat. They had a great time.

And that Saturday night we had barbecued pork chops and cold beer. The perfect end to a good (hot!) day.