What's All This About, Then?
(aka Your Many Questions Indelicately Answered)

(hint #1: scroll down and this won't be as hard to read. You're welcome.)

We go on trips. Road trips. Other trips. But mostly road trips. Sometimes (ideally) long ones. Sometimes not.

Yes, this is the same blog as the one about the Oregon Trail. Yes, it used to have a stagecoach and a dusty feel to it, which went along with the Oregon Trail very nicely. Yes, that was a great trip. That was three years ago. (the blog is still here if you want to read it...it starts here)

So...as we embark on the latest chapter of our roamin' ways, we want to invite you to come along. First, we might get lonely. I mean, we don't really get lonely much, but it's possible. Second, you might miss us. Third, you just might be nosy. And fourth, we are notoriously and and historically bad at sending postcards, circulating photos, keeping up with a scrapbook; as a matter of fact, with documenting our trip in most every way. We figured this might be the 21st century solution. It worked for the last trip, which was (as you know) three years ago (sniff). So we're keeping it going.

We hope you'll pop in, read about where we are, what we're doing, see photos of our adventures, and experience our gypsy hardships (like no room service) vicariously! Most importantly, we hope you'll add your comments and greetings, which we will get when we get to one of our stopping points. Souvenir requests will receive due consideration (Hint #1: Success is highly correlated with tackiness).

For those so inclined (you know who you are), we will also list links to related sites so that you can learn with us as we learn on the road, and maybe visit some of the same sights in the future!

Happy Trails to us all!

Love, Phoebe and Robin

Monday, August 6, 2007

Kinda like "The Hague"...but different


Okay. I ask you... am I the only one who wants to call up that Mike Fowler guy and be the proud new owner of this place? It's like Grauman's Chinese Theater Northwest!! My dialing digit is itchin', let me tell ya. (I know, it's an out-of-date metaphor, but it seemed apropos in this case!)

[SLAP!] Okay, I'm back. Thanks, I needed that. (as long as we're going with out of date metaphors, why not do it right?)

As promised, we began the morning walking amidst the racks and piles of mind-alteringly beautiful things at the Pendleton Wool Mills. Check out the girl in her "robe" (that's actually what this piece is called):


Our visit there included a tour, which we both loved. Blessedly, the factory was not running today, as it was nice and quiet. It would have been really cool to see the looms at work, but the noise would have likely been too much for Phoebe, so this was good. They make a rug in 18 minutes on their regular looms, or in 10 minutes on the new fancy ones from Germany (those Germans, eh?). Wow. We walked in a forest of spools of brightly colored fine wool yarn. It was splendiferous.

Of course, being us, we wound up bypassing the gorgeous shirts, jackets, robes, and blankets, and instead bought these HUGE bags of the ends that are cut off the looms--long colorful pieces of obviously Pendleton fabrics, to make into things that are as yet to be identified. Oooh.

Also, as promised, we returned to the the Tamastslikt Cultural Center for a more leisurely look around at the exhibit that focuses on three tribes of the area: Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla tribes. There was also an exhibit on loan from the Smithsonian about the extensive Mohawk participation in much historical New York City high-rise construction, including a large section on the World Trade Center. Particularly special today was a woman that we met at a table in the gift shop--she was there demonstrating fine Indian beadwork, and she talked with us a while and showed Phoebe her beautiful work. They talked together about the Nez Perce Indians. As promised, we bought some stunning (and tiny) seed beads to make into ANOTHER as-yet-to-be-identified project. Phoebe wants to sew (well, actually, wants ME to sew) moccasins that she can bead. No prob, kid. Just call me Minnetonka.

We took off toward the west, catching our first sight of the mighty Columbia River, a crucial landmark indicating our proximity to the end of the trail.

It's huge. It's fast. It's windy. It's powerful. It's hard to imagine how the emigrants floated rafts with oxen and wagons and people on its current to Oregon City, an exercise which of course, some of them did not survive. It's easy to see why.

We stopped for the night in The Dalles, Oregon, a point that is called "The End of the Oregon Trail", except it's not really. It's the place where the huge bands of travelers split up, however, making the decisions whether to attempt to float downriver or to take the treacherous, rocky, and challenging Barlow Road (which we will explore tomorrow). For those of you who have been in this part of the country, you will appreciate that we could see Mount Hood standing proudly above the landscape as we drove along the river toward town. Grand. Makes you wonder, as ever, what the pioneers thought as they caught glimpse of this majestic peak (bet it wasn't skiing!)

And for the more humor prone among us...lest you think The Dalles is a sleepy little hamlet where the sidewalks roll up at 6:00 and the only theater in town is for sale (oh....well, never mind), let me just say that this is one hip place. After all, have YOU ever seen a town with a Rorschach billboard on the main drag? (vaht do you see??? hmmm...interessting)

But wait! There's more! (No, not free Ginsu knives...sorry) Now, I know that there are parts of Oregon that are very progressive--remember when all those gay and lesbian people got married here, defying the law? I bet you know some lefty (or more than one) who lives, has lived, or wants to live in Oregon. But then again, not all of Oregon is so inclined (those marriages were declared illegal, for example) which made it all the more amazing to see that there are entire stores, nay, SUPERSTORES, devoted to bisexual shoppers! I mean, even in the deep blue state of Massachusetts, we don't have such things! I have to say: I Am Impressed. And You Should Be Too.


Signing off from the oh-so-groovy town of The Dalles, Oregon...see you tomorrow along the banks of the great Columbia!
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