WiFi cafes and grungy pubs in Portland

The first night of our 800-mile-long journey from central California to Portland, Oregon is a relief. We spend the night at Crescent City, and are greatly comforted by the jacket-worthy temperatures wrought by the coast and a layer of thick clouds overhead.

The stretch of highway from Eureka to Crescent City is particularly pleasant. We encounter a dramatic sunset while passing by moody beaches, and cliffs that overlook the clouds themselves.


When we reach Portland, however, we are greeted by an unexpected wave of heat. Our five-night stay takes place in 38-degree (celcius!) weather, and our studio apartment isn't air-conditioned.

We seek refuge in WiFi-enabled cafes, of which there are many. Coffee in Portland and its surrounds is also extremely tasty, and I have what is possibly the best coffee of my life at a restaurant/lounge in Sellwood.

One afternoon, it is so unbearably warm that I even manage to persuade Jim to spend a few hours in a suburbian mall. I pick up a comfortable grey maxi dress at Macys, and a pair of summer wedges at J.C. Penney.

Heat aside, Portland exudes a lovely little city atmosphere that reminds me much of Perth in Australia. Most areas, and even its CBD, are peppered with independent, grungy bars and pubs from which black-clad locals of all ages stumble at all hours.

People are friendly and refreshingly genuine; waiters sport visible tattoos and spout colloquialisms -- none of that stuffy 'sir/madam' business, thankyouverymuch.

One night, when we visit the Lucky Labrador Brewing Company, we come across a 'board game' party, for which thirty or so brewhouse patrons sit around several tables playing various board games. This is the city for us, we decide, when we learn that board games night takes place at the pub every Thursday.

Despite our love of the city, we are glad to leave when the time comes. Our next destination, the Olympic Peninsula, is known for dreary weather and we sure could do with a little less sunshine!

Hello, Summer

On the afternoon of July 24, we leave San Francisco's cloud cover and are plunged instantly into the heat of Summer.

Our first few moments in the Sun are glorious; we happily shed fleece jackets while we drive southward on the US-101.

But it's not long before things start getting too warm. To make matters worse, our car's air-conditioning system seems to be malfunctioning, so it only circulates air at ambient temperature.


It is about 3pm by the time we reach our destination, the Pinnacles National Monument campgrounds. The area is hot and dry, and shade is scarce.

In fact, our allotted campsite is in direct sunlight, with not even an overhanging leaf to save us from the Sun's glare. Fortunately, the Pinnacles seems to be one of the few Government-managed campgrounds that isn't fully booked for the weekend, so we are able to transfer to a leafier area.

Compared to other U.S. recreational camping areas, those at the Pinnacles are unimpressive. Its best feature by far is a small, cool, free-to-use swimming pool which we routinely visit every morning of our three-night stay.

By Monday, we are more than ready to leave sunny California. Heading northward in our uncomfortably warm car, we cross our fingers in hopes of cooler days in Oregon.

Psychedelic volcanic ash

Under the summer sun, our northward drive from Bakersfield to the Lassen Volcanic National Park is almost unbearably warm. However, when we arrive at the park, which is located near on the Californian side of the California-Oregon border, we see snow.


It's just after 6pm when we enter the park, so the grocery store and ranger stations have already closed for the day. Compared to the Grand Canyon National Park, Lassen is eerily desolate.

It's also cold -- frighteningly so. I hurriedly pull a jacket over my singlet top, as we leave the car to investigate the Manzanita Lake campgrounds.

The few occupied campsites are already gushing smoke, and we soon realise that without an open grocery store from which to buy firewood, camping may not be the best idea.

So we rent a $60, bare-bones cabin in the nearby town of Shingletown for the night. The cabin lacks bedside tables, lamps, curtains, clean bedding, and its own bathroom, but we bring in our own quilt from the car and sleep the sleep of the dead.

In the light of day, Lassen is far less formidable. We encounter a deer on its afternoon stroll as we make our way to the campgrounds, as well as a very brave, inquisitive squirrel under whose watchful eye Jim chats to the elderly campgrounds host about hiking, National Park attractions, Australia, the downfalls of the military...


At the host's recommendation, we hike up the nearby Cinder Cone volcano the next day. The cone rises some 230 metres above the surrounding area, which is covered in a mixture of grey ash and colourful sediments from a 1650s eruption.

We also visit Bathtub Lake but find it far less appealing than its name suggests, due to the cold and an infestation of mosquitos. Dinner is cheese and salami sandwiches and toasted marshmallows, as it was the night before.

On June 17th, we reluctantly leave the (relative) wilderness for the city of San Francisco. And a fitting greeting we receive, with heavy traffic all along our last 25 kilometre stretch from Richmond to San Francisco, and absolutely no street parking within four blocks of our new home!

Car trouble

Saturday, June 13 doesn't quite go as planned.

First, our tent set-up proves itself a little too comfortable. We sleep in, barely making the 11am check-out time.


We have our hearts set on hot showers before the day's long drive to Bakersfield, California. Sadly, we arrive at the shower blocks just minutes after it is shut for cleaning, and spend the next hour at the cafeteria while we wait for the showers to be available.

Hot showers are fantastic.

We finally leave the national park just after 1pm. An hour into the drive, a light flashes on our dashboard. The engine is way too hot. We're only two miles from Williams, and don't know what to do.

We decide to keep going, and make it to a gas station/mechanics called Malone's, just outside Williams. A man named Randy tells us that our radiator needs to be replaced, and we may have also ruined our engine by driving with a messed up radiator.

Randy orders the requisite part from the nearby city of Flagstaff. It will take three hours for our car to be fixed, so he has his colleague drop us off at the Williams town centre.


Williams is a tiny town whose economy seems to be largely driven by Grand Canyon tourism. We burn some time at a restaurant, and visit the visitor centre, where we mess around with some puzzles and Jim quizzes me on U.S. geography.

The mechanics finally call at 5pm, saying our car is ready to go. We're lucky to not have caused any engine damage, they tell us gruffly, and I feel just a little silly for my lack of automotive knowledge.

Despite my worries about late night driving, Jim cowboys up and decides to drive straight to Bakersfield. We arrive at our motel at 2am, exhausted, but a little too pepped up on caffeine.

Camping in the Grand Canyon National Park

At 10.30am on Wednesday, we leave the Las Vegas strip.

Following directions from Google Maps on our iPhone, we head East on the I-515 toward the Arizona border.

The first hour and a half of our drive is pleasant and uneventful. The road takes us out of the city and into the flat, lonely desert. We contemplate stopping for morning tea, but decide against the few small, run down diners that we encounter.

We reach the Hoover Dam at about noon. The Hoover Dam is a hydroelectric generating station on the Nevada-Arizona boarder that was constructed in the 1930s. Located on the Colorado River, the dam creates a 35-cubic-kilometre reservoir known as Lake Mead, which provides water to communities in Southern California and Nevada.

After having spent so many months inland, the sight of Lake Mead’s sparkling waters is breathtaking.


Thanks to security checkpoints and photo-happy tourists, there is somewhat of a traffic build-up as we cross the Hoover Dam. Fortunately, we can access the Internet via 3G so Jim is able to meet his 1pm appointment while we wait.

Traffic subsides and the road opens up once we cross the state border. We make an afternoon food stop at Kingman, and take the I-40 from there to Williams, where we spend the night.

We travel against a gradually transforming backdrop that shifts from a yellow, shrubby desert to a lush shade of green. Trees line our hour-long drive to the Grand Canyon National Park the next morning.

Arriving at noon, we set up camp in the Mather Campgrounds immediately. The campgrounds are well laid out, with each campsite providing a picnic table, firepit, carspace, and ample space for a tent.


I have never really enjoyed camping, thanks to my few experiences with too many insects, too much walking, cold (or no) showers and the foulest of foul drop toilets.

Camping in the Grand Canyon National Park is a different story altogether.

Within 100 metres of our campsite there is a ‘comfort station’ (toilet block) with clean, modern facilities. Further away, there is a shower block with laundry facilities, coin-operated hot showers complete with hairdryers. A nearby general store sells all sorts of groceries, camping equipment and firewood, while a reasonably priced cafeteria makes cooking largely unnecessary.

Our two-night stay is superbly enjoyable. We dine once with canyon views at the upmarket El Torvar, and stroll briefly along the south rim on the Bright Angel Trail. Otherwise, most of our time is spent reading, playing cards and animal-spotting at the campgrounds, perusing the store and eating at the café.

There seems to be a great fuss made about the Grand Canyon, which is, according to Theodore Roosevelt, ‘the one great sight which every American should see’.

Really, it’s a giant hole in the ground. Cool, aesthetically pleasing, yes -- but hardly a spiritual experience.