A Lap Around America

by Shawn Inmon

  We took a twenty-minute tour of Dayton, looking for the house I had lived in there. I was sure I’d found the right street, but there were no houses that filled the bill. It had been almost fifty years, and the place wasn’t exactly upscale, so there was every possibility it had burned down or been torn down. I was glad we had spent our first night in Dayton, though. It was gratifying to see that my childhood memories held true, and it’s still a pleasant little town.

  We drove south on Highway 12 toward Walla Walla, bragged of as “the town so nice, they named it twice.” I have a small confession: Along with other quirks, I have a slight mental problem. (This may not be news to you.) When I hear a sound pleasing to my ear, I tend to repeat it. It’s one of those habits that to others seems funny at first, then gets annoying, then provokes homicidal thoughts. That happened with Walla Walla, Washington. Try it yourself.

  Isn’t it pleasant, the way it rolls off your tongue?

  Walla Walla, Washington. It’s best if you run it all together, like there isn’t a comma there, but if I leave the comma out of Walla Walla, Washington, my editor will have a conniption fit. See, I’m kind of doing it now, in print, aren’t I?

  In any case, you can see how this might get old if you were stuck in a car with me, driving 40 mph past the same scenery we’d been passing for the previous half-day. Dawn says I’m “special,” but I think she means the other kind of special, not the good kind.

  I used to go to Walla Walla, Washington, (last time, I promise) for work back in the early 1980s, but everything looked different to me this time. Cities do not simply sit still, frozen in time, and wait for me to come back through on Reminiscing Road. WW, W— is that better? worse?—has actually shot up quite a bit, but it still has the look of a small prairie town that’s been pumped up like an overinflated tire. Businesses are densely packed together along the main drags, but there aren’t many buildings more than a few stories tall.

  And then you see it, just down the street. Towering over the town like Wilt Chamberlain playing a pick-up game with a bunch of grade schoolers: the Marcus Whitman Hotel. It is twelve stories tall, twice the height of any other structure in town. The namesake, Marcus Whitman, was a doctor who led one of the first major wagon trains on what became known as the Oregon Trail. He also set up an outpost for others passing through and met a bad end, but more on that in a bit.

  We admired the Marcus Whitman Hotel as we drove past, as we knew we would not be staying anywhere nearly that special at any point in our journey. We gassed up the Silver Bullet and got back on Highway 12, heading west this time, exactly the opposite direction we had come the day before.

  We hadn’t gone far when we saw a sign pointing toward the Whitman Mission National Historic Site. History, tragedy, and a failure to communicate: How could we pass that up? As became our habit everywhere other than the petrified forest, our first stop was at the information center. Throughout our trip, we found every single ranger at these centers to be dedicated, knowledgeable, and eager to share what they knew. They told us a bit of the history, then set us free to wander about what had once been one of the most important outposts of western settler civilization, now reverted mostly to prairie grass.

  Here’s the condensed story of what happened to Marcus and Narcissa Whitman: Marcus Whitman dreamed of being a minister, but instead became a physician, and practiced in New York state and Canada. His faith was a great motivator, though, and after hearing a speech imploring good people to come west and be missionaries to the indigenous people of the west, he and Narcissa did.

  They brought some medical and technological advances and developed a mission in a Cayuse settlement just south of where Walla Walla would eventually spring up. The problem is that along with positive things, they also brought illness; specifically, the measles, a European disease to which the settlers had some immunity but the indigenous people did not. Dr. Whitman did what he could to save as many as possible, but over half the tribe’s population died, and nearly all their children were wiped out. A generation lost.

  Between the massive loss of life and a general unease at the Christian message the Whitmans were bringing, the Cayuse grew increasingly unhappy with their presence. On November 29, 1847, the Cayuse, under the leadership of Chief Tiloukaikt, killed the Whitmans and eleven other settlers in what became known as the Whitman Massacre.

  Looking at it from the perspective of 170 years later, it is easy to see why the Cayuse reacted as they did, though violence is never a good answer. They were living happily in a land that had been theirs for centuries. Then, new settlers appeared, asking them to adapt to their beliefs and way of life. Then the Cayuse started to die in great numbers, creating suspicion that they had been poisoned.

  The event became a rallying cry for those in the eastern United States who wanted to be more aggressive against the Cayuse and other indigenous people. The Cayuse War was the result, and in the end, the Cayuse were so decimated the few survivors merged with the Nez Perce Tribe.

  We walked through the grounds of the former mission with heavy hearts. The buildings are gone, but the caretakers of the historic site have outlined with stones where each stood, so you can get an excellent idea of what daily life was like in the settlement. On a hilltop directly above the mission is a memorial to those who died that day. It’s a bit of a hike, especially on a hot August day, but I recommend it.

  We had our picnic lunch outside the information center, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and slices of cheese, and talking about what had happened on that spot. It was one of those tragedies where both sides believe they are doing the right thing to protect or propagate their way of life. When communication broke down, so did everything else, and all parties paid a heavy price.

  May I point out that those last two sentences can be applied to many conflicts happening today?

  For most of the rest of the day, we followed the Columbia River, sometimes on the Oregon side, sometimes on Washington’s. What Dawn had thought looked like a little stream when we first spotted it now really was the Mighty Columbia—broad, swift-moving, and powerful, heading toward the Pacific, as were we.

  The mighty Columbia

  We drove on the Lewis and Clark Highway for most of the afternoon. With the rolling brown hills surrounding us, and the deep blue of the Columbia below, it was a memorable drive.

  Have I mentioned that I like quirky? Thank goodness Dawn also likes quirky, as that may explain why she married me. Our second stop of the day fell on the high end of the quirk spectrum—the Maryhill Museum of Art.

  But first came Maryhill Stonehenge. Before leaving on this trip, I’d had no clue that there are Stonehenge replicas all over the country. This particular copy of the famous prehistoric stones of England was ordered built by Samuel (Sam) Hill, the businessman who had the vision of what Maryhill could become. He built it as one of the earliest tributes to the soldiers of World War I. In fact, at the time it was christened, in July 1918, the war was still going on. Sam Hill, a pacifist Quaker, thought that since the original Stonehenge was believed to have been used as a place of sacrifice, his version would honor the sacrifice of the soldiers who had given their lives in the war.

  This Stonehenge is built of concrete, which makes for a formidable if somewhat unimaginative memorial. Sam Hill himself is buried on a small ledge just below the replica but above the Columbia River. Once upon a time, his Stonehenge sat in the middle of the town of Maryhill, but the old town burned down, leaving only the stones remaining.

  The Maryhill Museum is a few miles farther down the road, sitting right on the bank of the Columbia and offering stunning views. What’s odd is that anyone would place such a massive mansion in the middle of nowhere. Most museums are in locations likely to attract droves of people. We were driving on a lonely little ribbon of road. Our GPS told us we were getting close, but we couldn’t believe it, as there was nothing but hills and the river in sight. And then, off to the left, there it was: a beaux arts mansion built as the
personal residence of Sam Hill and his wife, Mary, after whom the museum is named.

  Construction was started in 1914 but halted after America entered World War I, when materials became scarce. The building wasn’t opened to the public until 1940—yes, just making it under the wire for yet another world war. Sam Hill was a visionary character. In addition to the Maryhill Museum and the Stonehenge replica, he played a major role in constructing the Peace Arch in Blaine, Washington, on the Canadian border. He also had a lot to do with improving Oregon’s highways.

  He envisioned Maryhill as a kind of utopia, a place where Quaker farmers could come together to form a community. That never got off the ground, as he was the only Quaker to ever live in the area. He also never lived in the Maryhill mansion. He died in 1931, before it was completed. Before his passing, he had decided Maryhill should become a museum, not a residence, and so it has been since 1940.

  The museum itself is impressive, with an entire section dedicated to Auguste Rodin, famous for sculptures such as The Thinker. My personal favorite is a small piece of the overarching masterwork The Gates of Hell, called “Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone,” which shows exactly that. I have no idea why a few statues, like this one, leave me breathless, while 98 percent of what the world thinks is amazing doesn’t register.

  Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone

  The museum fills three floors, and we spent a few hours wandering its halls. In what would become a recurring theme on the trip, we could have easily spent more time there, but when we looked out over the Columbia from one of the observation areas, we saw that the sun was dipping again. We hoped to make it to Tillamook for the night, and that was a long drive still, so regretfully we pulled away, noting that we’d like to come back when we had a full day to spend. Since we have moved to Seaview, Washington, it’s a pretty easy daytrip.

  We got back on the Lewis and Clark Highway and shot west toward Portland. Checking my maps, I could see there was no realistic way to make it through the city without hitting a freeway. As it was now several hours past rush hour, we gritted our teeth and hit I-5 for a bit. We lucked out: Traffic through the Rose City was moving, and we were soon on Highway 6, headed toward Tillamook.

  We had chosen Tillamook because it was on the Oregon coast and as far as we thought we could reasonably drive that day. That proved correct, as it was dark when we pulled into a roadside motel for the night. Neither Dawn nor I do well driving strange roads after dark, so we were glad to have arrived, safe and sound.

  Day Three

  If you’ve read my first memoir, Feels Like The First Time, you might remember that one of my wedding vows was that I would always bring Dawn her first cup of coffee each day. At home, that’s no worry. I set the pot up the night before, set the timer, and everything is ready when I want it. On the road, I was already discovering things were a bit more difficult. This hotel had coffee in the lobby, of course, and powdered creamer. I can no more imagine taking Dawn a coffee with powdered creamer in it than I can picture myself dunking a basketball.

  I jumped into the Silver Bullet and found, typical of the Pacific Northwest, three coffee kiosks in less than a mile. I grabbed her the classic cinnamon hazelnut latte, extra hot, and made it back to the room before she woke. When my first words to her are, “Here’s your coffee,” I’ve noticed how much better the day runs.

  If you recognize the name Tillamook, it might be because you’ve seen it in your dairy case, on cheese, ice cream, yogurt, and so on. We had driven through Tillamook on our honeymoon six years earlier and toured the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I know that doesn’t sound like the most romantic of honeymoons—“Where did you go?” “Oh, it was exciting! We visited a cheese factory!”—but we were pretty broke then, and a free, interesting tour was definitely on our agenda.

  If you ever find yourself within an hour’s drive, a tour of the cheese factory is well worth the trip. They still make cheese the old-fashioned way, and it involves a lot of steps. When you do a self-guided tour, you can follow the whole process, from watching the trucks pull up full of milk to the final step of wrapping the cheese for sale. It’s a bit like watching a Rube Goldberg machine, where 200 actions take place just to crack an egg.

  We completed the tour but thought it would be rude to leave without buying some cheese and at least trying the huckleberry ice cream, right? I tried two full scoops to be extra polite. Highly recommended.

  It was pushing noon and hot before we left Tillamook, looking for the ocean. The Silver Bullet’s thermometer said it was already 90 degrees. I rolled my window down, filled the car with hot air, and immediately rolled it back up. It was an air-conditioning kind of day on the road.

  After driving through road construction for several miles, we came to a point of decision—turn left and head south, or veer right and take the more scenic route, nearer the ocean. I don’t even have to mention the way we went, do I? As we moved closer to the ocean, the temperature began to drop. When we caught our first glimpse of the deep green of the Pacific, it was down to 78 degrees. This is why we moved to the coast—I love the cooler weather.

  Some things can be expressed as facts: Five-thousand, two-hundred and eighty feet make a mile. The circumference of a circle is a string of numbers that never repeats. The freezing temperature of water is 32 degrees. Then, there are opinions: Something is always the new black. Some new age is always the new thirty (or forty, or fifty). And so-and-so is the most beautiful place in the world.

  I can’t state with full accuracy what the most beautiful place is, but of the places I’ve visited, I remember a few contenders: A pristine meadow in the Matanuska Valley in Alaska. A spot in Maui where I looked down on the ocean crashing into the rocks, which took my breath away. However, for me, the Oregon Coast probably tops the list.

  It may be because I was born and raised in the region, but there’s something about driving Highway 101 down the Oregon Coast that relaxes and feeds my soul. The 101 doesn’t track the Pacific on its whole length, but where it does, it is beyond spectacular: Huge haystack rocks, rising up from foaming water, waves crashing against them. The water turning from blue to green, depending on how you look at it. The sun, playing against the water in constantly evolving patterns and shapes.

  We did not make good time as we drove, because every few miles we pulled off, breathed in sea air, and just looked. My wish for you would be that you could someday take two entire days and spend it driving from one perfect spot to another on Highway 101. Interstate 5 gets you from Washington to California quickly. Highway 101 can restore your belief in beauty and the perfection of this third rock from the sun.

  The Oregon Coast

  Just south of Lincoln City, we found a small state park and pulled over for the picnic lunch portion of our day. We sat on the edge of the park nearest the ocean. The waves crashing below us were a perfect soundtrack. The seagulls were not afraid of humans. As we finished, one landed on our table within a foot of me, calm but apparently hungry. He looked at me, unblinking, until I parted with a small piece of bread. He flew away, only to be replaced immediately by another. I had a hunch they could have played this game with me all day, so I tossed a few crumbs onto the grass and made my getaway while they were occupied. I hate being guilt-tripped.

  I did a little math and figured out that in four hours, we had made sixty miles down the coast. Nothing wrong with that, but we knew that if we were going to make Crater Lake by tomorrow, we would need to do better. We did make sure Dawn got to dip her toes in the Pacific, (one down!) then turned to the serious business of driving.

  It got easier to put more miles under our wheels once we left Highway 101 and turned inland, first on Highway 38, then south on Highway 138. Yesterday, we’d spent the day running alongside the Columbia. We spent the late afternoon on this day tracking the Umpqua River. Where the Columbia is powerful and dramatic, the Umpqua is gentle and meandering, winding through the lovely and verdant farmland of southwestern Oregon.

  I would l
ove to tell you which highways and dirt roads got us to that night’s destination, but I’m not sure they all even have numbers, and I’m fairly certain a few were actually someone’s driveway.

  Once again it was after dark when we arrived at our safe haven, in the lovely little Maple Leaf motel, in the aptly named town of Shady Grove, just south of Crater Lake.

  Day Four

  I’ve mentioned before that I’m an early riser. I tend to wake up around 6 a.m. every day, no matter what. Dawn is at the other end of the circadian rhythm scale. She’s really just waking up at 10 p.m., and would naturally stay up until 2 a.m. if she could. At home, that’s not a big problem. I get up and write early in the morning, when the house is quiet, and she often stays up three or four hours after I go to bed. On the road, though, we were going to need to sync up a little more. My solution had been to let her sleep in a bit on mornings when it wasn’t important that we hit the road early, in exchange for being allowed to roll her out while it was still dark when we were on a schedule.

  Today, we were up and at ’em early. Okay, truth be told, I was up and at ’em. Dawn was up, with resistance. We left Shady Grove not too long after the sun peeked over the hills and headed north on Highway 62 toward Crater Lake National Park.

  This is a good time to offer a quick travel tip. If you’re going to do a fair amount of traveling around the United States in a given year, I recommend getting an America The Beautiful annual pass. That will get you free entry into every U.S. national park with the exception of Mount Rushmore, which I’ll talk about when we get there. Since many of the national parks cost upwards of $20 per car to enter, it doesn’t take long to pay for itself. It’s only $80, and we got at least $200 value out of it. The pass also ensured that cost was never a consideration when we were deciding whether to hit a park or not.