During a recent rain-slicked Sunday quest for the die-cast version of the Porsche known as Sally Carrera, I found myself piloting my automobile through previously unseen backroads of the Pacific Northwest.
A woman at a Rite Aid had given me a few directions that turned out to be slightly faulty. My internal compass brought me onto a wooded suburban lane that took a few turns before spilling out onto a coast-hugging road overlooking a spectacular inlet of the Puget Sound. I smiled. My 3-year-old son in the car seat in the back did not.
“Daddy,” he said. “Where are we going?”
“That’s a very good question,” I said, smiling some more. “The short answer is we’re going to try to get Sally. The shorter answer is that we’re lost.”
“Why are we lost?” he said, the words ringing in my ears like the most familiar melody.
“Because I like getting lost,” I said. “In a few years, you’ll probably like getting lost, too.”
He paused and I caught him looking quizzically out the window at the boats on the water and the picturesque houses dotting the jagged, stony beachfront.
“Daddy’s getting lost,” he said. “We’re getting lost.”
Seventeen years ago two college friends and I went to Eugene, Oregon, from Arizona for a weekend of Grateful Dead shows. We exited the parking lot after the Sunday show in the late afternoon on a perfect day. There was nothing to worry about other than making the early Monday morning flight about 100 miles away in Portland. And maybe getting pulled over.
I was at the wheel of the rental car, and, as usual, my friends weren’t paying attention, preferring to watch the flower girls and bearded shirtless dudes over ogling street signs. As far as they were concerned, we’d be on Interstate 5 before long and blasting north in the most economical way. The sun was setting and I knew the ocean was to the west and I drove that way.
Before long, Jablow noticed that we were on a semi-winding country thoroughfare. It wasn’t unpaved or gravel or anything truly scary, but with barns and tractors and fruit stands by the roadside, it was enough to spark the question passengers inevitably ask me.
“Dude … where the fuck are we?”
I explained, like I always do, why I need to get lost without the approval of the people who happen to be in the car with me.
I knew the Pacific Ocean wasn’t far away, and after living in Arizona for large portions of the previous seven years, I hadn’t seen it very much. I grew up on an island — the wanderlust that soothes my soul usually points me back to water.
“It’s a straight shot, and then we’ll get miles and miles of pure coastline,” I probably said, feeling the need to sell them on it. “We’ll catch the sunset over the waves. It will be epic.”
That assertion, along with the fitting bootleg of the Aug. 27, 1972 Dead show from the Olde Renaissance Faire Grounds in Veneta, Oregon (near Ken Kesey’s farm, not far from where we were driving at that very moment), placated them into silence. We rolled on.
An hour or so passed and we still weren’t at the ocean. I was a bit concerned, looking at the clock and realizing the sun would be going down soon. A sign said Florence, the nearest beach town, was still 38 miles away.
By the time we reached a place called Devil’s Elbow a few miles north of Florence, it was the dark of night. The roiling Pacific was more a vicious sound than a shining sight. Lasky asked me when we’d be in Portland, and knowing that he often has no idea where we are, especially when he’s behind the wheel, I knew I could lessen the blow.
“It’s going to take a while, but that’s what adventures are all about, right?”
No answer.
The climb up the coast ensued and went smoothly for a while. We went about 25 miles and hit a town called Yachats, right at the confluence of a river and the ocean. I stopped the car and we got out to smell the air.
Back in the car fifteen minutes later, I saw a telephone booth on a grassy bluff overlooking the sea and proclaimed it the most beautiful telephone booth in the world. And then the rains came.
The storm pounded us as we crossed the Alsea Bay Bridge in Waldport, another river-mouth town dumping into the biggest thing in the world. The torrents crashed down on the hood of the Ford as the wind whipped the waves and trees into a howl that blasted through the windows of the car. Lasky and Jablow were scared and pissed off and tired. I couldn’t sell it anymore.
When we crossed another bridge at Yaquina Bay , Lasky and Jablow were asleep and I was on my way, but my inner need to power on through the unknown, to plow further and always live in the now, gave me the fuel to stay awake. For at least a little while.
I reached Neotsu at around 10 o’clock. I had driven almost 150 miles from Eugene, and it had been about four hours since we left the sunshine daydream of Autzen Stadium and the “kind veggie burritos” we ate for dinner. The rain had stopped, but as I turned inland to State Route 18 upon finally seeing the word “Portland” on a sign, I realized quickly that I still had another 85 miles to go.
I don’t remember much of that two-hour final leg. Lasky and Jablow snored through it, and I revisited that 1972 cassette ad nauseam because I didn’t have the energy to reach underneath the tape deck to pull out another. The official story I would tell included a kicker of a line that went something like, “I’m pretty sure I was asleep for about ten miles,” but we made it to the airport.
Next weekend, I’ll have my son with me again. He’s never seen the ocean.
I’m thinking about taking him south from Seattle, curling around Olympia, heading through Aberdeen and meeting the Pacific, maybe at Grayland or possibly pushing it all the way down to the Long Beach Peninsula.
Then again, I might get other ideas.
Just see if you can find Tom …
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I love getting lost. I’m glad there are a few other people out there who enjoy this also. Thanks.