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After some deliberation I just decided to make this a new topic, as I will have pictures and things later on. Right, well, as you all know I was gone to Oregon for a week. I shall give an account of my adventure and try to rend it as humerous as possible so you all don't get bored. ^_^ It'll be terribley long because I like to include details, and I'll have it as reference for myself later when I start to forget. sweatdrop

When my mother told me that we would fly all the way out to Oregon, I didn't entirely believe her. We've never really gone much of anywhere, and I was still in a state of disbelief as we purchased our tickets, packed our bags, and still, as we were headed to the airport.

Now, we have been drilled and drilled again not to joke about bombs and such in the airport (as is our wont) and had been told dozens of horror stories about being stopped in the airport, so we were all quite thrilled when we got through without mishap. My mother has never been on a plane, nor had my brother; I had when I was very little but couldn't remember much of it, so we were all in for a very new experience indeed. I recall my brother bouncing around as a steady stream of nonsense issued forth from his mouth. He hadn't slept at all the night before.

So we sit around for quite a while, as we had arrived very early in case of some catastrophe or ludicrously long line. To entertain ourselves we chatted about whatever came up, which just so happened to be the Assyrians.

Now, for some reason, my brother and I have just got to be the most amusing people on the planet, because everytime we go somewhere and talk, everyone stares at us and listens!! We, along with our mother, must have been giving a sterling performance that morning; everytime I looked around all eyes were on us with rapt attention, particularly this one bug-eyed fellow. Finally we board, and after scooting aimlessly around the runway for a half-hour, start our flight. It was a particularly lovely take-off, a good omen, perhaps, or at least foreshadowing of the days to come. It was early evening, and a rainy mist had settled in on the ground. We rattled along through a gently colored cloud and went up and up, the wing out the window obscured by rushing fog, intermitently varying in thickness and luminosity. Suddenly we come through, and the low clouds spreads out below us like a field of cotton, aglow with the light of the setting sun. Up we went, still, and when those clouds had become a distant sheet, we leveled off. My brother, who had never flown, was in a state of sleep-deprived delerium and was waving his arms around and squealing with delight at it all.

The rest of the flight was rather dull, at least uneventful. I looked over our sleeping neighbor and out the window at the scenery below. Most of it was clouds, which is fine by me. We traveled west in an unending evening for three hours to Salt Lake, where we made a stop before going on to Portland. I got the window seat then and gazed out while my other two companions slept. Although it was night below us, the western horizon retained a steady red glow with Lucifer's Star hanging in the middle. The evening is my favorite time of day, and I was thrilled to have it last for so long, although it was somewhat unnerving. I found myself constantly wondering at our height and speed, and what it would be like to go higher and see the curve of the earth below and the vacuum of space all around. Of course, planes really can't, but I can muse all the same.

We finally arrive after flying over Mt. Hood. Bemused and tired, we stumbled to our waiting aunt and our lugage and left. On the two hour ride to her house, I remember thinking a good deal on, of all things, Naraka. I was terribly far away from home, and yet, didn't miss it, because my family was with me. My home is my family. Naraka's has been dead for more than a thousand years, and any new family he makes, he loses. How terribley lonely he must be, afraid to make new bonds, practically alone wherever he goes. If I had to live his existance I would've killed myself a long time ago. Maybe I'd just sleep for years and years.

My aunt, Cindy chattered on through the ride, telling us this and that about Oregon and what we would be doing. My poor mother is used to going to sleep around 10 and it was almost three there (which is five here) when we got to Cindy's house. They all slept. Unfortunately, I can't sleep in strange places and spent most of the night awake. I did sleep a little, though, because I had a very wierd dream: A being from the sea had sent his minions to invite and/or capture me to become his wife. I was taken to his home and spent the majority of my time in the shape of a sea creature that resembled an enormous fin floating around the ocean while he explored deeper regions of existance at a level of 500 to 600. I stayed around level 50 with his court, or his minions, or whoever they were. On occassion we would be able to communicate through the barrier of planes, and sometimes he would even come back and we would hang out together. He was very pleasant and I liked him a good deal, and so considered myself well-off. It's very rare that I dream of being married to anyone, and this dream was particularly odd.

In the morning we crawled into Eugene and went to the Saturday market. It was filled with artists and musicians and beggars and dancers, and all kinds of exciting things. Illinois is a boring, plain, closed-minded area of the country, and my brother and I always looked and acted terribley out of place. Here, however, we were among kindred spirits and had a marvelous time with our cousin, Eric. Or should I say, Dr... Yes, Dr. Munt Hoolala. He changed his name about a year ago. I shall refer to him as Eric, however, because it's what I'm used to. What to say about Eric? He was always our favorite cousin because he was as wierd as we were. And he'd gotten a whole lot wierder. He wants to make masks for a living, and his hobbies include dressing in women's clothing and competing in ballroom dancing competitions. He's a good deal in common with me on account of our artistic streak, and a good deal in common with my brother on account of their rabid video game playing. And we all share the same sense of humor, which few others really get.

So we raced around Eugene and shopped and shopped, and activity I'm not particularly fond of, but the company made it much better. It was a whirl of sights and smells and people and heat and merchandise and I was terribley tired by the end of it. Even so, sleep did not come to me easily again that night. Perhaps on account of the excitement I felt. The next day we were headed to the ocean.

We got up before dawn and crawled out to the car, tired as anything. It was a two or three hour drive from Eugene to the seaside, and mostly people slept, but not I. We were headed through the mountains, and I was too busy staring out the window to sleep. It was pleasantly overcast the hills and the enormous pine trees were good to look at. I can content myself for hours, just looking out a car window. Looking and thinking. It didn't seem long at all before we were there. Glimpsing beyond shops and houses, the edge of the world dropped off into a flat, grey haze. Driving up upon a cliff I saw the sea meet the sand; beyond, everything came together indistinctly as water and sky. I was thrilled beyond reason just to see it from the car window, but we were headed to the tidepools, where I could actually be beside it. Soon we were out of the car and marching down steep steps towards the roaring tumult. The noise was wonderful, and I know that if I lived by the sea I'd sleep soundly and happily every night. And the sound of seagulls, I doubt I could ever tire of. I think in a past life I must have lived by the ocean.

So we poked around tidepools for hours, petting anenomes, urchins, and starfish. They were all very colorful and very torpid. So much of the life in the sea is lazy. A wild sealion lolling in the surf with her two pups was about all the activity we saw. When we'd had enough of the stone beach, we headed to the sand, where my cousin found, to his glee, a large strand of bull kelp perfect for whipping. The rest of the time we spent whipping rocks and driftwood and each other, and taking pictures of it, while the adults searched for seashells.

From there we toured a lighthouse, went to eat, and headed to some aquarian place, where we looked at fishes and eels and otters and sealions, and, oddly enough, bats. The aquarium was having a bat exhibit; who knows why? Then we drove up and down the coast, looking for a bit of fun. We stopped in at an art gallery where I bought a lovely ceramic piece and hobbnobbed with the lady running the joint on the matter of artistry. From there we headed to the sand dunes and tired ourselves out, toiling up and down them. You don't know what work is until you try to march miles over slanted sands. There was icecream to be had afterwards, and so much saltwater taffy as to make us sick for a week. I stood upon great rocks in the roiling foam and surf as the sun went down, and from there we headed home.

The next day we went east, through another set of mountains. Again, it was cloudy, and the peaks were often obscured by the low-hanging, pearly mists. The air was very cool in the height and warm down below, and I found myself switching clothes around as we went. Our destination was Diamond lake, a large body of water nestled between several snow-topped mountains, the names of which escape me. Once there, we slept in a tent with three blankets among four people, and got snowed upon, and it was so teeth-chatteringly cold I doubt any of us slept at all, except for my brother who can sleep through anything. After a breakfast at the lodge, we headed to Crater lake through winding roads, up above the treeline. The lake is the remains of a volcano which had blown off it's middle and upper half and filled with rainwater and snow. I don't know if anything else on the planet is as strikingly blue as that lake. There were no sediments to muddy it, no animals or plants living in it, just clear water. On second though, it did have one inhabitant--the Old Man of the Lake, a huge tree who had fallen in and, with the aid of boulders stuck in its roots, floats around and around, willy-nilly, perfectly vertical in the water.

From there we headed to the High Desert Museum, which was closing, unfortunately, but we got to sneak around and look at a few things. Then we went to the three Sisters, a trio of volcanoes, one of which is growing a cap and could blow at any time. We marched up and down volcanic flows with nothing growing on them, though they had been there for thousands of years, at an altitude that took the breath out of us. The entire jount into the east of Oregon was wonderful and exciting, though tiring, except for a sad incident on our way back--we hit a raccoon who was trying to cross the road. There wasn't anything Cindy (who was driving) could do, as we were driving down a mountain slope and had nowhere to swerve to. She slowed, but the silly thing didn't turn. I looked back and saw it writhing on the pavement. I thought a lot about that raccoon afterwards. I hope it died quickly.

After two full days of being awake, I finally got some sleep that night. The next day we rested, and I spent most of it drawing, and trying to decide where Naraka's gone for the duration of my absence. The next two day we went out with my cousin and looked around Eugene some more. We popped in and out of coffee shops, one of which had the most beautiful painting of Lord Shiva and his wife. I oogled that painting for at least ten minutes and again when we went back. I should have liked to have it, but it was an original. Perhaps I'll find prints somwhere. I spent a good deal of time in a shop containing imports and bought a number of things including a little silver statue of Shiva doing his dance of destruction (something I've been lusting after for a long time), a magnet of Shiva and Nandi, and a lunchbox that has got to be one of the funniest depictions of the main hindu pantheon I have ever seen in my life. On one side Kali sticks her tongue out, and on the other the rest of them are lined up side by side like the cover of some rock album. There was also a wonderful Tibetan store, which I would have cleaned out had I been rich enough. As it was, I made off with two beautiful batique shirts, one of Ganesh, the other of Shiva and his family, a resin statue of Ganesh (which I come to adore more and more as time goes on), a lovely batique piece of Shiva and Nandi, and a CD of chanting. I bought a tremendous amount of stone beads at a bead shop as well, which I will encorperate into future metals pieces.

Our final evening there was spent picking blackberries and chillin' with our cuz and some of his friends. The next morning we were up early and headed back to Portland for our final flight. The plane made two stops this time, one in Salt Lake, the other in Pheonix. Part of the flightpath was over the grand canyon, which was terribley exciting to look down at, and I got to see the topside of a rainbow. We arrived back in St. Louis tired, but well-pleased, and with a good deal of Oregon swag.

And that's the story of my trip to Oregon. I'll put up some pictures when we get them developed and you might just *gasp* be able to see what I look like if any of them turned out at all decent.

If anyone has any questions or comments, have at and make a post. ^_^

^_^ I dun think it was Bend. I forget which. It was the tallest one in Oregon. I did get to go through the walk-through tank. My brother and I kind of rushed, though, because we were looking for our fellows whom we had lost somewhere in the park. My favorite bit was watching the sealions and the otters. Sea otters are a helluvalot bigger up close than you'd think. I'm used to the littler river ones around here.

Hell ya, I'd go back! I don't know if I'd live there, though. I've got a strong idea in my head that there's someplace I belong, and that wasn't it, as lovely as it was.