Wallowa

Ron Gay, the Mayor of Wallowa, owns the town liquor store. Really, do I have to say anything more?
41 down, 201 to go.

Cove

After our week in La Grande was up, we couldn't bear the thought of heading home to Portland so soon so we booked a night at the Union Hotel. On our way to Union, I happened to get in touch with Mayor Jim Lundy of Cove. Cove is kind off a highway that is off a highway, so you really have no reason to go through there unless you're really trying to go through there. In fact, this was only the second time I had been there--and both times I've had to stop in at the market to ask for directions.
The entire town is on a gentle slope at the base of Mt. Fanny facing west-southwesterly, something my wife immediately picked up on. At our house the sun seems to go down an hour earlier than everywhere else in the world because of Forest Park being directly to our west. But here in Cove, sunset is probably at a more Mid-Western, acceptable (to her) time. Cove's unique topography might explain why they have one of the region's only wineries.
Mayor Lundy invited us to sit down in the shade of his deck while he autographed our map and he told us a little about life in Cove. I swear if there was lemonade involved, we probably would have stayed there all day because Mayor Lundy is one of the friendliest and most interesting people we met on our trip to Eastern Oregon. The man keeps bees, for chrissakes.
The Lundy family and their yorkiedoodle (?) live on about an acre of this gently sloped land on the eastern edge of town. He has a little creek that feeds his garden and apple trees year round, although he explained to me that Cove was originally "prune tree country." Apparently the landscape around Cove was dotted with prune drying houses years ago that would occasionally burst into flames and destroy the entire town. I find it fascinating that in addition to all the other things one had to worry about 60 years ago in Eastern Oregon, prune house fires could destroy your livestock, house, barn, or entire town on a whim. Maybe that's why we call them dried plums now.
40 down, 202 to go.

North Powder

We just came back from 9 days in northeastern Oregon. We saw many things, and met many mayors. But one of the main reasons I scheduled our visit for last week was because of the North Powder Huckleberry Festival. Firstly, I love huckleberries and anyone that doesn't is seriously misinformed. And secondly, I was intrigued by the promise of something called "Chicken Poop Keno." I had a pretty good idea what it involved, and if you guessed that you buy a square for a dollar to bet on where a chicken is going to poop, then you've got a pretty good idea what it involves as well.
Near the base of the Wallowa Mountains in the Baker Valley, North Powder holds about 500 or so people about a half a mile from Interstate 84. It's a hot, desolate place in the summertime with the only shade on the downtown parade route coming from the shadow of the abandoned tavern. Like most places in Eastern Oregon, their mill closed down sometime in the 60s or 70s and most of the people that live there now commute to La Grande or Baker City for work. The sidewalks are kinda crumbly for lack of any considerable tax base, and their fire truck is as old as I am--possibly older. In other words, I love it. And I love it even more when there's a frickin' HUCKLEBERRY PARADE going west down the very Main Street that covers up original wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail.
The Rose Parade, this was not: You'll find no dazzling floats of 200,000 peonies here. But you will see some sort of freakishly midget horses pulling a wagon of toddlers, a hot rod doing cookies mere feet away from spectators, a cheerleading team made up entirely of 8-year-olds, and tractors. Lots and lots of tractors. Our son was extremely impressed and excited when someone from the back of a fire truck threw candy at him. He still talks about it.
Gravy Dave's from nearby Union was serving huckleberry ice cream, and someone was selling huckleberry doughnuts. Every few minutes or so, some guy on an ATV drove by selling official huckleberry t-shirts. There was a dunk tank. There was a sack race. There was a bluegrass band made up of teenagers. It was just so damn small-town American that I almost called my realtor and put our house on the market right then and there, devoted to move right away to North Powder for the rest of my days, even if that damn chicken wouldn't poop on lucky number 49. C'mon chicken! Baby needs a new pair of shoes!
Interesting fact: The Mayor of North Powder, Bonita Hebert, is actually my plumber's wife's cousin. So it was no problem finding her--I just had to walk up to the parade announcer and ask where she was. After I told him why I was looking for her, he announced over the PA that "If anyone knows where Bonita is, tell her to come to the booth." She had heard about our little trek to get all the Mayor's autographs, so when she first walked up I think we shared one of those awkward "do we hug?" moments. Maybe I'm wrong about that. I don't know. Pretty cute for a Mayor, though, so now I'm almost regretting not hugging her.
This year had the highest turnout ever for the North Powder Huckleberry Festival, according to Mayor Hebert. If you're not doing anything in August of 2010, I strongly suggest you make the trek.
39 down, 203 to go. (I'm about 50 or so behind with the whole blogging thing. I'll try to catch up.)

Beaverton

First thing you should know about Beaverton, at least if you're a Portlander like I am: Tri-met works on a 3-zone system, and your 2-zone ticket will NOT fly in this town. Henry and I got kicked off the #57 bus at the Beaverton Transit Center after we got off the MAX, so we walked to city hall from there. The driver was actually kind of mean about it, saying, "It says so right on the sign outside," in a very condescending manner. It did, in fact explain in small print on the sign at the transit center that we were indeed in Zone 3, but as I explained to the bus driver, "Sorry, I've never purposely spent any time in Beaverton before."
And it's true, most people just drive through Beaverton on the way to somewhere else, thinking--as I did up until yesterday--that it was nothing but wide fast-moving streets full of Home Depots and Targets and various strip malls. But through the magic of teh internets and my friend Brenda from high school, I've found that Beaverton is actually not a bad place at all once you get out of your car. I found this site via youtube (and am borrowing the above picture from them until I unload my camera) and decided to take the day off with little Henry to visit the fountain at Beaverton City Park. It's about about 10 blocks from the Transit Center--should you find yourself walking there. Once you get away from the 5-lane boulevards that seem to traverse Beaverton in every direction you'll find yourself in quiet--almost deserted--little downtown filled with little shops and restaurants. Brenda and I took our respective children to Ava Roasteria, a coffee shop/sandwich cafe run by teenagers whose website will surprise you with Spanish-inspired guitar music about 10 seconds after you click on it.
Beaverton used to bring up weird alternative-universe feelings in me for some reason. It's as though I could totally see myself living there if things had turned out differently: The manicured lawn, the Costco membership, the 9-5 job, the commuting. Company golf tournaments, discussions about LCD vs. Plasma, casual Friday, 401k, a pet dog. Turns out (with the glaring exception of Brenda's cherry Buick SUV), people in Beaverton aren't really that much different from me. Their taxes are lower, their sandwiches crappier, and their bus drivers meaner, but other than that I think you could plop my family down in Beaverton and no one would be the wiser.
Mayor Denny Doyle, with his very un-Mayoral gangster-sounding name, has autographed our map. There's an unsubstantiated rumor that Beaverton is the most densely-populated city in Oregon, but I forgot to ask him about that.
38 down, 204 to go.

Heppner

As expansive as Eastern Oregon is, sometimes it's the little things that stand out. Take the "zebra" room at the Northwestern Motel for example. Is there any reason--any possible reason--that this place should actually exist? Counting pillows, headboards, throw rugs, lamps, and other accouterments, I counted 31 pieces of zebra flair in that room. And it's just one of several themed rooms in the one-story, late-1940s, courtyard-style piece of kitschy goodness that is the Northwestern. Sitting out in the courtyard around 10:30 or so, we learned a lot about life in Heppner. The best job on the ODOT crew is to run backhoe, and don't trust Sheila as a babysitter, for example.
Heppner kinda bills itself as a sort of Irish town. Their cute downtown has a giant shamrock in the middle of the main intersection, and even their municipal garbage cans have shamrocks instead of little round holes for your trash. They also have a "Wee Bit O' Ireland" festival every year in March. As far as I could tell, churches outnumbered bars four to one, which is probably about right depending on how Catholic you're leaning. We had a horrible time trying to find something to eat during our stay, as it seems that none of the restaurants we saw had a real kitchen--just panini machines and microwaves. In all fairness, it looked like two of the restaurants were closed for remodeling or because it was Monday. We did find some sandwiches at a very eclectic 50's-themed antique mall sorta place.
Maybe it's because we had just spent three days out at the Deer Creek Guard Station, but I was really in the mood for a real beer when we got to Heppner. Best I could find at the grocery store (also conveniently located downtown) was a sixer of Mirror Pond, which was fine, but it made me think that if I had a spare million laying around I'd totally open up a brewpub in Heppner. It's pretty much the perfect place for one: A cute downtown, lots of people that probably like beer, and the nearest microbrewery has to be at least 100 miles away. Instead, we went bowling at the weirdest bowling alley on earth: The Youth Stable. I think it might actually be an old bowling alley that is slowly converting to a church annex. Half of the lanes are currently in the process of being torn out and replaced with air hockey tables and such, but it was just as good a place as any for our 27-month-old to learn how to roll. Thankfully he came in third, but just barely. I later checked out the bar in town, Bucknum's. It's like every other bar in any town under 10,000 people: Since the smoking ban, even bars in rural Eastern Oregon are soulless pits of depression with no character. Taking out the smell of cigarettes from bars only highlights the other more offensive smells: Fryer grease, cheap cologne, and urinal cakes. Lots and lots of urinal cakes.
We missed Mayor Leslie Paustian by five minutes on Monday afternoon, but the nice ladies at City Hall held onto our map overnight and made sure the Mayor autographed it by the next morning.
Heppner was probably one of our most fun towns so far, but my wife said something completely epiphanic while we were sitting in the courtyard of the motel among the tipsy young party-girls hitting on the visiting ODOT workers: "It's a nice town, but we would have had a LOT of fun in this place five years ago."
37 down, 205 to go.

Sodaville

The first thing I noticed about Sodaville Mayor Thomas Brady Harrington was that he didn't quite fit the stereotypical "Mayor" mold that I've gotten used to.  He's young, kinda scrappy, and friendly in more of a drinking buddy way than a statesman sorta way.  I met him in Salem at the Oregon Mayor's Conference and we talked a little about tubing down the Santiam outside of Waterloo, and a little about Sodaville in general.  He seemed like a nice guy and was definitely enjoying his first month of being the new Mayor of a town with just over 300 people.  

A couple months later I was in the Fairview Mayor's office and he asked me if I had met the "convicted felon Mayor."  I had no idea we had an Oregon Mayor that was convicted of a felony, and Mayor Weatherby couldn't remember what town he governed, so I just sort of forgot about it and went off to Canby for another autograph.  Well, a few weeks later I was talking with some folks from Lebanon, who told me the whole story.  Turns out, it's kinda interesting:

Sodaville, originally and ironically named for it's mineral water springs, was having a problem with their municipal water system.  Not enough water for the whole town, so they were having to truck it in from Albany and the city budget was in real trouble.  As the election for the new Mayor neared, the two names on the ballot were incumbent Ronda Bennett and Thomas Harrington.  Mayor Harrington won by just 13 votes, but after the election many of the townspeople admitted that they thought they were voting for Thomas Harrington Senior, the owner of a rock products place in town.  In a way, it's almost the same plot for the movie The Distinguished Gentleman starring Eddie Murphy.  Check out this news story about the whole thing.  It's kinda fun, and when you see Mayor Harrington's mugshots you'll understand why I felt he was a little different when he autographed our map.

There's a happy ending to this story presumably on the way.  With federal stimulus money, Sodaville may soon have the necessary $628,000 to upgrade their facilities.  The best news--for me anyway--is that convicted felons can still be Mayor.  Watch out in 2024, Woodburn!  I'm officially announcing my candidacy.  

  36 down, 206 to go.

Astoria

One of these days I'm going to quit my job and move to Astoria. I have been saving almost $70 per month since I got married, so at this rate I'll be there in 2108. Can't wait. I'll find an easily remodeled ranch in the South Slope neighborhood and teach old people how to kayak in Young's Bay. Seriously, Astoria has everything a transplanted Portlander would need: A natural foods store, a cafe that serves Stumptown, multiple places to enjoy a microbrew, a strip club, dive bars, and even the Columbia River just to remind you that you're never to far from home.
Hood River is a close second, but Astoria is my first choice for a place to lie low for an extended weekend. And there's no better place to do just that than the old Astoria Red Lion. That place must have been built just before the decline of the logging and fishing industry, and I imagine it must have been the jewel of the north coast after it was built. Every room has a sweeping view of the bridge and the marina with a deck right over the water. These days the attached restaurant has long been abandoned, and sometimes (when the maintenance people accidentally leave it unlocked) you can sneak inside and wander through the upturned mold-covered barstools and the rotting tablecloths while pretending you're in a post-apocalyptic version of 1980s Astoria. I once saw a mongrel pup limping out of there with what looked like a platter of potato skin apps, but it was late and I was just walking back from the Triangle Tavern so I could have imagined it. By the way, the smoking ban is all well and good but if there's any place in this state that you should be allowed to smoke, it's the Triangle. Two lawn chairs behind the building on a cold spring night just ain't going to cut it, especially since you can't bring your beer back there.
Astoria and its Red Lion have been with me through thick and thin. I spent two days there the weekend before I got married. Knowing my friends would throw me the world's most cliche bachelor party if I didn't get out of town, I hightailed it to Astoria and hid in the Wet Dog Cafe until it was time to tie the knot. Although technically littering, I took a friend of mine out there during one of the worst winter storms I've ever seen and we sent messages in bottles to his estranged girlfriend via the choppy Columbia and empty bottles of Henry's Blue Boar. To this day I'm sure you can find a dozen drunken missives addressed to Rita Tiwari at the bottom of the mooring basin. My ex-girlfriend downed a three-egg breakfast at the Pig-N-Pancake too quickly and had the most amazing upchucking experience I've ever encountered--barfing them up cleanly and neatly back onto the plate, a slightly different color but the exact same consistency. Good times.
I met Mayor Willis Van Dusen at City Hall, an amazingly beautiful building in historic downtown Astoria. Julie Lampi, the executive secretary, totally hooked me up with a Monday morning meeting and hung out with me while I waited. I had never met an executive secretary to a Mayor before, so I was relieved that she was so friendly. Before I walked up to the third floor where the Mayor's office is, I noticed that City Hall is attached to an abandoned hotel. Julie told me that it's called the Waldorf, and because Waldorf, Germany is the sister city of Astoria, it's slightly embarassing when one of their representatives visits to see that the Waldorf Hotel in Astoria is a neglected, boarded-up, yet gorgeous old building (for those of you keeping score at home, Waldorf, Germany is the birthplace of John Jacob Astor, for whom Astoria is named for). I wish I could afford to buy it and turn it into something. Oh, I should also mention that the poster for the movie "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III" is prominently displayed in the grand hallways of City Hall. I bring that up only because I wanted to get through this post without saying anything about the Goonies.
Mayor Van Dusen showed up and graciously signed our map even though I think I may have made him late for another meeting. He was wearing an Oregon Ducks coat, which proves my theory that any coastal mayor north of Yachats is a Ducks fan. One of the first things he asked me was who the most unfriendly Mayor I had met so far. I was so taken aback by the question that I actually answered it without hesitation. What a random question, I thought, but was too surprised to hem and haw. I'm willing to bet that Mayor Van Dusen uses that tactic a lot in his mayoral duties, and he probably gets a lot of straight answers out of people that way. He had just dealt with the plane crash from a few days before, so maybe that was it.

35 down, 207to go.

Warrenton

I really do love living in Portland, but I love even more the opportunity to leave it. Laurie and Henry had to stay behind once again to take care of the chickens and the garden starts, so I rented a car downtown and hit Hwy 26 at full speed--fast enough to get a speeding ticket. Maybe it was the fact that my rental had Washington plates, or maybe it was just because I was going 72 in a 55. I like to believe it's because I subconciously wanted to have something in common with Vice President Al Gore, who in 2004 got a speeding ticket in the same place, driving a rented white Toyota Camry just like mine. Al Gore is the Mayor of awesome, so I'll pay the ticket.
I'll be the first to admit that I really haven't spent a lot of time in Warrenton due to the fact that Astoria is just over the Youngs Bay Bridge. I figure most people don't know that there's more to that town than just Ft. Stevens State Park and the wreck of the Peter Iredale. So I made a point of NOT visiting either of those two places and instead opted to hike the Skipanon River Peninsula Trail. Turns out Warrneton has a huge network of trails (and water trails!) that traverse the whole area.
I had called the Warrenton City Hall the week previous to ask for Mayor Gilbert Gramson's autograph on our big map of Oregon, and the City Manager told me that the Mayor has an open meeting every Monday morning at 9:30am. Perfect for skipping out on a Sunday night and just going to work late on Monday afternoon, I thought.
After strolling into City Hall on Monday morning and finding the right room, I was immediately offered coffee and donuts by some folks that looked like they may attend every one of these weekly meetings: Good civic-minded folks, I'm sure. By 9:37 the room was almost at capacity, which is relatively out of the ordinary according to the look on Mayor Gramson's face when he walked in and sat down. The first order of business was the vandalism to the park bathrooms. I never did figure out which park they were talking about, but apparently it's quite the problem as of late. The ideal solution, I learned, was to build new bathroom facilities in the style of the State Parks that are more easily maintained, but of course that's ridiculously expensive. Mayor Gramson brought up a plan to have park hosts that basically live there in their RV for the tourist season, which I thought was pretty brilliant. It seems like there is no shortage of retirees with RVs so I felt the idea was pretty Solomonesque.
After that business was over the Mayor asked who was next. When no one immediately spoke I stood up and volunteered: "I'm sorry to waste everyone's time, and I know you all have important matters to discuss, but I was wondering if I could get your autograph?" I explained to all present that we were visiting each town in Oregon to meet the Mayor, and everyone in the room seemed to think that was a cute idea. Mayor Gramson seemed especially intrigued and was happy that he got to sign before the Mayor of Astoria did. I love the fake rivalries these Mayors have with each other. I would totally be the same way.
34 down, 208 to go.

Umatilla

It's pretty much exactly like my wife told me before I left the house this morning: "You can pretend it's 2001 and just drive aimlessly around Eastern Oregon." She's pretty much right. It's been a great day driving back and forth over the high plateau stopping at random bars and truck stops and cafes and the like just talking to random people and talking about the town they live in. My only complaint is the no-smoking law. Out here in Eastern Oregon the only thing it seems the law's done is move people out into the wind.
Umatilla is somewhat of a border town. I say that only because there are at least three adult-themed businesses in the downtown section. I could totally see people coming down from Washington to see strippers. Truckers and college students from up in Walla Walla mostly. And admittedly I probably would have stopped in if this were the summer of 2001 but I'm in Umatilla for something a little more respectable today: To get Mayor David Trott to autograph our map of Oregon.
The current Umatilla City Hall building is unassumingly nestled on Oregon Highway 730, but a shiny new one is being built a couple blocks away. Mayor Trott invited me into City Hall even though it's closed for the weekend and we talk about Oregon for a while--my favorite topic of conversation. He showed me around the council chambers when I noticed that on the wall were portraits of all the former Mayors of Umatilla. One portrait in particular caught my attention, a Mrs. Laura Stockton Starcher, the first female Mayor in the United States. She apparently ran against her husband in 1916 and won--perhaps because there were so many more women in town than men (not to mention Oregon was only one of 11 states to allow women to vote). She and the four newly-elected female council members brought about a number of socially progressive changes to the town including the founding of a library and a sanitation department. I highly recommend you buy me the historical novel Operation Clean Sweep so that I can read it to little Henry some time.
Umatilla is also starting to become known its art community. The welcome sign near I-82 is a pretty good example of the metallic arty thingies that are popping up. Hopefully Umatilla will become known for this in the way that Joseph is known for its bronze sculptures. There are even a couple of pieces for sale inside City Hall. I almost bought a big metal salmon but I'm not sure if Mayor Trott takes American Express--probably not his job.
33 down, 209 to go

Hermiston

Hermiston has at least two Starbucks. That blows my mind. I could see them having just the one pseudo-Starbucks in the Safeway, that would be okay. But no, they have a freestanding building on Hwy 395 (their main street) that is a dedicated Starbucks. I know that seems like a banal thing to talk about, but it's really upsetting to me. I guess I want Hermiston to forever be Conway Twitty instead of Billy Ray Cyrus, or whatever the country kids are listening to these days. Seeing a gigantic Chevy pickup pulling into the drive-thru of a Starbucks in Hermiston is--to me, anyway--like seeing Santa Claus in a porn movie. Granted, it's a soft-core porn movie like you'd see on Pay-Per-View at the Astoria Red Lion, but it's still porn. And Santa's in it.
I guess that's me being a typical Portlander, though. I want Eastern Oregon to remain this idyllic haven of rural bliss and the mere mention of development or progress makes me not only cringe but feel somehow offended as well. I guess that if I REALLY didn't want Hermiston to get a Home Depot then maybe I could stop shopping at the ones in Portland in protest. But a Wal-Mart distribution center? That's just too much.
After meeting with the mayor of Boardman I called Mayor Bob Severson and he agreed to meet me at the MacDonalds there in Hermiston. It's about a 35 minute drive no matter which route you take, so I decided to take the least scenic route via the Umatilla Chemical Depot, where they're burning up all that nerve gas from the cold war. I promised myself I wouldn't curse on this blog, but that place figuratively scares the shit out of me. Five years ago I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but now that I'm old and have a kid, I can't even feel good about eating the eggs from my own chickens without getting a lead test on the soil on which the coop is built over. I'm getting so paranoid these days that I'm thinking about making my own underarm deoderant because of the weird aluminum additives found in my Speed Stick.

So it's pretty dumbfounding how quickly all my fears melted away once I drove past the depot and into Hermiston proper. It's a real town: A real, working, honest town complete with a ridiculously authentic downtown drugstore and everything. Granted, the only thing that was open downtown tonight was the Cozy Tavern (chicken gizzards w/ fries: $7), but I imagine that the Kickin' Cowgirls Western Store does a fair share of business during normal weekdays. Twently bucks says that the drugstore has a soda fountain.
Mayor Severson gave me a Hermiston pin. I don't know if every town has these pins (Hermiston is only the third pin I've been given), but if they do then I'm doing this 242-city trip again next year. I'm not sure if I can describe to the five readers of this blog how much it means to me to receive a city pin, but if you know me then it would be on par with being asked to play the glockenspiel during halftime at the Oregon-Oregon State Civil War game. I don't know how to play the glockenspiel, and I don't even know which team to cheer for. I guess what I'm saying is that if you're going to pull out the city pin, don't be surprised if I get flustered and therefore overly chatty and nervous. To put it into terms that I can understand, a Mayor giving me a city pin is like someone saying "Run home, Charlie! And don't stop until you get there!" Except instead of the promise of touring a chocolate factory I have a pin that says "Yes, you've been there, the pin proves it, and the Mayor says you're pretty okay." So to all the Mayors I meet in the future: My apologies. I'm not trying to be rude and I'm not crazy. It's just that I'm more of a Veruca Salt than a Charlie. Hermiston is a river of chocolate and I can't help but jump into it, even if everything downtown except the Cozy Tavern is closed on Sundays.
Also there's a big watermelon painted on the water tower.
32 down, 210 to go.

Boardman

It's been a pretty amazing day. Amazing, that is, if you're a big Oregon nerd like I am. I spent the last couple of days trying to get a good Interstate 84 mix going on my iPod full of good predictable travel songs from the likes of Booker T and the MGs, Jackson Browne, Old 97s, Magnetic Fields, and all the other usual suspects. Laurie and Henry stayed home to mind the new chicks so I got to roll down the windows and blast some vintage Talking Heads through downtown Arlington. The thing I love most about I-84 is that there is such a defined line between the wet side of the state and the dry side (It's about 2 miles west of Mosier). And the thing I love most about the dry side of the state is that it makes me feel like I'm really traveling. Clatskanie and Creswell are all fine and good, but they do kinda have the same general terrain and flora of home, so it's incredibly liberating to see twisted junipers and abandoned lines of barbed wire decorated with years of tumbleweeds like a Christmas tree that you never take down.
I pulled into Boardman and checked into the Rodeway Inn, which is within potato-throwing distance of the freeway. Again, the family stayed home this time or I would have definitely checked out the River Lodge and Grill. Although I've been through Boardman at least a hundred times, this is honestly only the third time I've stopped here--and the first two times were because this happens to be where whatever jalopy I was driving decided to break down. So it was nice to finally purposely visit. I called Mayor Chet Phillips, and he drove right over to autograph our map.
I want to tell the story of meeting Mayor Phillips kind of backwards because I think it will be more interesting that way. The last thing he said before he left was, "You're a pretty tactful democrat for coming to Boardman to talk politics." I figured he was half-right. But it's not so much that I'm tactful, it's just that I can understand the frustrations of the eastern 2/3 of our state when laws get passed by the majority of Oregon's population that just don't make sense in rural towns in the middle of the desert. And I'd love to give an example, but I'm getting to this weird level of casualness in conversation with these Mayors that I'm beginning to think that what we talk about is sorta off-the-record. But I will say this: When it comes to cougars and coal plants, I think it would do a lot of us wet-siders (people from "the state of 503" as Mayor Phillips would say) good if we walked a mile in their boots. Or maybe drove a mile in their gigantic Ford F-350 King Cabs. Because it's true that everyone out here drives those things. I drive an '07 Nissan Versa and the maid at the hotel looked at it like it was a spaceship.
"On the river and on the way" is the official motto of Boardman, which is pretty genius since both sentiments are completely correct. The entire city of Boardman was relocated in the late 60s after the John Day Dam was being built. Hence the lack of any sort of cohesive downtown core. I find it absolutely amazing that we were displacing entire towns for hydroelectric power just 40 years ago. That whole concept seems so WPA or Chinese. Founded by Sam Boardman (whom I believe invented the concept of the rest area?) in 1903, the Columbia River inundated the original townsite just as the freeway was being built and PGE started erecting those modern power lines we're used to seeing. So there are actually three distinct sections of Boardman that are divided by I-84 and the 600-foot PGE easement. The oldest building in town must be the Longbranch Saloon (grilled cheese and tomato soup: $4), but I'm basing that solely on the width of the timbers supporting the roof.
If you come to Boardman (and you should), check out Boardman Marina Park. It was 57 degrees and partly sunny here today and I had the entire park to myself. I had a couple of leftover Session Lagers left in the back of the car and it was such a nice evening that I built a little fire underneathe a willow tree and enjoyed the sunset over the Columbia--just 40 or 50 feet above Original Boardman. I call it O.B., and it's the way you should be. They should totally change their motto. Yes, I'm ending this post with a mid-eighties tampon commercial reference.
31 down, 211 to go.

La Grande, Island City, Joseph

When I was at the OMA thing in Salem, Mayor Colleen Johnson of La Grande, Mayor Dale Delong of Island City, and Mayor Dennis Sands of Joseph all autographed our map of Oregon.  Honestly, I haven't been to that corner of the state since the summer of 2001.  I've been meaning to take Laurie out there since we met because that's probably my favorite section of Oregon.  It's hard to explain, but it's basically a mixture of all the best parts of the wet third of the state and the dry two-thirds of the state:  You have all the perpetual green of the wet side, but then you have the remote expanses of the dry side.  Give me 20 acres outside of Minam and I'm happy.

Maybe I'm being stupid or myopic here, but I honestly don't understand why any right-minded Oregonian would ever want to leave the state when we have all the little towns around the Blue Mountains to explore.  Did you know that there's a restaurant out there that's only accessible by plane or horseback?  I hear they have little goat cheese appetizers even.  There are three stages of food, in my mind:  Regular food that you eat every day, food that you eat when you are camping that tastes incredibly yummy because you're sleeping outside, and--finally, the perfect stage of food--a meal that had to be packed in via horseback.  C'mon.  How could a 3-day, 4-night trip to Cozumel compare to horsed-in goat cheese appetizers?  It just can't.

Like I said, I've been trying to get Laurie out to northeastern Oregon since before we got married, and it looks like this is the year.  We have ten days booked here.  With a little luck, we'll explore a little more of La Grande, Island City, and Joseph.  And hopefully get the autographs of Mayors from Enterprise (looking forward to that one), Halfway, Union, and all the other little towns from my favorite corner of the state.  And then Laurie will want to move there so screw Portland.  Come try our artisan goat cheese; We're farmers now.

30 down, 212 to go

Estacada

The summer of '93 was arguably the best summer of my life.  I lived on 5 acres of mixed growth forest in a pole barn just outside the city limits of Estacada with a couple of other recent high-school graduates.  The one bathroom in the house didn't have walls, but it was conveniently located just below the stairs so you could rest your forehead against the stairwell as you leaned over the toilet while you threw up that bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill fortified wine.  The rent was only $50 per month, which was great since my two sources of income at that point was selling portraits at the Hollywood Fred Meyer and pawning used stereo equipment.  We lived on discounted white bread and expired lunch meat and 24-packs of Hamm's Ice.  Our idea of fun was to coast down Wildcat Mountain Road (saves gas that way) to pick up girls at the Taco Time and then turn in beer cans to get $1.20 in gas so we could crank my 1970 VW Bug back up the hill and blast the Pixies in the forest loud enough to wake up the random cougar that would occasionally saunter by the pole barn.  Also, for some reason, my friend Ben would usually show up around 3am with more Hamm's Ice and random girls from the Woodburn Dairy Queen.  It was a wonderful summer and it sounds absolutely horrible to 33-year-old me.

Estacada these days is still awesome even though I don't live there anymore.  One of my favorite things about visiting Estacada is the incongruousness of seeing Tri-Met bus #31 rolling through town along with all the jacked-up 4x4s.  When I was getting gas there yesterday I even saw the world's largest confederate flag attached to the bed of a Subaru Brat.  It drove down Broadway and even peeled out at the stop sign in front of the Safari Club.  Priceless.  Mayor Becky Arnold met me to autograph our map next door to Fearless Brewing where she was helping her Dad out with his business.  Fearless had a handwritten sign in the window that I wish I had taken a picture of that read:  "Against the beer tax?  We have a thing for you to sign."  I almost went in to add my signature but I knew I'd be cajoled into having just enough beer to not be able to drive home and end up staying in Estacada forever.  Really wish they'd bring back their sausage fondue though.  

Also, if you ever get lost in the woods around Ripplebrook and can't find your car so you end up spending the night under a bunch of cedar branches and almost losing both your pinky toes to frostbite, Estacada is the first town you see the next morning when you finally get unlost so bring cash.    

27 down, 215 to go.

Independence

I don't remember a lot of non-beer-related stuff from college, but two things I recollect vividly are this (NSFW?) and the fact that anyone with a chisel and the slightest interest in amateur paleontology can go to Independence and dig for fossils from the Cretaceous period.  There's a railroad cut in a hillside just east of downtown Independence that yields all sorts of weird 53 million year old mollusks, and it makes a great third date.  Bring a picnic.  

My friend Michael and I went on a little kayaking trip last summer and our goal was to make it from Eugene to Independence in 4 days.  A killer sunburn and a freak spate of heavy rain cut our trip short so we settled on Albany after 3 days, but we had it all planned out perfectly.  Months before the trip, I scoped out the general downtown Independence area and found everything we needed:  A compact and vibrant downtown area, a serene and expansive waterfront park (with boat dock), and a bar within walking distance of the river.  Independence was supposed to be our stopping point, and our final night of river camping.  Therefore, we needed a place to celebrate that wasn't too far out of stumbling distance from our kayaks.  Stupid weird August weather prevented me from realizing my dream of drunk-kayaking so instead we rented a U-Haul out of Albany and went home to Portland.  

Downtown Independence is pretty much the perfect place, though.  Before I5 and US99 there was the Willamette River Highway.  And by that I mean that the Willamette River was the highway.  And by that I mean boats.  

I wish I could go back in time to 1890s Independence:  Walking the dirt streets of downtown awaiting the next steamship arrival with it's delivery of cotton and lumber, chatting with the local smithy about President Cleveland's tariff reform, complaining to the kids that music was SO much better in the 1880s--it would've been great.  

Mayor John McArdle autographed our map at the OMA, lucky for me.  I won't be in Independence until early August and this time I'm not getting in that kayak without sunscreen.

26 down, 216 to go.

Milwaukie

Before I begin, I'd just like to complain that spell-check hates Milwaukie.  Spell-check has no sense of history apparently.  

Baby Henry LOVES Milwaukie because that's where the gang from Apples to Oregon end up at the end of the book.  If you don't have a kid, then don't bother clicking on the link.  If you do have a kid, then definitely buy that book.  As a parent, I wish there were more Oregon-related childrens' books out there.  I started to write one myself called "The Christmas Bats," but I can't find an illustrator.  Also, it's probably not a good idea to glorify cigarette smoking in a book aimed at kids under 5.  Who knew?

Interim Mayor Jeremy Ferguson autographed our map of Oregon, but I have no idea why the "Interim" is in there.  Perhaps it's a a great story, but more likely it's a sad story so I'm not touching it.  Maybe the "Interim" has gone away since he signed it.  I have such a high esteem for the term "Mayor" that I don't know how to feel about putting an "Interim" in front of it.  It's kind of like "Diet."  Introducing Interim Pepsi.  

I wish I had met Mayor Ferguson at city hall instead of at the OMA because I am totally unclear on Milwaukie's boundaries.  I believe the north of town is basically lined by Johnson Creek; the west, of course, by the Willamette River.  I'm not sure where Milwaukie's eastern and southern borders are, and for some reason that sort of detail is really important to me.  Is Bob's Red Mill in Portland or Milwaukie?  Did I get pulled over in Milwaukie or Gladstone that weird night in '91 on the way home after the Rocky Horror Picture Show?  Maybe it's not that big of thing to some people, but I like to know exactly where one thing ends and another thing starts.  I get an overwhelming sense of ambiguous discomfort when I'm in, say, the Ardenwald neighborhood and I can't even tell which county I'm in much less which city.  I'm not sure why that means so much to me.  I'm getting old and boring and predictable.  That might have something to do with it.  

25 down, 217 to go.

Hubbard

Oh, Hubbard.  This is one of the seven towns in Oregon that would show up on my credit report should someone decide to run one.  I spent six weeks in a one-bedroom apartment on G Street in an attempt to distance myself from my home town of Woodburn, a mere two miles down the highway.  It didn't work out so well, as I still managed to hang out in the exact same 24-hour coffee shop every night--drinking coffee, chain-smoking cigarettes, and eating rice pilaf with bacon and maple syrup.  1996 was a weird year for me.  One night, soberly driving my way south down 99E in the January fog between Hubbard and my coffee shop in Woodburn, a naked guy jumped in front of my car, bounced off my hood and bumper, then ran off into the barren winter hop fields.  After finally bringing my Subaru Justy to a complete stop, I scanned the surrounding fields to make sure that I hadn't just hallucinated a tall hairy naked man.  After that, the damage to my Justy confirmed that I wasn't crazy.  Having never hit a naked guy with my car before, I decided to continue on to my coffee shop knowing that various police officers from Marion County were sure to be at the same coffee shop.  I hurried inside and sure enough, two Woodburn cops and a Marion County Sheriff's deputy were sharing some marion berry pie.

"Hey," I said to them, "There's a naked guy running around 99E by the old produce market."

"Yeah, we heard about that," replied the deputy.  "He'll either find his way home or fall asleep."

At first I was pretty amazed that they didn't care that a naked guy was jumping in front of cars on a major highway, but after a few cups of late-night bad coffee and about a third a pack of cigarettes I came to agree with the deputy that these things have a way of working themselves out.

Hubbard Mayor Jim Yonally actually invited me and the wife and the baby into his home so he could autograph our big map of Oregon, which is another first.  Baby Henry even got a little stuffed bear out of the deal which he thoroughly enjoyed all the way from the Mayor's house to the feed store down in Woodburn.  He actually met us on a Sunday, too, and I had to tear him away from working on a car.  In our brief email exchange before we met personally, I observed that he wasn't the first Mayor I had met that liked working on cars and asked him why that might be so.  He replied, via email, "If you want something done right and economically efficient, do it yourself."  If that doesn't sum up what it means to be Mayor, then I don't know what does.  Just as that Nissan Altima's transmission isn't going to rebuild itself, neither is the redrawing of the coming expansion of the urban growth boundary there in Hubbard.  

That sheriff's deputy from 13 years ago was totally wrong.  Things don't just work themselves out.  I realize that midnight naked dudes and zoning ordinances aren't EXACTLY the same thing, but they both need someone to look out for them.  And it takes Oregon Mayors like Jim Yonally to keep our towns from becoming an even sprawlier version of Clark County, Washington where hairy naked guys roam the streets after dark--a nightmare I'm sure I share with many.

There is also a hop festival in Hubbard.

24 down, 218  to go.

Wheeler

I say this about every city over there, but I think Wheeler's my favorite town on the Oregon Coast. It's just that Wheeler is consistently a laid-back, uncrowded place to enjoy the coast even if it's a Saturday in July. I try to go kayaking at least two or three every summer in the bay, and I also try to go visit for a weekend once every winter just because it's so ridiculously affordable. If you don't have a baby you can stay at the Old Wheeler Hotel, and if you do then you can stay at the Wheeler on the Bay. Both places are equally great no matter the weather.
Mayor Walter Trandum took time to autograph our big map of Oregon at the OMA in Salem. He governs a great town that one could probably throw a potato over if they had a few tries and the right spot from which to throw it. You can rent a kayak from several places there on the bay and row up to the city of Nehalem or down to Nehalem Bay State Park if you want to hang out on the beach. The secret is to check the tide tables and try to reach your destination within an hour of when the tide crests so you can go with the tide both ways. And no trip to Wheeler is complete without a meal of fresh fish from the Sea Shack followed by a quick stop at the apothecary/liquor store for lavender oil and vodka. Every liquor store in Oregon should also be an apothecary. It just makes sense.
23 down, 219 to go.

Dundee

Dundee Mayor Don Sundeen autographed our map recently at the OMA. Dundee may or may not be seeing some major changes in the next couple of years as the option to build a bypass around the city is debated. A lot of Portlanders might view Dundee as a 35 minute delay between them and the Oregon Coast, and I'm sure a lot of Dundee folks view Portland as the cause of a big headache. I'm sure it's not as simple as that, but personally I'm against any bypass. Where would they put it?
I used to just drive through Dundee as quickly as humanly possible, but about ten years ago I made a point to stop in just about every town I go through. It makes driving to Lincoln City take four hours, but it's been pretty worth it. How else would baby Henry ever get to taste coq au vin at the Dundee Bistro? Or get scared by the unfortunately placed shooting range next to Crabtree Park? Or contemplate what happened to between Knudsen and Erath? That's what babies think about, right?
22 down, 220 to go.

Newberg

If you believe the stories--and I do--then my Mother was born in a shopping cart in a supermarket in Newberg at what is now a Wilco farm store next to the Walgreens. The reason I believe that story is because I can totally see my frugal farm-smart grandparents saving the money that would normally go to a doctor for some cattle feed or perhaps a new grain elevator. In my head, my grandmother goes into labor while shopping for groceries, she makes herself comfortable in the nearest shopping cart, and my grandfather delivers the baby just two shop rags, a bucket of water, and a pocketknife. Later that evening, my grandmother would perhaps cook a pork roast or a goose.
Growing up in Woodburn I always had the idea that we were somehow in competition with Newberg, and I would pay close attention to east city's population signs to figure out who was winning. I think that nowadays the title goes to Newberg due to its proximity to the edge of Portland's urban growth boundary. I stopped paying attention when a spate of McMansions finally took over a section of Parret Mountain that I used to always call "Strawberry Hill," after the cheap Boone's Farm wine flavor that seemed to be so popular with us in our late teens.
Mayor Bob Andrews was nice enough to autograph our map at the Oregon Mayors Association in Salem recently, and if I had had more time I would have asked him why the Chinese Food place in town is named "Shaw's." Not a bad place, that.
Newberg is also home to George Fox University, which was attended by our second worst president, Herbert Hoover. It's kind of the gateway to Oregon wine country, but best of all it's right next to Champoeg State Park, which is kind of the birth place of Oregon--just two miles from the Newberg Wilco.
21 down, 221 to go.

Columbia City

My poor child. 25 years from now he's going to be explaining to a therapist somewhere that he spent a good chunk of his first years strapped into his car seat while I sang Tapes 'N Tapes songs on the way to go see the Mayor of a random small town in Oregon. He has a ridiculous amount of patience for my shenanigans so far, though.
We met Columbia City Mayor Cheryl Young at the Senior Center in St. Helens, which is apparently her day job. Most Mayoral positions in Oregon are actually pro bono, or strictly volunteer. Mayor Young has been serving Columbia City for over 27 years--23 of those as Mayor. Henry and I got there a little early so we had to entertain ourselves in the lobby for a while by switching lenses in the pile of eyeglasses we found behind the front desk. Henry was quite methodical about the whole thing: He would line up each pair of glasses in a tidy row, pop out the left lens of each pair into a small pile, and then I would help him replace each lens into a different pair of glasses. We made a game out of the whole process. I then judiciously explained to him that eyeglasses don't necessarily work in the way they were designed when there is a different prescription of lens on either side, and he thought that was delightful. I am not the kind of person that takes away delight from a 23-month-old baby, so I agreed whole-heartedly.
Mayor Young was exceedingly gracious (she even offered Henry a cookie) in autographing our map of Oregon, and Henry was again patient while her friend Jim held him, although he had a pained look on his face the entire time as if to say, "Really, Dad? You know you're paying for my therapy, right?"
After leaving the Mayor, we headed north from St. Helens to Mayor Young's city of Columbia City. It's a tiny hamlet overlooking a wide section of the Columbia River with million dollar homes mixed in with double-wide trailers--a really strange combination but one that seems to work out pretty well for them. The Caples House Museum looked really interesting, although this being February it was closed. The downtown area consisted of the City Hall, the Community Center, Pixie Park (looks like a really fun place for a picnic, and I'll definitely be returning there once the sun comes out), and the most amazing library/pizza restaurant in the history of the earth. I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture, but although the pizza restaurant section of library is closed for the winter, the library section of the pizza restaurant is open for business. I think that's probably the best news I've heard all week. Seriously.
20 down, 222 to go.

Gresham

It has been such a long, cold, snowy winter.  For the first time ever in my life as an Oregonian, I can honestly say that I'm sick of the cold and unending darkness.  I've been spending my free time huddled in a fleece trying to find kid-friendly bargain places to stay in rural corners of Oregon like Ontario and Brookings and Keno for whenever the sun finally comes back up without its weird caveats of hailstones and icy wind.  Luckily for me and the sake of this blog I live in Portland and it seems that a third of my Mayors live within a 45 minute drive.

My father and his nine (Catholic, obviously) brothers and sisters were all born just down the street from my house and a good chunk of them haven't fallen too far the house they were born in on Columbia Blvd. that has long since been demolished and given way to the main sales lot of the Caterpillar Construction and Mining Equipment Corporation.  

As a child my parents would take us kids up to Gresham to visit our cousins who lived around 243rd street.  After more than a few rounds of "are we there yet" my parents came up with a tidy solution that not only quieted us down a few decibels but also taught us fundamental mathematical skills at the same time.  Our task was to look at the numbered street signs as we made our way east on Powell and subtract whatever number we were currently on from the above-mentioned 243.  "Are we there yet" quickly turned into "108 blocks to go."  When my parents were tired of that, they made us convert the remaining blocks into miles, so our screaming "74 blocks to go" eventually turned into "3.7 miles to go!"  That novelty would last a few months, and then we had to convert the miles into kilometers.  Later we had to calculate the ratio of fir trees to alders per block.  Every month there was a new computation to make, and every month required more extra-curricular study during the 29 days we weren't driving to Gresham.  Cosines and tangents and cross-ratios filled our heads like sugarplums as we plotted and graphed our way over the landscape of east Multnomah County between Interstate 205 and 243rd street once a month.  For Christmas one year my sister got a graphing calculator just for the insane amount of math that was involved just to visit our cousins.  

And then, one day, they moved away.  So my sister and I started reading books instead.

Mayor Shane Bemis took time out of his schedule to autograph our map, and I'm sure that if you ever meet him he'll tell you that there's more to his fine city than counting street signs.  One of my favorite ways to get to Gresham these days is via bicycle on the Springwater Trail.  And the city center--although somewhat hampered by the wide busy streets--seems to be seeing a revival of some sorts lately.  Also, it's the 4th largest city in Oregon, so that's a little milestone for me.  I'm looking at you, Salem.  One can't even talk about Gresham without mentioning the jazz festival, of course.  Myself, I've never been a big fan of the jazz.  Can't really plot that sort of thing down in a pie chart.

19 down, 223 to go.

Monmouth

Monmouth is best known--at least to anyone under 35 years old--as the last dry town in Oregon. I said that exact sentence to Mayor John Oberst when I met him at the OMA after he autographed our map. As it turns out, Mayor Oberst was one of the principle factors in overturning the no-alcohol law in 2002. Monmouth is still limited to beer and wine, but if the Mayor has his way then perhaps you can get a decent cocktail at the Main Street Pub and Eatery within the near future. The other thing that Monmouth is mainly known for to people my age is that Western Oregon University is 75% women. Whether this is a true fact or just the stuff of legends is impossible to realize without looking it up on google, but I can say for certain that generations of graduating high school seniors have heard this rumor and have probably taken it very seriously when applying for college. Nevermind the fact that it's the oldest college on the West Coast.
Although Monmouth shares a border with Independence, they both have two totally distinct downtown areas. I think the boundary between the two towns is probably right at that weird bend in the highway that usually signifies that someone made a slight surveying error when plotting the original township and range markers. Another rumor--quite plausibly true--was that this section of road was highly patrolled before the beer ban by Monmouth City Police as people drove back to campus from the nearest bars located across the border in Independence.
Monmouth, it seems, has been insulated from the harsh development that comes with being close to a major freeway. It's still surrounded by random farm stands where you can buy berries and pumpkins and whole ducks. Something about pulling off the side of the road to buy a ready-to-roast duck makes me really happy for some reason. And I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of eating ducks either.
18 down, 224 to go.

West Linn

I met Mayor Patti Galle this afternoon in her office at the West Linn City Hall. She was pretty awesome, by the way, even offering to call up the Mayor of Wilsonville if he doesn't respond my my email. Her office has two very comfortable leather chairs that looked like they came over on a wagon with the Peoria Party. She's a newly elected mayor, having just been sworn into the office last month, so hopefully the rest of her term will be filled with the really hard stuff like autographing maps and such.
I had always assumed that City Hall would be located in the old Willamette District of town down by the river. I mean, that's where all the old stuff is so you would think that West Linn City Hall would be an old 1890s victorian mansion. But no, it's up on the hill in a sort of upscale shopping mall with a nice view of Mt. Hood. It's officially the City of Hills Trees and Rivers, and some might remember the old rest area off of I-205 that they closed a few years back because of complaints of idling trucks and shady night time activities.
On my way up the hill to City Hall I noticed there's an unmistakable gap in the very expensive homes and condos that is occuppied by an actual vineyard. I don't know the story behind it, but I'm going to say that it's owned by a stalwart old codger that refuses to give up his land to development because his great-grandfather homesteaded there. And maybe he looks like Patrick Stewart.
Mayor Galle was pretty impressed with how all the signatures are starting to fill up the map, and she asked me what I was going to do with it when I was finished. Maybe the Oregon Historical Society will want it if they're into that sort of thing. I guess my first choice would be to frame it and give it to my son in hopes that Oregon will still be around in 50 years so he can follow in my footsteps for the bicentennial. That would be pretty sweet. Of course, in 50 years all the Mayors will probably be futuristic cyborgs that have mated with the hippies from Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia. I, for one, embrace our new robot/hippie overlords.
17 down, 225 to go.

Ashland

If you've ever tried to go to Ashland in the summer then you know it is insane there. Cars clog the streets and tourists swarm the sidewalks like minks after an ELF raid. You have to go two miles deep into Lithia Park just to escape the smell of Vanillaroma perfume. So that's why we always go in April and just pray for good weather. It's worked so far.
Mayor John Stromberg was nice enough to autograph our map at the recent OMA conference in Salem. Amazingly (and bravely), he keeps a blog, too. And that's just asking for trouble when you're the Mayor of an entire city.
Anyway, going to Ashland in April allows you to stay somewhere a little better than the Super 8 out by the freeway. We stayed at the Ashland Springs Hotel and even got a discount because I lied and said I was with Bear Creek Medical. Probably shouldn't say that. We also got to eat at Chateaulin and I had a really good golden beet salad. But things change. I heard that the famous Lithia Water fountain doesn't run anymore because someone complained, but I'm not sure if that's true. I also heard that the old pizza place that backed up to Ashland Creek has been demolished in favor of a condo project. Again, I haven't been there since April of '06 so maybe that's not true either.
At any rate, sometimes I think of Ashland as what all of Oregon would look like if Californians ruled the earth. Nothing against Ashland or Californians, in fact far from it. I love the fact that Ashland exists--it's like visiting a whole different state without leaving Oregon's borders.
16 down, 226 to go.

Canby

Canby Mayor Melody Thompson was nice enough to schedule a minute or two with me last night just before some sort of City Council Meeting at City Hall to autograph our map. It's a fine old building in the original part of downtown that you probably miss if you're just driving through on 99E. When I was a kid my sister and I used to pester my parents on a daily basis to take us to the park there, because they had an ultra-cool play structure. I tried to find it last night when I was wandering around town but I got distracted by all the people huddled exactly 10 feet from the entrance to the American Legion Hall smoking cigarettes in the cold. Between that and the Canby Pub and Grill, downtown seemed pretty hopping for a Wednesday night.
Unique pubs in 100 year old buildings almost cancel out sad cookie-cutter things like the new KFC/A&W on the highway next to the weird MASH helicopter that welcomes you when you're coming into town from the south.
After meeting the Mayor I tried to find the bridge we used to spend our summers jumping off into the Molalla River, but I'm not sure it exists anymore. Of course the Canby Ferry is still around, which is one of three Willamette River ferries that you cross on the fifth date with your new girlfriend from out of state. The fifth date is pretty much a pivotal make-or-break period in a new relationship so you want to bring the excitement of boats combined with the safe knowledge that it's only a 3-minute trip.
15 down, 227 to go.

Fairview

Most of us have driven through Fairview without even realizing it.  Then again, I doubt most people even know Fairview exists, but it does.  It's the kind of oblong rectangle that is bordered roughly by 201st to the west, 233rd to the east, Glisan to the south, and the Columbia River to the north.  Or perhaps you've been to Blue Lake Park.  Entirely in Fairview's borders, Blue lake is actually a pretty sweet spot if you go during that one sunny weekend in April we always seem to have where the temperature finally peeks up over 70 degrees for a couple hours before plunging back to the low 50s.  

I'm embarrassed to say this, but today was the first time I've ever ventured into "downtown" Fairview.  Although Fairview was incorporated in 1908 or thereabouts, their downtown was just recently built in 2000.  It's a strange otherworldly "planned" community that looks like something Norman Rockwell would paint if he were a contemporary city planner.  The main street is narrow with lots of ground-level retail with living spaces up above.  According to a couple "for sale" signs I saw, there are live/work spaces available should you be in the market for setting up your own shop and dread the prospect of commuting more than one flight of stairs.  People were walking their dogs on the meandering sidewalks and I even saw a bunch of scampy 9-year-olds pacing out the bases for a game of stickball in the central city park.  If I had seen a little boy in a puffy dress eating an ice cream cone or a little girl getting her bikini bottom chewed on by a floppy-eared dog, I swear I would have started looking behind billboards for hidden DeLoreans.  

Mayor Mike Weatherby was happy to welcome me into his office so he could autograph our map.  The first thing he pointed out was his portraits of Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.  We talked about the establishment of the 40 hour work week and the minimum wage for a bit, and then he moved a cactus shaped pinata off of his desk so he could sign the map just north of Gresham.  I've found that whenever I meet Oregon Mayors in their offices, I always feel like I just want to hang out and talk about Mayor stuff for two hours so I'm very conscious of the time when talking with them.  I don't want to be a lingerer and waste their entire afternoons.  But I have a weird feeling that Mayor Weatherby wouldn't have minded me bringing in a hummus plate or something while we sat down and talked about resource allocation.  Maybe I'll try that one with the next mayor? 

14 down, 228 to go. 

Toledo

In the upstairs common area of the Wildwood Hotel in Willamina there's this great map of Oregon from around the 1920s or so. Pretty much the only thing similar to today's maps and that old map on the wall is the basic outline of the state. But counties are shaped differently if they're there at all, roads are either twice as curvy or just missing, and the City of Toledo is about six times the size of neighboring Newport. I think that gigantic mill was built around that time, then add the railroad and the port there and Toledo might have been the most bustling metropolis on the Oregon Coast for a decade or two. The photo up there is from 1906, but most of the cool buildings downtown that still stand seem to be from the 1920s, like the Yaquina Bay Hotel. That place looks like it has some stories. The whole downtown area there is filled with antique shops and a cafe or two--definitely worth a visit. I could live there.
It was a 1997 Benchmark Atlas of Oregon that brought me to Toledo the first time. My friend Brendan was babysitting his mother's convertible so we decided to head out to the beach "the long way." The long way, in this case turned out to be a series of logging roads and two-tracks that looked much more passable in my atlas. We were so close to the bay there at Toledo that we could smell the mill, but someone had blocked the road with an earthen berm. After high-centering on said berm because we were 22-year-old college studens that didn't know any better, we walked down to Toledo and flagged down the first pickup we saw to help us get unstuck. I'm always getting a car stuck somewhere, and each time it seems that I find the same stereotypical logger-type person to help out. He sighs, shakes his head, tells me how much of an idiot I am, and then won't take any money for his troubles. Every town in Oregon with a population of less than 3000 must have like a dozen of those guys.
Toledo Mayor Rod Cross is, as he put it, difficult to get in contact with during basketball season. After a couple of emails and a few phone calls to City Hall, I luckily met him in Salem at the OMA and he autographed our map.
13 down, 229 to go.

Albany

Albany is easily overlooked by most people traveling through on the interstate.  A lot of Oregon can be seen via the highway, if that's the way you do things.  When I was in college down in Eugene and dating a girl up in Portland, Albany was nothing more than the blur of a McDonalds sign or the promise of a Taco Bell.  Interstate 5 is both a blessing and a curse to towns like Albany.

Here's the way I see it:  Albany probably started as a river town that depended on steam ships for goods and services.   A few years later, the railroad probably showed up and shifted their economy a few blocks inland.  A few years after that, highway 99 brought automobile traffic through the city.  And then the interstate cut a swath through someone's farm two miles outside of town and in no time Best Western and that Taco Bell I mentioned earlier became the face of Albany.  That's the abridged history of Albany according to me.  

I'm sure the real story is better, but the point is that you're doing yourself a real disservice by zooming by Albany without getting to know it.  But it's actually harder than just getting off the interstate.  You also have to get off of US Highway 20 and make a couple of unmarked turns.  But after that, it's easy to find downtown.  And once you do, head straight for Calapooia Brewing Company.  I'm not saying that the food is going to blow you away or anything, but when you see people shoveling hops out the back of a Ford F150 into a wheelbarrow then I think you know you're getting some fresh beer.  

Just down the road from that is Bryant Park, a cozy spot on the Willamette that I have had the pleasure of spending 4 hours at last summer due to weird circumstances.  If anyone reading this knows the story about the mushroom house, I'd sure like to know it.  

Perhaps I should have asked Mayor Sharon Konopa when I met her and she autographed the map.  Perhaps we could have gone out under the cover of darkness and burned down that Taco Bell.  Probably not.

12 down, 230 to go.

Keizer

Mayor Lore Christopher autographed our map at the OMA so the least I could do would be to pay a visit to her city and figure out something to include here that doesn't involve the totally NC-17 night I had there in '96 at the Wittenberg Inn.  Or the boring fact that half my paychecks during my first few years of college went straight to the used record shop on River Road.  I think it was called "Rocket Donuts" or "Bodacious Donuts" or something like that.  Definitely was about donuts.

Keizer has spent most of its Oregon life trying to outsmart Salem into not annexing it.  Indeed, Keizer didn't even become an actual incorporated city until 1982--relatively recently methinks.  And to this day the only way you can tell that you've left Salem and entered Keizer is by the blue signs indicating streets instead of the traditional green ones like in Salem.  You might remember Keizer from an interesting news story from a couple years back.  I think it's worth clicking on that link if you're in the mood for a chuckle.  

This afternoon on our way home from the Oregon 150 Weekend (yes, I'm a nerd and made a whole Oregony weekend out of the deal), we drove up Broadway to River to Chemawa, ignored all the "park closed" signs, and hopped the gate to Spong's Landing Park just outside Keizer city limits.  Like most cities in the Willamette Valley you don't have to go far from town to find a nice quiet spot.  It's too early for dragonflies but we saw a great blue heron looking for frogs down on the shore, and what may or may not have been a beaver.  It was probably a nutria, but I like to think it was a beaver.  And then, best of all, we saw at least a hundred geese following the Willamette from south to north--a true sign that winter might come to an end again this year.  

11 down, 231 to go.

Fossil

The map--the actual map of Oregon--that I'm getting these Mayors to autograph isn't the best map in the world. It's more of a topographical style than a road map style so sometimes it's difficult to find towns like Fossil when you have an audience of thirty-some Mayors that would otherwise be trying to enjoy their catered lunch at the OMA. 

Mayor William Brown signed our map with his shaking hand after the embarrassingly long moment it took me to find it on the map, and you could tell he's been around for almost as long as the city of Fossil has been incorporated.  

We were heading from Crane to Shaniko last August and my wife had a weird craving for a gin and tonic so I was more than happy to drop her off at my favorite bar--I think it's called The Shamrock--in town while the baby and I visited a couple of the museums.  I swear sometimes that Wheeler County's biggest industry is museums since it seems every little town there has at least two or three of them.  My favorite one in Fossil is in the old Pine Creek schoolhouse.  It's volunteer staff, as is true in most Eastern Oregon towns, is an old woman that knows absolutely everything about anything and anyone that ever came through in the last 100 years.  Whenever I'm in this part of the state I usually haven't shaved, showered or shampooed for a few days so these women are always a little leery of me at first.  But after a few minutes they warm up to me and offer me a cup of Lipton Tea.  Plus this time I had a four-month-old baby with me, which I think helps people to believe that you aren't a shoplifter.  

The Fossil Mercantile is the grocery store in town, and it's a site to behold.  It has a wide planked pine floor and they sell cowboy boots right along side the artisan goat cheese.  I know for certain that if there is a heaven, it involves cowboy boots, gins and tonic, and artisan goat cheese all within a 3 block radius.  I could die and go to Fossil.

10 down, 232 to go.

Scappoose

Every time I meet someone from Scappoose, I mention that my sister lives there. Without fail, they immediately ask me her name, as if Scappoose is such a small town where everyone knows each other. Perhaps that was true 15 years ago, but if the afternoon traffic on highway 30 is any indication, Scappoose is rapidly becoming another of Portland's bedroom communities. When I met Mayor Scott Burge, he of course asked me who my sister was. And just like everyone else I've ever met from Scappoose, he's never heard of her.
Mayor Burge and I talked about the Scappoose Creek Inn, which is where I took the above picture of a really tiny llama that had gotten snared in a spider web. He told me that since the Inn isn't within the city limits of Scappoose, his city doesn't get any tax benefits. "We have a hotel tax," he joked, "But no hotels." Such is the life of a small town mayor. Being the awesome husband that I am, I took my family up to Scappoose for my wife's birthday last year. A lot of people might find that odd, I suppose, but a lot of people are stupid. I honestly believe that there is just as much value in eating weird Hawaiian food and watching your toddler chase chickens around as there is in, say, going back to Seaside again. Come on people, how many times do you need to go to Seaside before it gets old?

You can also head up the hill to Scaponia Park and find huckleberries and caterpillars. We found about 3 pints worth and made milkshakes when we got home (with the huckleberries, not the caterpillars). Or you can rent some kayaks and see about a hundred beavers and heron in the various sloughs and lakes. You can have what is possibly the worst Chinese food ever, if you're into that sort of thing. Better yet, you can eat here. It's like a cross between a nice restaurant and a dive bar. I'm trying to convey a sense of urgency when it comes to Scappoose, because I'm afraid that in the next ten years it will be swallowed up by Portland kind of like Wilsonville was in the early 90s. I guess what I'm saying is that you should go before they have a Best Buy.
Nine down, 233 to go.

Nehalem

One of the greatest things about the Oregon Coast is that everyone has their spots that no one else knows about, where you can still find a little quiet even though it's Saturday in August.  So while everyone under 30 is on the boardwalk in Seaside and everyone over 30 is pretending to be able to taste wine in Cannon Beach, you can find me in Nehalem*.  

So when Mayor Shirley Kalkhoven autographed my map and I said that Nehalem was probably one of my top 5 cities on the coast I'm pretty sure she thought I was being a suck-up.  I only spoke with her for a few seconds so I didn't have time to state my case, so in case she's reading this I'll do so now:

• I've kayaked around Deer Island at least a dozen times.
  
• I've almost sleep-walked off the back deck of the floating hotel into the river.
  
• My son found a caterpillar at Nehalem City Park up on the hill.
  
• I've suffered a hangover from the blackberry wine at the Nehalem Bay Winery.
  
• The first place my wife and I went camping together was Nehalem Falls.
  
• Wanda's cafe is probably the best place to get breakfast between Neskowin and Astoria.
  

I'm a little conflicted here though:  On the one hand, I'm compelled as an Oregonian to invite people to stop and visit places like Nehalem instead of just going straight to the obvious places--you'll never find me at the Seaside Pig N' Pancake, for example.  But on the other hand I don't really want a whole crowd of people there mucking it up for me and my family.  If you do go, you gotta check out that grove of old growth sitka spruce up by the falls.  Just leave campsite T1 open for me.  

Eight down, 234 to go.

*People that know me may wonder why I didn't include the story about the camping margarita girls here.  Feel free to tell your version in the comments.  

Cottage Grove

I'm pretty sure I'm getting my metaphors mixed up from PSY 201 when I say this, but Oregon is very gestalt in that the sum of its parts are greater than its whole.  Looking at page 33 in the 1994 Rand McNally Atlas will show you a good road map of Oregon, but our state is better represented as a series of small towns--each with its own quirky and unique characteristics.  Cottage Grove is the perfect example.  

Founded in 1848 by Lord William de Cottage Grove and ruined in 1957 by Interstate 5, Cottage Grove still clings to one of the state's best under-appreciated downtown areas to this day.  Don't believe me?  Check out the last 20 minutes of a little movie called "Animal House."  'Nuff said.  In 2005, Cottage Grove was even the home of the 25th anniversary party of the release of Animal House, and it won't surprise anyone that reads this that I was there with bells on.  

Before I go any further, I just want to say that Mayor Gary Williams was extremely friendly, and the first Mayor to give me a town pin.  I didn't even know that towns had official pins, but they do.  I met him in Salem at the OMA and he was the first Mayor to shake my hand and make me feel welcome despite the fact that I was using up their catered lunch time with this silly project.

Okay, that said, Mayor Williams has some serious party planning skills.  Or skillz, if you will.  And that Animal House weekend was one of the craziest weekends of my young life.   Sure, it helped that a friend of mine won the John Belushi look-alike contest.  And yeah, maybe I had been drinking for a good chunk of the two days I was there.   But it warmed the cockles of my beer-infused heart that a little town of 9,000 people could welcome a crowd of 50,000 into the streets of their downtown, and then disperse them with fire hoses after the parade was over.  It was chaos:  People were running in every direction trying to escape the downpour.  Seriously!  But instead of terror and panic, everyone had a knowing grin on their faces as if to convey, "We knew what we were getting into when we came here, and we're enjoying it."

And that's what Oregon is:  A whole bunch of towns filled with people that--for the most part--knew what they were getting into when they came here, and are enjoying it.  Despite the downpour.

Oh, and also I don't have any pictures of Cottage Grove because I jumped in the pool of the Comfort Suites with my camera in my pocket.  I tried to fix it by taking it apart, but it's way too gestalt.

Seven down, 235 to go.