The Pacific Coast Highway is amazing. I'd seen parts of it on our family trip when I was in high school, but I had no idea. The scenery reminded me of South Africa, but it just keeps going and going. I drove up nearly the entire coast of Cailfornia and the scenery remains stunning the entire distance. The road clinging to hills overlooking rocky beaches. Occasionally it dips into small towns or forests of redwoods. Most of the coast must be protected as farmland and small houses occupy what must be priceless real estate.

I spent a night in a California town not far from the coast and set out the next day for Corvalis, Oregon. I passed a kid with a backpack thumbing a ride and didn't stop, still thinking of the Cliff experience from Yosemite. A minute later I thought better of it and turned around to pick him up. A few minutes later we reached his friend and picked him up too. They'd split up to have a better chance of reaching their destination. They were headed for Portland, just up the road from where I was going.

"Kids who didn't much feel like going to college or getting a job."
One guy's name was Steven and I don't remember the other one's, though he was more talkative. Steven was from Oklahoma and the other from Texas. Both around twenty they'd been bumming around the US for over a year. They're best described as dropout culture kids. It seems to be mainly a west coast thing. American kids who didn't much feel like going to college or getting a job, they're the ones you see hanging out and sleeping in public parks or alleys or under bridges in cities like Seattle, Portland or San Francisco. Generally this is the same crowd that makes up the hoodlem contingent of the G8/WTO protesters, who while I may agree with many of their points, annoy me with what I perceive as self-riteousness.

But these guys were fun to talk to and I was glad to help them out. As I told them I had a lot of traveler karma to pay back. I'd been the beneficiary of a lot of kindness on my trip and I was happy to be on the other side for once. I bought them dinner and dropped them even closer to Portland that we expected, having missed my turn to Corvalis.

I'd met Aaron in San Cristobal, Mexico along with Rinat. The three of us would eventually travel together through most of northern and central Guatemala over about three weeks. Aaron's now back at work in Corvalis with a county agency doing something that involves hydrology and sewage. I ended up staying two nights so we'd have a chance to catch up and have a few drinks. And also so I could use his washer/dryer.

My drive out of Corvalis was marked by my inability to find famous landmarks. I stopped in Portland just to see the city... and to drive by KOIN Tower. It's where KOIN-TV is located, one of only two TV stations I know of that have downtown office towers named for them. The other is WMAQ, located in NBC Tower in Chicago. I drove all over downtown Portland and never saw KOIN Tower. I saw a building I thought resembled it, but it had no logo at the top. I've seen video of KOIN Tower with the logo on it. Perhaps they decided the naming rights were too expensive and the logo was taken down.

"I couldn't find the Space Needle."
From Portland on to Seattle where I had a more interesting failure to locate a landmark. I couldn't find the Space Needle. It's only the most famous structure in Seattle and I couldn't find it. I drove all over downtown looking either for the tower or a sign for the tower and found neither. I got mad and got back on the freeway, just in time to spot the Space Needle just north of the city. I didn't go.

On my way to Vancouver I had an interesting run-in with Canadian immigration. I think it was the fact that I had no job that made them suspicious. While eveyone else was barely slowing down before being waved into Canada I had to park and go inside for a debriefing. They nearly didn't let me in. I talked to a border officer for a while and was told to sit and wait. The only other people in the room were obviously neither American nor Canadian. But here I sat.

Finally I'm summoned back to the desk after much discussion behind the scenes. I'm told I'll be let into Canada *this time,* but in the future I'll need to be able to show sufficient funds to support myself in Canada. I wanted to ask them how many people with a passport full of stamps and driving a new car wind up sleeping on the streets in Vancouver. She also admonished me not to continue to travel with a car loaded with belongings, which makes border officials nervous that one doesn't plan to return. She hadn't seen my car and ignored my insistance that I had only two suitcases didn't seem to sway her.

"A woman stumbled to greet me, obviously drunk."
It was a quick stop in Vancouver. I went up in a big observation tower that overlooks the city and took a few photos. Then I left. This was quickly becoming the express tour. I stopped on the outskirts of a small city to the east at a small motel. It was kinda late when I found the front door locked and rang the bell. A woman stumbled to greet me, obviously drunk. I asked if she had a room. While standing right next to a large sign that said "Rooms Available," she paused a few seconds, looked to the ceiling, stopped herself from falling over and said, "Uh, no." I laughed and left, finding a room at another place run by an overly talkative Polish guy who had only one of the dingy rooms he "usually only gives to Indians." I'm not kidding. The room, by the way, was just fine... for Indians and Caucasians alike.

The next day I'd cross the border back into the U.S. on my way across Idaho and Montana to Mt. Rushmore. American immigration would be even more interesting than getting into Canada. I entered Idaho at a very rural crossing; I believe it's the only public crossing along Idaho's tiny international border. It's a two lane road with hardly any traffic. A guy resembling a slightly younger Wilford Brimly perused my passport.

"So you've been in Egypt," he said.

He flipped through a few more pages.

"And Tanzania," he said.

"Yes. And Sudan and Jordan," I added helpfully, with some idea of what he was looking for.

"You'd better park and come on in," he said.

"I'm lucky I'm American or I may be in Guantanamo right now."
My passport was handed to a small woman behind a distant desk. She would call questions to me across the way as she busily typed my info into a computer. I suppose John Ashcroft is now acutely aware of my travels. After about fifteen minutes of questions and typing she called a junior officer over to have a look at the passport. She told him "this is exactly what we'd be looking for... except he's American." I suppose I'm lucky I'm American or I may be in Guantanamo right now.

The road through Glacier National Park was closed but the road to the outside was pretty also. I blew across rural Montana, which looks like the surface of the moon. It's barren, dry and grey.

I'm still trying to figure out why Christopher Reeve is immortalized on Mt. Rushmore. Driving there from Montana I was trying to remember the faces. I thought it was Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. Turns out it's not Jefferson. It's Christopher Reeve. Have a close look at a photo and you'll see what I mean. Also, Washington has had some kind of lobotomy judging by the enormous crack across his skull on the mountain.

The monument is much more wide open and visible than I thought. All the photos seem to have trees in the foreground, which I would realize is the only way to get an intereting photo of it. But the main viewing area looks the presidents (and Superman) straignt on with a perfect, wide view of the mountain. A trail takes you into the forest directly under them and is where the photos looking through trees come from.

"Lincoln was even going to have a hand and finger."
I knew the monument was never finished to the designer's intentions. I had no idea, though, how elaborate it was going to be. There's a model in a museum of what it was going to resemble. Washington and Lincoln, the presidents on either extreme, were to have entire torsos. Lincoln was even going to have a hand and finger raised as though he was making a point. If you look closely you can even see that Washington's jacket collar is completely finished and his body and left arm are roughed out in the rock below his head. I was told you can even see where sculptors were working on Lincon's hand when work was halted, though I couldn't make that out.