Oregon: Eugene and Portland

From Crater Lake I drove north and west to Eugene.  Once I got away from the mountains the road was straight, fairly flat, and had a uniform wall of straight tall trees on both sides.  This is the Pacific Northwest of Paul Bunyan... 

In Eugene I stayed with my high school friend Emily and her husband Matt.  They gave me a tour of the city while Emily and I exchanged tidbits of "where are they now" information for our classmates and talked about our days as cross-country running buddies.  One of my sharpest memories from this time is running along a winding dirt road in baking North Carolina heat, chatting with Emily and Megan and Anna while smelling the super-sweet, grape smell of kudzu as the miles go by.  I'm not a gifted runner, but these friends made those daily practices into something I really enjoyed, and today the smell of kudzu means North Carolina to me.  Of course, I forgot to take any pictures of my visit, except for one quick snapshot of the University of Oregon Eugene campus.  My parents were students here for a short time in the 70s:

It seems like everything in town, and in the state of Oregon, has a green background and a big yellow "O" on it. 

From Eugene I finally hopped on the interstate and headed up to Seattle, with a stop for lunch in Portland's Chinatown.  On Emily's recommendation I visited Voodoo Donuts and got some crazy-looking creations. 

One of them is a maple-bacon donut!  Delicious!