In the Sasquatch Healing Temple

Down the coast from Portland on the I-5 we came across the LARGE redwood forests! Three-quarters of the world's tallest trees are found in these redwood forests. Driving on the road through the massive all-consuming trees surrounding one felt like we were in some slightly less-dark German fairytale (Grimm-lite). Jono even maneuvered our Blueberry through a 3000 year-old tree; gives a new meaning to the phrase "drive-through".

Along a very bad dust road was probably a bad time to try out my American driving skills. I could focus on nothing other than the left tyre and what was ahead of me. Being grateful for our third party insurance after we hit one particularly large pothole, Jono eventually asked me, " Jo, are you watching the right tyre?" To which I replied, "Oh no, I'm not". No surprise that my driving was viewed with healthy skepticism thereafter. I did, however, manage to cross a bridge basically the width of our car as we headed towards the infamous Sasquatch healing temple.

The A-frame accommodation we knew would be a memorable experience, because after all we were in California- so we may as well embrace Hippie-dom. To quote Jono, "I have never been to a stranger place in my life." In the depths of the forest without signal, electricity or running water, lay a little homestead-come-yoga-temple. The people were lovely, but a certain holistic hemp-wearing, unblinking hippiness struck a deep resonance of discomfort with our mod-con city-slicker lives. A satellite dish covered by bits of broken mirror was the solar oven which was near the saw-dust composting toilet. Pet mice and goats roamed freely and an obscure Aquarius mosaic decorated the newly constructed green-house. We left early for Napa Valley, grateful for our corporate-crony-style bourgeois sell-out lives. That is all.

In suburbia of Santa Rosa, we found comfort in the modern decadence of a shower. It was great to meet up with Dyl and Tas in Sonoma at the Girl and Fig (a lovely restaurant with an open air courtyard and a Mediterranean feel about it). The next day we visited Russian River brewing company for a tasting that was great with Belgian and all sorts of Californian beers including "Pliny the Elder" (double IPA, currently believed by Beer Advocate to be the 3rd best beer in the world. The second, "Pliny the Younger", a Russian River triple-hopped IPA is produced for 2 weeks and sells out immediately with people queuing up outside the brewpub for 10-12 hours to get some). A ride up and down the main drag of the wine-lands in Napa confirmed for us that while it is stunning, it possesses only a fraction of the beauty of Franschoek and Stellenbosch. After the famed Paris tasting of 1976 when Californian wines bested the best of French wines in a blind tasting by a variety of judges, the area began to gain substantial popularity. According to our guide at Cakebread there are now over 1000 wineries in the area of Napa and Sonoma. The Cab Sauv and Reserve Chardonnay were brilliant! For a huge spoil, we went to Bouchon - one of Thomas Keller's incredible cafe-like bistros. It made up for the granola bars we ate for dinner in the A-frame.


AREA RECAP: Napa Valley and Santa Rosa
Highlights: Redwood drive, Cakebread tasting, Bouchon lunch, seeing Dyl and Tas trundling around Napa in a convertible Mustang
Lowlights: A-frame living.
People: Healthy, much too wealthy
Oddities: 3 signs that all said Sweetcron. A-Frame. Sasquatch Healing Temple. etc etc.
Jono & Jo’s totally objective and no-way subjective rating scale: 14% Alcohol by Volume out of 100
Reminds us of: Mpumalanga landscape with vineyards
Distance travelled:  Unknown miles (Miles are meaningless when you're off the grid, man).

Keeping Portland Weird

Stop 2 on our journey was Portland. We were fortunate enough to stay with a friend of Jo's from primary school, who has lived in Portland for a number of years. Li-Zandre, her mom, brother and friend Will were kind enough to host us for three nights, and took us around one of the strangest and most compelling cities we've ever visited. In general, Portland appeared to be exceptionally quirky, exceptionally beautiful, and strangely insular. The slogan of "Keep Portland Weird" appeared to be shorthand for "Keep Portland spectacularly pretty but overly obsessed with its own weirdness, to the point of making the culture oddly inaccessible to visitors". (Disclaimer - our experience of Portland is the sum total of 3 days, and is as such no doubt skewed heavily by where we were and what we got up to). Nevertheless, both Jo and I would like to return to experience more of the picturesque outdoors and aggressively outdoorsy sensibilities of the locals.

Night of arrival: Oh my word. The first boerewors I have tasted in a year and a half. And rusks. And biltong. (Though I did have those six months ago). Tasted like home.

Day 1: Five waterfalls along a beautiful old highway, including the iconic Multnomah Falls and (Jo's favourite), Latourelle Falls. Each required a few minutes of walking into the forest to view, and we had a chance to drink in the beauty of the Portland milieu. After the waterfalls, we headed to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and explored a submarine and various exhibits that appealed strongly to the nerd in me (I say that as if there is another part of me- basically it appealed to the nerd in me, i.e. all of me). A visit to Voodoo Donuts was mandatory (the signature doughnut - or donut in the ever-economical parlance of this former colony - is a voodoo doll-shaped doughnut that one stabs in the chest with a pretzel stick to cause red jam to spill out of the tiny wound), and we advanced our risk of diabetes significantly in the ensuing deliciousness. The evening then saw dinner at Chevy's, a Mexican restaurant that somehow got the idea (via some scurrilous gossip from the ladies at the table) that my birthday is sooner than the actual 7 weeks or so away, so I received an honorary song and sombrero. Bizarre, but fun. And now I have a sombrero, which is pretty much living the dream.

Day 2: The morning was dedicated to the Rose Festival parades. Portland is known as the City of Roses, and the parade featured everything from local politicians to rodeo queens and visitors from Taiwan. I'm pretty sure that if you attend five small town parades and get your parade card punched at each, you automatically get a green card. It doesn't get more American than announcers naming each rodeo queen and her princesses while a float of bears and other fauna (made of rose petals) trundles by. After the parade we took a drive to Mt Hood to see the year-round snowcap and drink absurdly sweet hot chocolate in the Timberline Lodge, which served as the basis for the exterior shots of the Overlook in the Shining.

Early the next morning we hit the road toward our next stop - an off-the-grid A-frame near a town called Gasquet with Jane and Dan, some Airbnb hosts that offer "custom bodywork" and a "Sasquatch Healing Temple". That particular tale, and more besides, will follow.

CITY RECAP: PORTLAND

Highlights: Beautiful waterfalls (especially Latourelle), Voodoo Donuts, South African food, Timberline Lodge at Mt Hood
Lowlights: Combination of time and a few other things meant exceptional brewery and food scene was largely skipped
People: Unlike anywhere else, odd lack of diversity
Oddities: Lots of hiking boots in evidence. Almost too many. Suspicious.
Jono & Jo’s totally objective and no-way made-up rating scale: 7 grains of crunchy, healthy cinnamon granola out of 10
Reminds us of: Tokai, Braamfontein, Brooklyn.
Distance travelled: 630 miles


To do next time: Breweries, Pok Pok, other food, longer hiking

North by North-West

Our holiday kicked off in the most beautiful and exotic city: the Upper West side. In a stunning repeat of the GMAT debacle of 2012, Jonathan Emmett single-handedly booked our accommodation and the hired car for the 2nd June and regrettably our flight for the 3rd June. FAIL. So an extra day was spent in NYC, fighting our way through the Taste of Times Square Festival with Dan, Jen, Chris and Julian and dropping extra things off in storage (our “first place” together: Room 10054 Sofia Storage on 83^rd St). We feel assured that our “worldly possessions” will not only be safe, but also content with a magnificent view of the park.

After a 6 hour flight from JFK to Seattle, we had arrived for Day 1 of our adventure. We headed to the car rental depot to collect our bright blue Toyota Yaris - later nicknamed Blueberry. When considering a name for our blog we seriously thought about naming it “third party liability” to make the exorbitant fee for it seem worthwhile! Swallowing the cost of Airport tax and other nonsensical costs we were off! After navigating driving on the wrong side of the road- the next challenge seemed to be parking! Finding public parking in downtown Seattle we decided  lunch could only take us 30 minutes as the fee suddenly went from $3 to $11 for the first hour! Ridiculous! Alas, our stomachs won the battle and we ended up paying for the hour. We ate at Fare Start – a really great restaurant that not only provides great food but also trains homeless individuals to become competent chefs. Pretty neat idea! Jono had a delicious burger and I had fish and chips. YUM!

Next stop, the REI flagship store (It is Cape Union Mart and Outdoor Warehouse crossed with Makro) surpassed all our expectations! North West coast Americans are incredibly outdoorsy – everyone hikes, camps, or kayaks or all of the above on most weekends- we were soon to find out why. Anything you want for the outdoors is at REI! After trying on several waterproof jackets we decided a soft shell was the best option. Alas no XS in the colour I wanted- so we placed an order in Portland. Sadly, our only purchase from the store was a small bottle of water purification solution, which seemed a little inadequate among the luminescent kayaks, snazzy tents, portable stoves and state-of-the-art backpacks.

Next stop: Whidbey Island, which is north of Seattle. It required us to cross the ferry from Clinton to Mukilteo, drive past Freeland, Langley and Penn Cove to our destination for the evening: Captain Whidbey Inn. It resembled an old wood-keeled sailing ship that had been cast up on the beach and converted into lodging. After photographing the little pier and the local heron on Whidbey Island, we explored the quaint town of Coupeville. The streets there are lined with flower baskets and quirky shops. We dined at the Front Street Bar and Grill devouring mussels and fish with a magnificent view. Jono had some beer brewed in Oak Grove, a community a few miles to the north. We wandered around the pier and  desperately fiddled with Aperture settings as the sun set over the Ocean. 

Next morning we ate a great continental breakfast and headed back to the ferry to explore Seattle. We meandered to Columbia City to our Air BnB in South Ferdinand St. Columbia City prides itself of being the most racially, socially and economically diverse community in Seattle, and proved to be a charming area with stunning views of the city. We caught the light rail to University station and walked to Pike Place Market to see the famous fish throwing by the fishmongers! I loved the bouquets of flowers – poppies the size of my head! We were going to drink a cup of coffee at the original Starbucks store (or semi-original; it moved to the location 5 years after founding and has stayed there ever since, the original location is no longer a Starbucks), but decided the queue all the way out the door was not worth it. (So we saw it!) Instead we decided on Michou ( three shops down) for Italian sandwiches and Rose Lemonade and then couldn't resist Piroshky Piroshky for a chocolate hazelnut crème pastry and cherry tart with white chocolate.

From there we walked to the centre of Seattle under the Space Needle; wandered around the gardens where the World's Fair was held, watched kids playing in a giant fountain spurting water, walked around the sculpture park, and strolled along the promenade to an Irish Pub - Paddy Coyne's for some cider and local beer. It was a lot of fun to sit and laugh at the other tourists; each on a Segway making their way along the promenade just under the Ferris Wheel. Dinner at Bar Sajor was incredible - it was the most amazing place with a Mediterranean ambiance! I had a glass of sauvignon blanc and Jono had a local Hilliards Chrome Satan Pilsner (weird name but pretty good), which were exactly what we needed to end a great day of walking and exploring.  We ended up trying a few different things: sourdough bread with flake salt and butter, asparagus with crème freshe and aged egg yolk, smoked yoghurt, spicy bokchoi and lemon were devoured. A chocolate gateau with pecan nuts and caramel salted ice-cream was probably too much decadence for one day, especially after our mid-afternoon pastries, but was divine!

We then headed home to sleep and we had great intentions to wake up early to go on the ferry to Bainbridge island, but instead the SNOOZE button was pressed- several times. Taking a leisurely morning we eventually drove and parked at the Space Needle and wandered around the grounds before heading up to the observation deck. Cool views of the city! Despite a very over-priced lunch at Sky City at the top of the Space Needle, we were enthralled by the 360 degree view from the rotating restaurant at 500 feet! From there, we raced to the ferry to make up for the sleep-in! We envisioned a phenomenal amazing race finish to the make the 2pm ferry in just 10 minutes, but alas a family with a stroller scuppered our dreams and instead of leaving their parking place; they were in fact arriving! Feeling rather defeated as the ferry left us in its spray, we drove across to Alki beach and hung out for a while! While supposedly a treasure of Seattle, it was fun but nothing special compared to South African coast-lines! At about 3pm we headed to Portland along the I-5 South. Along the way Mount Rainier – the most "topographically prominent" peak in America – was peering down on us as impenetrable evergreen forests flashed by. We succumbed to DQ- aka Dairy Queen en route to relive Jono's childhood memories of Blizzards from trips to the US in the 90s! Mc Flurries on Steroids! Deliciousness!

CITY RECAP: SEATTLE

Highlights: Lunch at Space Needle, Mukilteo to Clinton Ferry, Sunset over Puget Sound, Wandering around the quaint Coupeville

Lowlights: Missing Bainbridge Island Ferry due to slow parkers, missing the Annual Murder Mystery Weekend Game in Langley (Jono has sworn he will return to take part)

People: Few and far between; surprisingly excellent shape, very granola ( i.e. outdoors, yoga/holistic healing enthusiasts)

Oddities: Suspiciously empty city, people too nice

Jono & Jo’s totally objective and no-way made-up rating scale: 3 non-fat, skim-orange mocha frappucinos from Starbucks out of 5.

Reminds us of: Port Elizabeth, Jeffrey’s Bay and parts of Joburg CBD.

Distance travelled: 196 miles

To do next time: Bainbridge Ferry, Orcas Island, Underground Tour and Boeing Museum