139. Rick James' Hair Says Hello

139. "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk

In August of 2013, for our 25th wedding anniversary, Julie wanted us to tour the Oregon coast and look at all the lighthouses. I begrudgingly went with the plan, but only after much grousing on my part and a couple threats to not even go even though Julie had already made reservations. Why wasn't I excited to spend a week on the Oregon coast? Because it's the Oregon coast! If you like gray skies and cold beaches, you can't beat Oregon--a fact that even the Oregon tourism industry will admit.



The first few days of the vacation were rough. Climbing a crowded Astoria Column reinforced my irrational fear of heights and put a new twist on it. What's worse than Acrophobia? Acrophobia combined with claustrophobia.

From this column you can see all of your worst fears.

The motel at Bandon beach (see video above)--which was cleverly called the Bandon Beach Motel--was so depressing that I wanted to hike down the nearby multi-level stairway to the beach, wade out into the water to the rocks jutting up from the shoreline, scale up to the highest cliffs, and then throw myself off it onto the rocky shoals where crabs could pick at my corpse until only white salty bones remained.

Tube TV--the technology that makes you want to go on a hike to the beach.

How bad was the motel? It had a tube TV from the 90s, carpet from the 80s, and bedspreads from the 70s. The picture above makes you think the motel might be pretty nice. Here are two pics that are a little closer to the truth.

The architectural charm of a trailer home, but with the convenience of under-the-trailer parking!

I think this is the exact same room we stayed in. The TV is never shown in pictures of rooms at this motel.

When we left Bandon, we toured some really nice lighthouses, and we thought our worst days were behind us. But we were wrong. On our anniversary night, Julie booked us in what she thought was a really nice Bed and Breakfast in Eureka, California.

The House of the Purple Pinky Toe

From the outside, the house looked great. But they put us in a basement room that also opened out into a room they were using to store old furniture. I stubbed my toe so hard that night on some furniture while walking to the bathroom in the dark that my toe bled. There was zero air conditioning in the room, so the next day we checked out. Touring Eureka during our drive to a run-down cafe showed us why there's an "Eeek!" in Eureka. I remember telling someone later that the city reminded me of Pocatello--but with all the modernization and charm found in downtown Blackfoot.

After breakfast, we immediately drove straight out of town--didn't want to tour anything else in it--and drove down the coastal highway to go see Humboldt Redwoods State Park. That's when the trip started to turn around for us. Those trees were amazing! I just couldn't get over them. That drive through the forest made our sunroof totally worth the extra money we paid for it. I loved peering up through it at the canopies of the giant old-growth trees.

Trees as tall as a football field is long.

We found a Marriot hotel to stay in for the second-to-last night, so we got a decent bed, some decent sleep, and a decent flat-screen TV.

We headed home from the Redwood forest, via Crater Lake. And on the last night of our vacation, we totally lucked out and got the very last room available at the Crater Lake lodge. In fact, it was the manager's room that he usually stayed in, so it had a really good bed and a nice bathroom.

Nice lodge. (THANKS!)

We spent our last evening on the viewing deck of the lodge, watching the sun set on Crater Lake, and eating carrot cake--the same as our wedding cake.

For some reason, carrot cake significantly reduces my fear of heights.

That moment made our misfortunes in Bandon and Eureka all worthwhile. It completely turned around my experience of our anniversary vacation, and I now actually would love to go tour the Oregon coast again with Julie. (But this time we'd stay only in Marriot hotels--and the Crater Lake lodge, of course.)

What does this travelogue have to do with the song "Get Lucky?" Right before we went on the trip, I bought the Random Access Memories CD to listen to in the car on the drive. I'd heard the song, and thought the rest of the album would be good. It was. At least it was good enough to listen to when the radio reception went out on our trip. I must have listened to it fifty times before we got to Humbolt Redwoods State Park. You'd think I'd tire of hearing it by then, but listening to "Get Lucky" as I drove through the redwoods with my sweet wife is one of the best music-related memories I've had in the last 25+ years. I really did get lucky when I married her!