Friday morning after spending the equivalent of an unemployment check on new music at Amoeba, we slowly took off toward Oregon along the Pacific Coast Highway. A roadsign right outside San Francisco said “Fort Bragg 155 miles.” Seven hours later we passed a sign that said “Fort Bragg 45 miles,” and although we’d decided we were going to take our time on this trip, that kind of time is wholly, embarrassingly Smurf-like. It felt like we were driving a 14.4k modem.
You just can’t drive faster than 20mph along the California coast and expect the passengers in your vehicle to remain their original color. When Chuck began turning several hex values outside the web-safe palette we abandoned the coast and headed inland, arriving in Ukiah, California at 9:30pm, approximately 125 miles north of San Francisco. I have never felt more pathetic, except for that time I colored my hair a septic poopy red color.
Saturday morning saw the Blurbodooces rested and refreshed, determined to see the Oregon border, if only from a far distance. It took us an hour and a half to get from Ukiah to a viable interstate system, but once we hit the 5, Jon proved why we are The Very Best of The World’s Very Worst Drivers. For several very scary moments I thought Chuck’s ears were going to stay back like that forever.
By 2pm we’d hit Oregon and some of the most elaborately art directed scenery in the country. For over 200 miles Jon and I said nothing but “ooh” and “ahh” and “he’s licking the window again, should I be worried?” I could totally live in Oregon except for the whole not being allowed to pump your own gas thing. That’s just totally un-American.
We only spoke with a few real live Oregonians, superb people who wanted to answer all of our questions in complete sentences, starting with a thesis statement and ending with a concluding paragraph. The general consensus was: go this direction, over that way, turn left there, and whatever you do, pay attention to the speed limit. It was hard to miss the speed limit since the people in Oregon who are in charge of speed limit signs have taken the standard speed limit font, rendered it, activated the DISTORT tool (ctrl-T or command-T), and expanded the height by 225%. The signs don’t say, Speed Limit 55, they say we’ve elongated the font used by other states, and when it says 55 we totally mean it and are so not joking, and if we have to we’ll elongate the font until you take us seriously.
Despite having to drive an elongated 55mph for an entire state, we made it to Seattle by 10:30pm, only 12 and a half hours from 125 miles outside of San Francisco. I guess the only thing I have to impart to anyone who is thinking about driving the length of this side of the country is do you have any idea how long the length of this side of the country is? Can’t you fly or something?