13. The Final Leg. Oregon & Home.

Heading south through Washington, October, endless forest and towns with lumber and pulp mills, I stopped for something to eat at a diner in Raymond. Sunday evening, I was the only punter, eating a poor but welcome version of fish and chips. The proprietor told me that, apart from forestry, growing pot was the other main business around town. It's seemed quaint to hear the word 'pot' still used over here; apparently arriving via Mexican immigration in the earlier decades of the last century, it’s an abbreviation of the Spanish potiguaya that came from potacion de guaya, a wine or brandy in which marijuana buds have been steeped, literally meaning ‘the drink of grief’. There you go. The young waitress wanted to see some foreign money and was impressed by the newish plasticised notes of the UK and Canada which I showed her. I tried to explain the concept of the exchange rate, not as easy as it sounds ... why is $1.25 worth 1 UK pound and why do we believe it? Who are the IMF and the World Bank and was Adam Smith the source of all evil? Whenever I've stepped off into small-town America I've always been met by helpful and friendly folk, although sometimes touchingly innocent about the wider world. Steered clear of politics and religion though.

Drove on next morning heading for the mouth of the great Columbia River, last seen back in the Canadian Rockies and disappointingly now shrouded in a low sea fog. I pulled into a layby to take it in, couldn't see the other side with the bridge across barely visible, to discover that I was back on the Lewis and Clark Trail. In fact at this very spot, which they'd called the Dismal Nitch, their party was holed up miserably for a week in bad weather in November 1805, almost perishing. Ironic for Lewis, christened Meriwether ... not a name I came across in the playground myself. Whilst I ate some breakfast there, porridge and a cuppa, I turned on my trusty companion, the radio, trusty that is when I could find a decent station ... there's much country music, not my thing, and a lot of Pastor Bobs on air urging repentence. Vietnam still looms large in the American psyche and I caught a programme about the role of women in the war. Some 265,000 volunteered, most as nurses, others as medics, physios, air traffic controllers, admin and intelligence personnel. Inevitably some were killed or injured in the crossfire. In 1993 a memorial to them was unveiled in Washington DC, allowing their story to be told and healing to begin for the many that were traumatised.

The bridge went on forever into the fog, a length of 4 miles, and then I was in Oregon, into the town of Astoria, ready for brunch. Cafes have been important on the trip, not least for some human connection, and, following a recommendation from a guy waiting for a ‘pot’ shop to open on the high street, I found the Blue Scorcher. A notice informed me that it’s run as a co-op using 'dynamic governance' as a decision making tool, something we dabbled with at Trees for Life a few years back; workers looked happy enough and the place was popular, although I don’t know if the captains of industry will adopt the process anytime soon. Got talking to a couple who’d driven from south Oregon for the day, they liked Astoria.

Later I headed out along the estuary a few miles to the seaside town of, yes, Seaside; Americans tell it how it is ... looking at the road atlas for Oregon there are many straight-named places like Bend, Rhododendron, Pot-town (I made up that last one). Here again I was on Lewis and Clark ground, the endpoint of their expedition, marked with a central statue on the prom, and nearby, tucked between residential plots, the site of their salt works; the 'works' were simple kiln structures, but effective to provide salt for preserving food and adding flavour for the return trip east. On the riverside that evening, hiding in the shadows, I watched a pair of otters gorging on a salmon carcass, illuminated by the street lights in the middle of town.

The coastal route, US Highway 101, wends its way south with commanding views of the Pacific. Reminiscent of the Atlantic coast of Portugal, there are rugged cliffs, headlands between long sweeping stretches of sandy beach, dune systems, deserted secret coves and big waves. I stopped in the town of Tillamook to visit the library for wifi; contrary to my expectation of poor public services in the US, it was well set up, the journal racks wide ranging, and there was free coffee! Had a wander around town and decided to get a trim and beard cut before my impending return to civilization; barber Ron had an un-nerving shake of the hand, told me he'd got diabetes, and had thankfully given up using a razor. He said he'd pray for me as I left. Opposite the car park was the imposing frontage of the masonic lodge; further down the street, covering a block itself, was a low blue breezeblock building with no windows, turned out to be the Fraternal Order of Eagles; and then another block away a large greenish corrugated iron place, the Moose Lodge. What do they all get up to I wondered, controlling world affairs I expect, preparing for a New World Order?

By this time things were hotting up for the mid-term elections and there was a bewildering array of election posters displayed along the roadsides for various candidates standing for county, state and federal positions. Protection of the second amendment that allows gun ownership, and ‘right to life’, were some of the issues featured in the smaller towns. As in Washington, forestry in Oregon is still important, although currently mired in conflicts around environmental protection versus provision of revenues for services in rural counties. Many years ago I’d read Ken Kesey’s ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’, described as possibly ‘the quintessential Northwest novel’, a story based around the timber industry set in the fictional town of Wakonda, Oregon in the 1960’s.

Close to Lincoln City I tried to find the campsite at the nearby Devils Lake State Park, but the roadsigns fizzled out and even after asking a couple of folk for directions, failed to get there. I've been lost or mis-directed a few times on the road and would say that, whereas the public restroom provision is much better in the US, you can’t go wrong with British road signage. So it was my last night to sleep in the car, parked up at Cascade Head, listening to the local community radio station, klcc.org, a nice mix of music and poetry that evening.

My last hike of the trip was up onto Cascade Head, overlooking the Salmon River estuary, recently restored I read on the interpretation board, and above the rolling Pacific. For a change from the forest the place is valued for its open grassland habitat, with interesting flowers and butterflies in the summer. Volunteers are working to cut back the encroaching scrub, including invasive holly from Europe, and some areas had been recently burned, all in aid of maintaining the flowery sward; like similar reserves in Britain the land would have been grazed until the recent past. It was a fine day and from above I watched a red hawk quartering the ground, effortlessly gliding and diving, trying to catch those elusive voles.

Leaving the coast, heading inland towards Portland, I stayed for a few nights with David Johns surrounded by rolling countryside, fields, orchards and woodland, almost an English landscape ... except his immediate neighbours have a vineyard, clusters of ruby grapes just about to be harvested, and there's a walnut orchard down the road. I’d met David a few years previously when he’d joined us for a volunteer day out in the Highlands, burned into his memory as ‘the day in the bog’. David is on the board of both the Wildlands Network (wildlandsnetwork.org) and the Yellowstone to Yukon (y2y.net) projects, and a respected academic in his field of conservation politics and philosophy. He was working on indexing his new book, ‘Conservation Politics’ ... the study piled high with books and papers. The Network has a strapline of 'cores, corridors and carnivores' ... 'helping to rewild north America by protecting core reserves, reconnecting them via vast corridors of habitat, and restoring apex predators'. They have mapped out four wildways in the US, aiming to allow space for wild nature to survive and thrive; they are currently pushing for a ‘Corridors Act’ and campaigning against Trump’s wall, which will have a big impact on animal migration as well as human.

I just had a few days until heading home so it was time to clean out the car and start sorting accumulated stuff from my 4.5 months on the road. I'd advertised it for sale on craigslist (like gumtree) but disappointingly had had no interest so far. The following day I drove into Portland to meet a broker who agreed he could sell it on my behalf, although he'd charge me $500; I was relieved to have that as a fall back option. Out of town again, David's friend Signe co-owns and manages the nearby Lawrence Gallery with her ex husband Gary. She showed me around, a wonderful collection of painting and sculpture including some original Picasso etched printing plates and Dali drawings. What a place, in the middle of nowhere! Both she and Gary have focused on metalwork, especially heat treated stainless steel sculptures; there's a great reproduction in tarnished steel of the Lascaux cave paintings that I’d visited in 2017. Gary arrived from his workshop, curious about my car parked up outside ... it was looking shiny now. As she’d talked about getting one, maybe Signe could buy it he suggested?

My final weekend, I headed into Portland where I'd been invited to stay with Rosemary and Chris, friends of George and Heather from Forres ... Rosemary and George had met many years ago working in Botswana. I was welcomed to their house in a leafy neighbourhood with many 'black lives matter' and 'gunsense' posters. Rosemary works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency, and specializes in work to protect and restore salmon populations, using the Endangered Species Act to bring all parties to the table; I was pleased to hear that there is much co-operation with Indian authorities. Oregon is known as the 'beaver state', with the industrious rodent featured as the state's adopted animal and illustrated on the state flag. However, as elsewhere, populations were decimated and their recovery is now seen as integral to improving the health of the river systems. Scotland awaits!

Next day Rosemary had to go away for work and Chris was busy with a building project so I headed downtown. I browsed in Powells World of Books, claiming to be the largest second hand bookshop in the world, indeed daunting. The old town by the river is the homeless quarter, grim, like skid row in Vancouver. Nearby at the ‘Saturday’ Market, although it's a Sunday, there was a mad cellist who'd drawn a small crowd, reminded me of Bill Bailey with his inane grin, playing some funky compositions. I wish I’d kept it up at school, the cello that is rather than the grin. Next day, again leaving Chris to his work, I had a look at the grandly named World Forestry Centre in Washington Park, explored the accompanying arboretum lit up in stunning fall colours, and then finally got to see the statue of Sacagawea, the Lemhi Shoshone woman from the Lewis and Clark expedition, with baby born en route, erected some years ago by the ‘Women of the USA’. Nearby is a grander monument to the two men themselves, ‘they who opened up the west for the pioneers and the beginning of Oregon’.

My final morning in Portland Signe arrived to take the car; I was sad to see it go, I'd done 9000 miles and lived in and out of it for all those weeks and months, yet pleased she was taking it. Chris drove me into town, we sold some camping stuff at a second hand store and then he dropped me at the station, a grand edifice from a bygone age. My flight home was from Vancouver, an eight hour train journey, fairly slow but costing just $40 for some 300 miles. We passed the volcanic cone of Mt Rainier, hazy and snow capped, to the east, just waiting to blow again some day. Behind me for a while was a woman apparently preparing material for a travel book or radio programme; she was recording herself and I learned how to get a cabin upgrade on my next cruise and, if we should call in there, the way to haggle for precious stones in Rio. At Seattle, dark by now, I got off to stretch my legs around another grand station, its ornate marble hall decked with sparkly chandeliers. Arrived late in Vancouver, where all passengers were advised to ‘detrain’, a new word for me, cleared immigration, and found my way to my airbnb in Richmond, a predominantly Canadian-Chinese district.

Taking off next morning, Vancouver looked small, backed by the mountains, lapped by the Pacific. Outside of the urban sprawl the fields began, curiously some coloured a deep red. The woman next to me said they were cranberry fields, flooded to float the fruit which is then skimmed off. We flew east over BC, feeling sad, over the ground I'd travelled, above the Selkirk and Purcell ranges and then the Rockies themselves, a surprisingly narrow band of soaring snowy peaks stretching far to the north. Then Alberta, suddenly flat and featureless, looking arid in comparison to the west.

It was the 17th October 2018, the day that Canada legalised cannabis. I'd picked up a copy of the Vancouver Sun and read about the big street party held at midnight in Toronto; in BC there wouldn't be much change but in other provinces that have taken a harder line in the past it was a momentous day. Changed planes in Toronto at sunset, half expecting the airport lounge to be full of folk with spliffovers, however nobody seemed particularly affected there. Flew on overnight and arrived back in Glasgow the following morning where I met up with my daughter Rowan for brunch. We’d last been together in New York 6 months before so there was stuff to catch up with. Finally onto the bus north, a lovely autumn day, I was struck by the subtlety of the colours compared to the American west, and now glad to be heading home.