The Middle of Somewhere

About 20 minutes from downtown Portland is the Columbia River Gorge, a temperate rainforest cut by a spacious, fast moving slab of brown river and sided by gargantuan waterfalls tumbling between pine tree cliffs; the terrain gets drier as you drive east on Hwy 84 till eventually it turns into endless rolls of dry farmland. And this region, a mere 150 miles out of liberal Portland is cowboy country, where everyone drives tank-sized pick up trucks that are graced with bumper stickers that say things like "Obama bin lyin'."

Perhaps it's because I've been out of the US so long that I love this hay-covered, gun-slinging, Republican America. I might feel like an over-educated, city-slicker driving around in my Japanese-made mini SUV, but it's this alienation that makes me feel like I've gone somewhere, like I've stepped away from my normal reality and been transported into another culture or even another era.

My family and I stop to get gas in Union, a dot of an Eastern Oregon town with charming Victorian buildings. The guy behind the service counter is friendly enough but eyes my family (and our Asian friend Sandra) a bit suspiciously; the only other patron is about six feet tall, 250 pounds and is wearing a shirt that reads "All of God's Creatures are best with meat and potaters." As I wait to pay for my gas behind Mr Meat, I read a hand written sign for the local raffle on the wall - - prizes include a side of beef, a side of pork and a gun. 

And this makes me giggle inside, then think for a second because I realize that I'm enjoying the Americana of this gas station as much as I would a junk store in Penang, Malaysia or maybe a carpet shop in Tunisia. I'm not from this America and I don't really feel comfortable here but it sure is fascinating. I feel like a tourist as much as I ever have and it's great.

Looking for last minute fishing equipment we get directed to a store in Pondosa about 20 miles down the road from Union. Actually it ends up that the store is the only thing at all in Pondosa. It's a homey early 1900s building shaded by an elm tree and we're greeted by an old dog and about six fluffy cats. The door looks like it leads to someone's living room more than to a store but sure enough, opening it triggers a "ding" and out comes a white haired woman who soon calls to her husband to ask if they have any fishing line. 

Nope, they don't have any fishing equipment but as we look around we realize this place is more of a museum than a store. You can get a cup of hot chocolate for 50 cents, the few boxes of tea and canned goods are covered with dust and next to register hangs a flash bar for a Polaroid camera (still in the box) as if this is the most likely thing customers might need as they check out. Old pictures of Pondosa (which was once a thriving mill town) grace the walls and the owners keep us in the store for a good half hour telling us about the history of the town. 

Pondosa's biggest claim to fame they tell us is that it's the geographical center of the US when you factor in Alaska and Hawaii. We are all impressed. Pondosa is awesome, this store alone could merit hours of exploration. On the way out we notice a small silver earring taped to a display counter with a note that says "Did you lose an earring?" The note looks about 10 years old.

We go to a nearby camp site next to a reservoir where we're kept awake by coyotes howling all night then, the next day, drive another 20 miles down a dirt road to a trail head where we hike into the mountains and camp for a few days (a whole other story). 

On the way home we stop in Pendleton, a more yuppie cowboy town, where women wear tight jeans and high heeled cowboy boots and the most popular place in town is the rockin' steakhouse with a mediocre cover band playing outdoors. This is the kind of place I could imagine staying in a B&B to experience truck driving, cowboy hat-wearing hunting culture with a gentrified buffer - kind of like folks in a resort and a tour bus might see Istanbul or Beijing. It's cool but I like Union's gas station better.

When I get home I Google Pondosa. Turns out the only folks claiming the town is the center of the 50 US states are the couple who own the store. All other data points towards Butte County, South Dakota although apparently the exact geographical center depends on several variables (I'm not sure which). But I don't feel duped by Pondosa and I know that lovely couple truly believe it is the geographic center of the United States. Whether it is or not, Pondosa is still the middle of somewhere and I'd sip a hot cocoa with its warm-hearted two-person population any time.

Truck Stops & Penny Slots: An Ode to the American Road Trip

When you live on a small island there's no such thing as a road trip. Driving as far as you can around the two parts of Tahiti's figure eight takes four hours. One reason I wanted to move back to the States was to regain the sense of unlimited space that you can only have on a continent. Landlubbers who grow up with the amount of land Americans take for granted are pre-disposed to get a small dose "island fever" when dropped on a dot in the middle of the ocean. Some people get over it, I never did.

I was reminded of this last Friday when my good friend Dave came to town. Dave is one of the most interesting travelers I know. Growing up, his dad was a Greyhound mechanic so Dave had free bus tickets anywhere Greyhound went. So Dave would take off for weekends or sometimes weeks, riding buses to wherever he felt like going. He met crazy people, geniuses, pretty girls and wanderers and lived off hotdogs and potato chips. As he got older he learned to hop freight trains (he's the only person I know who has really done this) and once he got his own car he became a truck stop aficionado, driving around the States, always on the side of a blue-collar reality. By the time the two of us became friends in our early twenties he'd been to most US states, could tell you strange details of any Greyhound bus station in the nation and had the stinkiest, ugliest little brown car you ever saw ( it had a mouse living in it named it Rudyard).

So it's no surprise that my most memorable and real American road trip was with Dave - we just took off last minute with no idea where we were going.

We started in San Francisco, went north and our first stop was a truck stop near Vacaville. About 90 percent of the patrons in the vinyl-clad parking-lot-sized diner were men, big men in hefty plaid shirts with heaping plates of meat and potato-looking meals in front of them. It was so stereotypical it was nearly shocking. The waitresses had big hair and were probably in their late 40s, every booth was full of chatting big voices or silent loners bent over their pot roast and peas. No one took any notice of Dave and I as we took a booth and ate bacon, eggs and biscuits in gravy. It was like a scene in a movie.

We took similar stops farther north, through Truckee, where we stayed at a friend's place and played in the snow. The next day we went to Reno and Dave taught me the art of playing penny slots - play for pennies and get free booze from the cocktail waitresses who are there to get you drunk so you make bad decisions. I think we worked up to the nickle machines at some point but that's as loose with our cash as we got.

Reno was sharply cold and sadly empty. The half-blinking neon signs and desperate gamblers further painted the gloomy, seedy atmosphere. We ate all you can eat $1.99 buffets and tried to sleep in the stinky car but it was too cold - so we got cheap rooms at Circus Circus.

The next day we headed deeper into Nevada, past whole towns of trailer homes, flat streets with nothing higher than the electric poles and tawny, desolate mountains in the distance. We chugged up to Virginia City, went into a bar where a decent blues band were playing in the middle of the day then went to a cafe next door and drank sarsaparilla with views down the sandy mountain. Then we headed back over the Sierras to the pines and majesty of the forest. This was America, the same America you see in Tarantino flicks, the underbelly of vast spaces, un-glossed and untamed. It's something you can't find anywhere else in the world.

Years later I yearn to make another cheapskate road trip like the one I took with Dave but now I'm older, have a real job, two kids and a busy life so I'm not sure when I'll fit it in. But the road is still there, just waiting for a full tank of gas, and knowing that makes me happy.

Photo by Jasmine Humbert