In August we had half a mind to fly somewhere but didn’t have enough PTO. So we stayed in the Northwest and drove the Wondermobile to Centralia, WA.
What a weird place! We stayed in the charming, lovingly restored Centralia Square hotel (formerly an Elks lodge) and our boy looked out at the non-stop trains with religious zeal. The place is just starting to gentrify - the McMenamins hotel, far inferior to the Centralia Square, the foot soldier of gentrification - and now there are retro arcades, natural-food shops, goth gift shops with a salesman wearing a monocle. The trains constantly roar through Hub City. My son delighted in telling me which one was an Amtrak and which one was a freight train, even before they showed up.
The Centralia Rollerdrome. With a name like that it has to be awesome, and indeed it is. Largely untouched by time and beautifully kept. My rollerskating spouse was in total heaven, and thanks to the bouncy house, our kid was too.
I bought a copy of Margo Guryan's Take a Picture at the Amazon-returns bin store (who returns that?!) and now "Sunday Morning" is stuck in my head forever.
After that we drove down to the central Oregon coast to escape a heat wave in Portland. Good idea except that everyone else was doing the same thing, so we hung suspended in an eternal traffic jam in Otis. But when we got to our destination it was twilightly and cool and misty. Despite not sleeping the first night (no thanks to the drunken bros falling asleep with the TV on at nuclear volume above us) we got to swim in Lake Marie and walk in the mist and drink good wild cider and listen to sea lions ork-orking and walk and watch the fierce surf on the rocky shore and walk. It was good and surreal and necessary.
