Washington/Oregon 2021 - Running Around in Circles

 The view from the air changed from the patchwork quilt of farm fields, which cover much of the central part of the country,  to the ridges of snow capped mountains. As we draw nearer to the northwest portion of the U.S., and our destination, the view changed again to a lush green carpet of forest. 

Landing in Portland we grabbed a shuttle to pick up our rental car. We had been upgraded to a larger, more luxurious car than the one we had ordered, a pleasant surprise. As we were leaving we gave an accidental shower to the well dressed, carefully coiffed male rental office manager while testing out the effectiveness of the windshield wiper fluid. We were on our way, or so we thought. 

An accidental wrong turn, caused by a graffiti scarred road sign left us lost in Portland, which sounds like the title of a movie with deep, dark psychological under tones. The car GPS sent us, literally, driving in circles through the city's streets. We were further frustrated by a freight train blocking our path, which, from the length of it, seemed to begin and end in different states. We hoped there was enough of Oregon to accommodate the part of the train that had already past as the thing trudged on and on. 

Finally we decided to ignore the female voices insistent, inaccurate instructions and managed, through grit and moxie, to get on the proper road, albeit going east instead of our desired direction of west. Our thought process was that we would, at some point from the highway, see an off ramp and then on ramp, which would send us in the right direction. We were hoping this would happen sometime before we  reached the neighboring state of Idaho. 

We saw what appeared to be an opportunity and pulled off. Opting to do things the old fashioned way we decided to ask directions of locals at a gas station. The first two people, which worked at the station, were clueless as to how to get us pointed in the right direction. A third, barefoot, straggly haired man, that smelled heavily of marijuana, gave us instructions that would leave us traveling several miles through the streets of Portland before we would meet up with our desired route. As we went off in the direction he sent us we both agreed that it didn't feel right, turned around, and found the on ramp to the highway we needed, one block from the gas station. We finally, after 90 minutes of wandering around, were on our way.

There is a moral to this story, never trust directions from GPS or from a stoned, barefoot, drug damaged man with straggly hair.