Thelma: Day #2 – CA-OR Border
• Number of miles driven: 336
• Amount of money spent: $166.19 ($87.99 motel, $37.57 gas, $4 coffee, $13.70 breakfast, $10.93 lunch, $4 fair entry, $10 rib plate, $2 homemade root beer)
• Best pic: Mt. Shasta
• Song of the Day: Kid Rock’s Cocky
• Audio Book: Reading Lolita in Tehran
• Number of times I almost drove off the road: 2
• Nighttime abode: Klamath Falls, OR
• Special purchase: $20 in raffles tickets to suppor the care of Bureau of Land Management horses and maybe win a BLM horse: Pepper
The last time I was on the Oregon border was a trip I took with my friend Clara to the hippy town Ashland. We were going to meet up with a childhood friend of Clara’s, who was residing in a community of people living in tee pees.
I forget her real name, but her goddess name was Terra, Clara’s was Kuan Yin, and mine was Pele, after the Hawaiian goddess of fire. Yes, we chose goddess names that weekend…I told you it was a hippy haunt!
Anyway, as much as I love mini living, I was not a fan of the tee pee situation, which seems extreme to me – no indoor plumbing or electricity. Almost every day, you’d have to get ice for the cooler.
Everyone in the community lived a subsistence lifestyle and traded with one another. Each had a skill, like making oil from walnuts or baking bread. I don’t know – it seemed like a hard life.
The highlight of the weekend was going to be a Wiccan party on top of a mountain during a full moon. The three of us set off in the dark woods to try and find the party. (I was not psyched to be walking in the woods at night = spooky!).
We didn’t want to show up empty handed to the party, so we decided to bring wood to contribute to the bon fire. So there we were wandering in the woods in the pitch dark carrying logs. This was not one of my finer moments. We never even found the party. It must’ve been a very quiet Wiccan affair…
All in all, I think it was the quintessential Ashland, OR experience and I didn’t feel the need to drive that way again.
____________
Read the next post in this series: Thelma: Day #3 – Southeast Oregon
Read the first post in this series: Thelma without Louise: An American Adventure
Tags: Ashland Oregon, Kalamath Falls Fair
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 7th, 2010 and is filed under North America.