The Jetpacker

The 1,250-mile stretch of I-5 freeway from Los Angeles to the border of Canada isn’t the most interesting drive in the world.  Major sights include… cows.  And maybe an occasional llama.  The route shifts from farmland to mountain pass and back to farmland regularly.  Road side attractions are slim — not everyone can lay claim to The Thing? — and there is often many miles between exits.

How we managed to stay awake without the assistance of Red Bull for the entire drive, I’ll never know.  But staying awake led to these observations on the Interstate 5:

– The speed limit often drops to 60mph or less in Oregon and Washington. I could understand a low speed limit in dangerous mountains or dark forests… not in wide open farmland where the terrain is as flat as a Keanu Reeves performance.  Even stranger, people actually obey the speed limit.  It’s not like the road to Vegas where the I-15 is tantamount to the Autobahn, and 100mph is considered “cruising speed.”  Drivers barely creep above 60mph on the I-5, making us wonder if the penalty for speeding was the removal of hands or something.

– The fast lane is called “pass only” in various parts of Oregon and Washington, meaning drivers could only utilize the left lane to pass a big rig driving at tortoise speed before returning to the slow lane.  And, again, drivers actually obeyed the law.  We would drive 20 or 30 miles before anyone passed us.  For Southern California natives, this was like something out of “The Twilight Zone,” a strange world where drivers are courteous and polite and lawful, where people don’t cut off other drivers or honk their horns.  It was almost too nice.  We felt like honking just because we had never gone so long without doing it.

– There must be a lot of perverts in Oregon because we would occasionally pass an exit that had only one building: an adult film arcade. No gas station.  No food-drinkery.  Just porn.  We know how filthy rest stops are; I can’t even imagine what a biohazard a road side adult shop is.

–A silhouette of George Washington’s head is on road signs in the state of Washington.

– We fall under the mildly perverted category: not dirty enough to pay a quarter to take a peep at “Teen Sluts 5″ in a road side adult film arcade, but dirty-minded enough to giggle every time we passed a sign that could be construed as sexual, like Hooker Creek or Balls Ferry or Chuckanut Drive.

– There’s a city in northern California called Weed. It’s 3,400 feet above sea level.  You could even say that when we drove through, we got high in Weed.  Here’s an interesting tidbit: Crystal Geyser Spring Water is bottled in Weed.  You could even say that when you drink Crystal Geyser, you’re ingesting a little bit of Weed.  Okay, I’ll stop now.  Weed.

– Favorite roadside motel: SnoozInn.  Favorite sign: InFARMation.  Favorite depressing depiction of irony: a cow standing next to a Burger King sign.

– I thought hitchhikers only existed in Jack Kerouac novels and ’80s slasher films. But apparently they still exist in real life.  We passed a few hitchhikers along the way and we noticed that they didn’t stick out their thumb to hail a ride.  Perhaps the signs depicting a crossed out thumbs up were only effective in stopping hitchhikers from sticking out their thumb… but weren’t effective in actually deterring hitchhikers.

– “Guess that roadkill” was a popular game. I don’t recall who won, but I know the game ended when we saw a dead deer.

– It’s against the law to fill up your own gas in Oregon. I remember when gas stations used to have options: self serve or full service.  Back then Pizza Hut actually tasted good, people talked on the phone instead of texting, and no one knew of an evil succubus named Paris Hilton.  Times were good.  Some say Oregon hasn’t progressed.  I say Oregon is delightfully nostalgic.  In any event, the mental image of an Oregonian pulling into an out-of-state gas station and sitting in their car confused as they wait for service that will never show is amusing.

Notice the driver not pumping gas, sitting comfortably in his car, listening to "Relax" while a gas jockey works the pump.

– Every town off the I-5 in Oregon and Washington is historical. Every.  Single.  One.  I’ve never heard of any of these roadside towns, but perhaps my history text books just overlooked the Pacific Northwest.  “Historical Downtown District – Next Right”.  “Historical Center – Next Exit”.  “Historical Bridge – Next Town”.  What constitutes historical?  If a McDonalds is over a year old, is it historical?  Is a town historical because people ride horses to work?  Or is this just a marketing ploy (I’m looking at you South Umpqua Valley)?

– There are two points along the I-5 that are pretty cool:  1.) Siskiyou Summit — the highest point of elevation on the I-5 at 4,310 feet; and 2.) The 45th Parallel — the halfway point between the equator and the north pole.

– We could see Mount Shasta coming from about 50 miles away. And it didn’t disappear in the rear view mirror until an hour after we passed it.  That’s how big this volcano is.  But the crazy thing is that Mount Shasta is only the fifth-highest peak in California at 14,179 feet.  Compare that to Mount Everest which is over double the size at 29,029 feet.  I couldn’t believe how long we had Mount Shasta in our field of vision during the drive, so I can’t even fathom what it looks like approaching Everest.

More pictures from the drive:

Scorpion or crab claw?

Confusing road sign.

We did not hold a funeral for each bug that died on our windsheild, but we did name each one. Splatty, you will be missed.

Lake Shasta.

Notice the absence of a motorcyle gang around the man with the sidecar.