Saturday, July 23, 2005

Newport

I have tried, thus far, not to include a lot of boring "tourist stories" in this blog. I've left out all the dull stuff and tried to write in a better way than usual.

So, I'll say little about our day in Newport. Just this:

People at the Hotel had suggested very elaborate days out for us, but I was feeling pretty shagged out after three days of wandering. So, we just drove a few miles to the piers and looked at the boats. Did you know that the tides are much stronger on the West Coast than the East? It's true. Their boats are much sturdier than my father's lobster boat and they use these huge 100 lb. metal traps, while he uses 5 lb. wooden traps. I think this is why the crabs are so huge on the West Coast. I asked my father about this when we saw him and he agreed that, yes, the tides are a lot stronger and the waves a lot bigger in Oregon. "I don't know if I'd want to get out in those waves at all," he said.

Anway, we looked at a lot of craft stores run by old hippies, further cementing my theory that hippies are good at crafts. Actually, they seem to hearken most of all to pre-industrial pastoralism. Not nearly as radical as one might think. It explains why so many Oregon farmers are old hippies. Sort of a turning back of the historical clock. And, given the materialistic psychopathology I'm used to in Toronto, it's starting to seem pretty inviting at this point.

No comments: