Bee columnist gets a cannabis surprise on father-son road trip to Oregon | Opinion
Dad needed to get out of the house and see something beyond his backyard.
His only son needed to help make both of those things happened.
“Inactive” is the wrong word to describe my 83-year-old father. Living alone and on his own, he actively tends to his extensive orchid collection and does the stretches and core exercises recommended by his physical therapist.
Still, due to the pandemic and mobility issues he developed the preceding summer, dad hadn’t left the Bay Area in more than four years. He would go weeks or months without venturing more than a few miles from home. (To wit: The new car I helped him lease in May 2020 had less than 6,000 miles.)
The idea of a father-son road trip through Oregon was mine. Besides incredible scenery, the itinerary I chose granted us both new experiences (i.e. the Oregon Shakespeare Festival) and the chance for dad to reminisce, mostly about long-ago family vacations.
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Besides, spending all that time in the car together while sharing meals and hotel rooms for six days also gave us plenty of time to bond.
Dad, who gets around with the assistance of a cane or hiking poles, made it clear he was looking forward to that part of the journey.
“I want to get to know you better,” he said a few days before we left.
We spent the first night of the trip in Ashland, Oregon, after enjoying a blues-and-jazz inspired performance of “Twelfth Night.” Day two took us into Crater Lake National Park in the morning, lunch in Bend and passing through Warm Springs Indian Reservation in the afternoon, where the large mineral pool he remembered so fondly from a previous visit (in 1970) was closed for reconstruction.
We had a full day to visit Hood River, Oregon, situated in the majestic Columbia River Gorge, where dad had to revisit a Safeway that used to bake “the best” apple turnovers (alas, no longer). Then we headed for the coast, stopping along the way at the historic Bonneville Lock & Dam to watch salmon swim up the fish ladder and then at the International Rose Test Garden in Portland.
We got to watch the sunset in Newport, Oregon, from a hotel balcony with a direct ocean view, followed by the most delicious dinner of the trip: steamed clams, followed by a main course of coconut curry seafood stew.
It was great to see my dad smiling, enjoying himself and experiencing the world. I told him I hoped this trip would inspire him to take more, despite his mobility issues, and that we would do this again.
Everything was going precisely as planned until the final morning, when dad suddenly and unexpectedly announced he wanted to visit a cannabis dispensary. We had already driven past several — in Oregon there seems to be one in every town — but apparently a Highway 101 roadside in Northern California caught his eye.
We took the exit, walked into the store and dad started asking questions and wound up spending $30 on gummies and a preroll. I couldn’t have been more flabbergasted. My jaw might still be on the floor.
Detour through pot farm country
After gawking at huge redwood trees along Humboldt County’s Avenue of the Giants, which brought back more memories of past road trips, all that remained was the drive home. Turns out fate had other ideas.
South of Garberville, where Highway 101 narrows to two lanes at Richardson Grove State Park, traffic came to a standstill. We were told there had been a fatality involving a cyclist, and the highway would be closed for several hours.
Waiting someplace for 101 to reopen would’ve been the safe thing to do. Instead I grabbed my dad’s paper map and found a detour that would take us around the blocked section. There was only one way to proceed.
As the narrow asphalt lanes of Bell Springs Road winded up the mountainside, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought of my father getting a firsthand look at Humboldt County’s notorious pot farm country. We passed several with their telltale hoop houses.
Dad seemed to be going along well enough, but after a while the pavement ended and so too did his good humor. Unlike my comfort zone, his doesn’t extend to driving on dirt roads through sketchy parts unknown.
About halfway through the detour, we came across a pickup parked on the side of the road. I pulled up to offer assistance to the driver, a friendly local who gave us a brief history lesson and said we had 15 remaining miles of dirt road before getting back to 101.
“Why isn’t the road paved?” asked dad, leaning forward in the passenger seat with some degree of exasperation.
The man grinned and gave a perfectly succinct reply: “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Sure enough, in 15 miles we were back on pavement — the only vehicle traveling southbound on 101. When we stopped for our final dinner of the trip, in Ukiah, he got out of the car and remarked how dirty it was.
Nothing a car wash can’t fix, I told him. And besides, now he has a new, vivid road trip memory to go with all the old, hazy ones.
