The Ordinary Times

Estacada Part 2

This is part 2 of my serialized adventure tale. Read part 1 here.

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The suburbs slide by the windows and slowly fade into farmland and trailer towns.

I am squinting at the other people on the bus, trying to write their stories. The long thin man towards the front, the one with leathery skin and a bass-like mouth, is gibbering excitedly to a very quiet Hispanic man with a Genghis Khan style beard. Occasionally the tall one leaps up, grasping a pole for support, and crouches close to the silent man, eagerly explaining how DNA is like a mighty flowing river. We are all in tributaries, evolutionarily speaking, but soon enough our children will join into rivers, our grandchildren spill into the mighty Columbia, and our great great great great great grandchildren will roll gently into the great genetic sea of the distant future. At least this is what I imagine he is saying — I only catch incomprehensible fragments and attempt to piece together some lucid story from them. He may be mad. I want to write it down, but I realize I’ve forgotten a pen. Fuck. I’ll pick one up in Estacada.

When I’m not listening to his chatter, I’m reading Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver — the first volume of his absolutely massive Baroque trilogy. It’s interesting enough — seems to be largely about the birth of math and money and how the two interrelate. A bit too clever at times, but Stephenson is a very capable storyteller. The ride, while bumpy at times, is never slow.

I have two possible adventures in mind. The first option would be to get off in Estacada proper, at the end of the line, and walk out to McIver park. It doesn’t look too far, and it’s on the river. The other option is called Eagle Fern park and is up Eagle Creek a little ways. I could either walk the Wildcat Mountain road, or try to work my way up Eagle Creek. Either way, it would be a couple of miles. Eagle Fern looks a little wilder, but smaller, than McIver. I consider these possibilities, and put my nose back in my book. When I look up again my dilemma is solved for me: we’re a mile or two past the Wildcat Mountain turnoff.

Estacada has a worn down but homey feel. The air smells like not-entirely-unpleasant burning. A huge sign forms a Romanesque gate over a gravel road “ESTACADA LUMBER” – 50 feet in the air. This place once had a purpose, I suppose. Trees felled for miles around would come here, to Estacada Lumber, and be stripped, cut, planed and stacked into neat piles. Builders would drive down from Portland.

Now Estacada is “The Gateway to the Clackamas”, which I guess means it’s just the place you stop for gas on the way out of town, or the place to get dinner after a day on the river. I get off the bus on Main street in front of Estacada Middle school and head south, towards “downtown”. As I crest a small rise, heading down into Estacada proper, I see the towering sign for the Safari Room — Estacada’s legendary taxidermist/karaoke bar. I plan to stop on my way back through if I have time, but they’re not open yet.

I haven’t brought a map with me (uncharacteristically) and I’m not entirely sure which direction I’m supposed to go, only that I’ll cross a bridge and then try to find the park. The highway forks at the edge of town, the right hand fork crosses a bridge; it’s a pretty safe bet. So I cross it.

The Clackamas is wide below me and a deep blue-green. It looks cold. I think about where it comes from and where it goes, wonder if you could put a raft in here and float all the way down to the Willamette, then float the Willamette all the way into downtown. Maybe get out at the waterfront and stumble, sun-burnt and dripping, into some hoity-toity Southwest Portland bar. Portland City Grill has a great happy hour. Mentally bookmarking this for the summer.

On far bank of the Clackamas, the thin sidewalk I have been following disappears, and it looks as if I’ll be walking on the shoulder of the highway from here. At first it’s not so bad. I put some tunes on and my step is light.

I realize I’ve forgotten a pen. I knew I’d forgotten a pen. I knew it on the bus and I meant to stop in Estacada. Fuck, man. My eyes scan the garbage strewn roadside. It’s possible. Empty Gatorade bottles, cigarette packs, bits of upholstery, shoes. No pen. But I’ll keep my eyes out.

Soon, as cars shoulder past like that rude asshole at the Crystal Ballroom who has to be in front, the highway wears thin. A sign says “McIver Park – 3 Miles”. Ah fuck. At least there’s a pony, a little Shetland in the front yard of a small house across the road. I soldier on past junk-strewn trailers, some so ramshackle I’m reminded of shanty towns.

Still looking for a pen, I spot some huge pine cones. Sugar Pines, right? Sugar cones? That’s silly. I pluck a single seed from one to bring home with me. Roughly triangular with the fat end light and the thin end dark. Looks like candy corn. I think I’m hungry.

I judge that the park must be somewhere to my right, as the river is over there. Presented with the opportunity to take a side road headed in that direction, I nervously do so. It doesn’t say “Dead End” so it has to go somewhere, right? And as long as I’m between the river and the highway, I can’t get too lost.

This road crosses a small creek and climbs sharply before connecting with Hayden Road. Looking left I can see the highway, and imagine I can see a brown State Park sign pointing this direction. Eh, what’s there to lose. I turn right and trudge upwards.

continued tomorrow