Checking Into the Morrison Motel

Let's talk about death. There are more death euphemisms than there are for body parts or even sex. Jim Morrison, for example, has been dead for 40 years.. We've been to his grave in Paris four times. Jim's headstones are frequently stolen and the graffiti changes often. The last time we visited a bored Paris cop was watching Jim's grave...They have Jim far enough away from Proust, Oscar Wilde, and Heloise and Abelard that those graves don't get much punk vandalism...Oscar's grave featured a lovely angel with a full set of male genitalia. those organs ended up on the desk of the cemetery superintendent and eventually disappeared...

Jim stole an umbrella from a police car in 1963 while he was a student in Tallahassee at Florida State University. He was drunk at the time and got busted for urinating in the wrong place while holding the wrong umbrella. Jim was born, like me, in 1943. I was also arrested in Tallahassee as a student in 1964. I drove my Harley Davidson at speeds over 100 MPH past the Tallahassee police station at 2 AM...I was drunk on 151 rum at the time...The policeman who arrested me was shaking badly...I remember the judge asking me if I was insane...I pleaded out with the simple military serviceman ID card and paid the $110 fine...

Jim was a roommate of my friends, the West brothers. They played "Strange Days" for me on vinyl and told me that Jim had moved out just before I moved in. You would have thought that Jim would have outlasted me based on his feeble law-breaking attempts at umbrella theft and my own high-speed drunken exploits...Instead, here I am 52 years later having a good time...and Jim, at age 27, is in the great Golf course where we all get a hole in one...Taking a dirt nap...Pushing up the daisies ...Passed on...Deceased...At room temperature...Stone-dead ...Demised ... Ceased to be..No more expired ..Gone to meet his maker ..Stiff ..Bereft of life ..Resting in peace ..Off the twig ..Kicked the bucket ..Shuffled off the mortal coil ..Run down the curtain ..Joined the choir invisible ...That good night ..In a better place.. Six feet under ..Crossed over ..crossed the bar. Crossed the River Styx ....Wandering the Elysian Fields ...Paid Charon's fare...Sleeping with the fishes.. belly up ..bloodless...defunct ..departed..done for.. erased .extinct ..gone ..inanimate.. .late.. .lifeless..liquidated ..mortified ..offed ..perished ..in repose ..rubbed out ..snuffed out ..wasted ..lost ..be taken ..bumped off ..bought it ..cashed in..checked out ..conked ..croaked ..Danced the last dance ..ate it ..finished .Kicked off ...Got a one-way ticket ..Popped off ..Snuffed ..Sprouted wings ..Succumbed..No longer with us ..Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ..Returned to the ground ..With the ancestors. Gave up the ghost ..Wacked. Terminated ..Put down.. going to the big ___(whatever) in the sky"...Wormfood ..Fragged.. Bought a pine condo. Gone into the fertilizer business .....Become living-challenged ...tits up

Jim is definitely done dancing....He checked into the Morrison Motel...Jim's eating at the Rotten Skull Cafe...Jim's gone belly up...He's gone to the last roundup...He went past his "sell-by" date...Jim has left the building...Jim's no longer with us...He's on the unable to breathe list...Jim's permanently out of print...The lizard king is six feet under...Jim is sleeping with the fishes...He's wearing a toe tag...He's in the past people plantation...Been assigned to the Hale Bopp project...Become peasant under grass...He's playing harp duets with Hoffa...

So...Jim was a pretty boy, but, actually, I think I was at least as good looking as Jim. Not only that, but my crimes were more exciting...and I appear to be a much better survivor type...C'mon baby light my fire...As far as Jim goes, he's at room temperature...belly-up....bought a pine condo...ceased to bee...danced the last dance...inanimate...no longer running the human race...pushing daisies...paid Charon's fare...stiff...wandering the Elysian fields...gone into the fertilizer business...worm food....resurrection eligible...kicked the oxygen habit...passed his sell-by date...examining the radishes from below...

Mrs. Phred went into Newport, Oregon to get her hair done yesterday. I took the camera downtown to get pictures of all the seafood processing plants and marine mammals.

I liked this T-shirt. It reminded me of certain degenerate English gambler friends...

Today we passed over the mighty Columbia River to an RV park north of Portland in Vancouver, Washington. We want to see Mount Saint Helen's again. It blew in 1980. The last time we went there was 1992. Looking at the recovery after another 20 years should be interesting.

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Laura came to visit Mrs. Phred back on the Siletz River. Mrs. Phred has her own online life with the women's RV Forum...Personally, my own online activities are at "Second Life", where my avatar is extremely attractive and rich...I spend a lot of time in "dance bubbles" with attractive avatars who claim to be female...Probably most of them are unshaven middle-aged fat men from Cincinnati, fingering keyboards while wearing their "wife-beater" T-shirts and drinking Budweisers...

Siletz River, Oregon

 The Terror of Highway 101

We're heading down Highway 101 on the Oregon Coast one more time. After Packwood, Washington, we spent three days in upper northwest Oregon at Fort Stevens State Park, then two days at the Jetty Fishermen's RV park. Just now we're finishing three nights at the Coyote Rock RV Park on the Siletz River. If you stay at Coyote Rock, make sure they give you a spot on the river.

 He wore black denim trousers and motorcycle boots
And a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back
He had a hopped-up 'cicle that took off like a gun
That fool was the terror of Highway 101

Well, he never washed his face and he never combed his hair
He had axle grease imbedded underneath his fingernails
On the muscle of his arm was a red tattoo
A picture of a heart saying "Mother, I love you"

-Vaughn Monroe

Personally, when I had my Harley, I had a chicken sewed into the back of my black leather jacket rather than an eagle and a naked brain painted on my helmet....  Anyway, We went fishing again out of Depoe Bay and I caught some rock fish and a decent ling cod.. I'm cooking some of the ling cod tonight. First I marinated a chunk in white wine and salt. I'm covering it with breadcrumbs and then adding a mix of mayonnaise, sour cream and minced green onions. It's all topped off with paprika for appearance.

 The Jetty Fisherman's RV Park is at the mouth of Nehalem Bay. The tide rips in an out and crabbing is very popular. In the morning I walked along the railroad tracks and back for several miles. It's a beautiful spot to camp.

 Mrs. Phred and I booked a fishing trip out of Depoe Bay near the Siletz River. Our boat had a total of six fishing people. We didn't catch as many fish as we might have because Mrs. Phred got seasick. I have another trip booked out of Charleston, Oregon on the 12th by myself at 6 AM.

 This is one of the famous Tillomook cows. Tillomook makes great ice cream and cheese. If you go there see the Tillomook cheese factory and the huge air museum in the WWII blimp hangar...I treated myself to a half gallon of Tillomook ice cream and now I must pay the calorie counting price...Black and white cows make the best ice cream...

At the Jetty RV Park they rent crab traps and cook your crabs. Nice if you have your own kayaks and don't have to rent a boat....but the tides rip in and out....

Mary Lou, poor girl, she pleaded and she begged him not to leave
She said "I've got a feeling if you ride tonight I'll grieve"
But her tears were she'd in vain and her every word was lost
In the rumble of an engine and the smoke from his exhaust

Then he took off like the Devil and there was fire in his eyes! He
Said "I'll go a thousand miles before the sun can rise." But he hit a screamin' diesel
That was California-bound" And when they cleared the wreckage, all
They found

Was his black denim trousers and motorcycle boots
And a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back
But they couldn't find the 'cicle that took off like a gun
And they never found the terror of High way 1 oh 1

Chainsaw Art on the Siletz River

Coyote Rock RV Resort


We're on the coast of Oregon, but about two miles inland on the banks of the Siletz River. The last time we were here we met two retired policemen from Tampa. They were spending their pensions collecting highly discounted Iraqi dinars. I wonder how that worked out for them?

Mrs. Phred kicks back and watches the Siletz River flow in front of her living room picture window. When you can rent a view like this for $20 a night (including cable TV, garbage collection, lawn maintenance, water, electricity and security), why buy?

I'm doing another fishing trip out of Depoe Bay in the morning.

We found a tennis court near the ocean in nearby Lincoln City.

Cruising the country road along the Siletz, we ran into this statue. The owner bought it from the winner of last year's chainsaw art festival in Reedsport. He has it chained down although it weighs 800 pounds. If you stole something like this, you couldn't put it in your front yard. 

In the afternoon, we spotted a whale feeding offshore. I know....it's not a great picture. I have better in my archive....

Sometimes I Get a Great Notion

Siletz River, Oregon

We've moved 120 miles North on the Oregon coast.

This spot is one of our favorites. The Siletz River is full of steel head trout, sturgeon and king salmon at this time of the year.

Just down the road is Depoe Bay. Last year I caught bottom fish and watched a whale rooting around for shrimp just outside the harbor.

Sometimes I live in the country

Sometimes I live in the town

Sometimes I get a great notion

To jump into the river an’ drown

-Leadbelly

The "Sometimes a Great Notion" novel by Ken Kesey came out in 1964. The movie was filmed here on the Siletz River. Henry Fonda starred as the patriarch of an Oregon logging family.

The following about Kesey can be found on Wiki:

At Stanford in 1959, Kesey volunteered to take part in a CIA-financed study named Project MKULTRA at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital where he worked as a night aide with Brian Samuels who later became his partner in a trip around California in a Volkswagen.[8] The project studied the effects of psychoactive drugs, particularly LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, AMT, and DMT on people.[4] Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these drugs, both during the Project MKULTRA study and in the years of private experimentation that followed. Kesey's role as a medical guinea pig, as well as his stint working at a state veterans' hospital, inspired him to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1962. The success of this book, as well as the sale of his residence at Stanford, allowed him to move to La Honda, California, in the mountains south of San Francisco. He frequently entertained friends and many others with parties he called "Acid Tests" involving music (such as Kesey's favorite band, The Warlocks, later known as the Grateful Dead), black lights, fluorescent paint, strobes and other "psychedelic" effects, and, of course, LSD. These parties were noted in some of Allen Ginsberg's poems and are also described in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, as well as Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs by Hunter S. Thompson and Freewheelin Frank, Secretary of the Hell's Angels by Frank Reynolds.

Kesey's most famous book is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". However his second novel, "Sometimes a Great Notion" is considered by many critics to be one of the great American novels of the 20th century.

We were living in San Francisco when Kesey faked his own death:

Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana in 1965. In an attempt to mislead police, he faked suicide by having friends leave his truck on a cliffside road near Eureka, along with an elaborate suicide note, written by the Pranksters. Kesey fled to Mexico in the back of a friend's car. When he returned to the United States eight months later, Kesey was arrested and sent to the San Mateo County jail in Redwood City, California,

In 1997 Kesey participated in a rock concert in which he repeatedly asked, "where have all the bozos gone?" You don't want to overdo the LSD.

Depoe Bay, Oregon

Depoe Bay, Oregon

Coyote Rock RV Park

The fishing trip from Depoe Bay was outstanding. I caught a 24 inch ling cod, two "cabs" and five black rockfish. The RV freezer is about full of fish right now, including the sockeye salmon from last week.

This is a picture of the Siletz River, where we are camped tonight. Tomorrow we'll run north about 50 miles to Tillamook.


I'm making Tuscan Cabs tonight. Cabs are weird looking fish with a big flared collar. Each one makes four meals for two people. They are reputed to be excellent. I usually use this recipe on halibut.

TUSCAN CABS
2 sheets (12 x 18" each) Reynolds Wrap® heavy-duty aluminum foil
1 can (15 oz. each) Great Northern or cannellini beans, rinsed & drained
1 medium tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp. prepared pesto, divided
2 (4 to 6 oz. each) CAB steaks
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. lemon pepper
1 lemon slices
Preheat oven to 450°F and combine beans, tomatoes, and 1 tablespoons pesto; mix well. Center 1/2 of bean mixture on each foil sheet. Top with one Alaska Halibut steak; drizzle with lemon juice. Sprinkle CABs with lemon pepper. Top with lemon slices. Bring up sides of foil and double fold. Double fold ends to form four packets, leaving room for heat circulation inside packets. Bake 16 to 20 minutes on a cookie sheet in oven. Serve with remaining pesto. Makes 2 servings

This is the bridge coming into Depoe Bay. The town claims it's the world's smallest harbor. I think we saw a much smaller one in Alaska, but whatever floats their boats.
The harbor seals hang out by the fish cleaning place. They slap their flippers in the water, hoping for scraps of fish.

Just outside the mouth of the harbor we saw a whale about thirty feet from the boat. I didn't have my camera, so take my word for it. They like to browse close to shore and eat the shrimp in the kelp beds. This one came up about five times to spout and catch its breath.

Yesterday, Mrs. Phred and I had some clam chowder in Depoe Bay and drove north past Lincoln City. Today the fog cleared and the blue sky came out. A lovely day to be out on the water.

Depoe Bay is fairly touristy in the summer, but nothing like Key West or Martha's Vineyard. They do give the suckers an even break here with good clam chowder, whale watching and great fishing trips.