U.S.A., Oregon, Sherwood

Back to Mongolia next week.

U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

Talked to my brother on the phone this morning. He said there's been lots of wind in Dakota. He was driving the garbage truck back from the landfill the other day when suddenly he got passed... by a plastic bag. So of course he wasn't going to let that happen, so he stepped down on it, and this is a garbage truck mind you, so it was howling along. Couldn't catch that plastic bag. Realized that the plastic bag was somehow riding air off of the garbage truck, and it just floated along, out in front of the truck. Never did catch the bag. Took a tight corner and the bag sailed off across a field.

U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

Last week, discovered that Linus Pauling is buried in Lake Oswego. Don't usually make pilgrimages to dead people, but since he's right here in Lake Oswego and it is Linus Pauling, we drove over to the cemetery. Searched the whole cemetery--naturally--until we found him right next to where we parked the Jeep.

The website for the Oswego Pioneer Cemetery declines to mention that Pauling was awarded two Nobel Prizes, one in chemistry and one for peace advocacy. The website does list every single American war veteran buried in the cemetery.

Pauling advocated against nuclear arms and against war in any form at a time when other Americans knew heart and soul that their ultimate purpose on earth was to mass-murder Russians. The headline in Life magazine reporting his 1962 Nobel Peace Prize declaimed: "A Weird Insult from Norway."

looking down the hill from Pauling's marker

U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

I spent my final week in Ulaanbaatar undergoing a tax audit. It turned out all right in the end (the tax auditor seemed to go easier on me after I explained that I was not a businessman but a writer, and she asked me what my book was about and I answered "philosophy" and everyone in the room laughed), but I had to spend three days sitting in the tax department, running around the city gathering supporting documentation for events that took place three to four years ago, being suspected of hiding income "like a Mongolian," being threatened with many hundreds of dollars' worth of fines, and worrying that the situation would not be resolved before my outbound flight and that I would not be allowed to leave the country. I told this to my brother in North Dakota over the telephone, and he said, "That's why I like talking to you; you make my troubles seem so small: 'Gee, it was cold last night and I forgot to plug my truck in, so I had to crank it for ten minutes this morning before it would start. Oh well, at least I didn't have to go through a tax audit in Outer Mongolia.'"

U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

I'm in Portland. There's so much stuff here: trees, hills, people.

I am a plainsman.

U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

I'm going to Dakota tomorrow, on the Empire Builder, from Portland, through Spokane and all of Montana.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

The roaring in my ears is memories of riding that motorcycle through the world and between the lanes of California cars at 24 years old, of the shotgun rips to the deaths of North Dakota geese at 14 years old, my ears damaged, my memory.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

It never gets dark in Portland, you never see the stars. The city lights are always reflecting back from the clouds.

U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

The snow melted fairly quickly.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

It is really snowing.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

I like the sound of the ice sleet slashing against the window.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

I took a train yesterday through the Cascade Mountains. Trees and gorges and lakes, the bridges, the tunnels. In the long tunnels, the train fills with diesel smoke.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

Rented a
room in
Portland in a
pouring
rain.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

Radigan Neuhalfen

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

Portland, Oregon, Obamamerica.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

As I got settled in my seat, I remarked inwardly how nice it was, on 2008 November 5, to be on Alaska Air Flight 32 from Boston to Portland, Oregon, because it must be a plane filled with people who voted for Obama. Then the attendant made an announcement regarding the flight’s continuation, after an hour’s layover in Portland, on to Anchorage.