Northwest Passages IV
Oregon Rave
With the cool morning mountain air of Meridian, Idaho beginning to warm, we said our good-byes to our kin, scraped yesterday's bug off the windshield and shouted Westward, Ho! and we were back on the road.
The Oregon of my youth was known then as the "Pacific Wonderland" - at least that's what their license plates advertised. And without a doubt, the Oregon coast with is picturesque sea stacks, lush forests interwoven with sea mist hanging on the very precipices of handsome sea cliffs, Oregon is a beautiful place. A Pacific Wonderland to coin a phrase. Eastern Oregon, with its spacious skies broken on occasion by lofty mountain ranges and the sight is nothing short of grandeur when one approaches the Cascade Mountains from the east and catches first glimpse of one of the towering, broken-peaked Cascadian volcanoes stretching so far above the horizon it is difficult at first to know whether one is looking at clouds or really a snow capped peak seemingly rooted in the sky. A beautiful state.
Oregon Rant
Too bad the place is run by backward thinking bubble-britches lawmakers.
It is illegal in Oregon to fill up you own fuel tank!
You must have someone else do it for you - no choice in the matter. I had one gas station attendant in Bend, OR explain to me the dire "environmental consequences" of having the public handle a gas pump nozzle. "Yeah", I thinking as I listen to him, "Oregon sure wants to avoid becoming an unmitigated environmental toxic wasteland, such as one finds just across the border in such such nasty places like Washington, Idaho and Montana - where they do have self serve gasoline and suffer the 'environmental consequences'. Actually, the threat from self-serve gas stations is obvious to no one but those warped teenie-greenie minds of Oregon citizens that have been duped by reactionary scare tactics. I know crap when I smell it, and I know crap when I hear it. Spare the green morality lesson and just put the gasoline into my tank. Talk about the "oil companies" gouging the paying public - what about this Oregon law? The guy filling up my gas tank should be wearing a mask over his face when he asks for my wallet before filling up my tank with nearly $4 per gallon gasoline. Leave it to the "progressives" to mandate that everyone in 2011 play make-believe and live like it is 1966 with you friendly full service filling station on every corner (only no one offered to check my oil, washer fluid or tire pressure). By outlawing even the choice of convenience and lower cost, Oregon piles on regressive costs to the public in real dollars, time and convenience. Well, just tell everyone this law is "green" (whatever that really means) and then nobody can question your motives. Mendacity or a scam - or really the later covering the former?
I happened to have a brief conversation with a co-ed attending the University of Oregon, who told me that by Oregon outlawing pumping your own gasoline, it was "creating jobs". I countered with "How is that? Oregon has the second highest unemployment rate of any of the 50 states. So how is this law working for you?" Several days afterwards, (I should have gassed up in Washington) I pulled into a Flying J outside Umatilla, OR on I-82. There were 6 fueling islands at the Flying J Fuel Stop, a total of 12 gasoline pumps here, and every damn one of them had at least 2 cars waiting for gasoline. I pulled behind one car at pump #12 and waited... and waited and looked around and saw no attendant serving the customers. I walked up to the woman in the driver's seat in the car in front of me and asked her if she was expecting somebody to fill her tank, because I sure didn't see anything of the sort happening. She indignantly replied, "Yes. It is a $500 fine for pumping you own gas here!" About that time 2 guys with their names on there shirts walked around the corner of a side building, pulled the cigarette butts from their lips, tossed them onto the pavement, crushed 'em out, and then started taking peoples cash and credit cards as they stuck the nozzles into each vehicle. One dude, got to pump #7, before he turned around and went back to light up a second smoke on the side of the building. The more industrious dude, made it all they way to pump #12, took the woman's bills and started working back toward the other end of the traffic jam. Meanwhile, once the driver in front of me handed over her money, she and her traveling companion poured their ample behinds out of the fronts seats, their broods piled out of the car after them as they all waddled into McDonald's to get a face full of Happy Meals. Leaving her car unattended and parked in front of me. Of course her tank was quickly topped off, but she had no intention of returning to her parked car at pump 12 until the last french fry was finished. I would have moved to another spot, but by now there were 3 or 4 cars stacked up at every one of the pumps, thanks in large part to the lack of work ethic I had observed in the two smoking break service station dudes under this misguided "make jobs" government program. I told Grant, if you want lunch, go ahead and get it here, it looks like I'll be waiting around for awhile while I bear witness to Oregon's wonderful job-creating machine in action [or should that more properly be "inaction"?]
My suggestion: If Oregon truly wants to create jobs by legislating that others must do for you what you could quickly and easily do for yourself; Oregon should remove all self-dispensing toilet paper from public restrooms found in gas stations, restaurants and shopping venues, and employ state workers to be stationed inside each stall where they will politely ask all who use these facilities to bend over while the state employee wipes you with corn cobs recycled from the over-subsidized "green" ethanol industry. There would be a lot more jobs, they could be classified as green collar jobs and this way they could kiss my arse and thank me for providing employment for them. If you even so much as try and wipe yourself, you get a spanking and a $500 fine.
After 35 minutes waiting to get fueled up, we were back on the Interstate where the Oregon speed limit is 55 MPH. The same highway in Idaho the limit is 70 MPH - just a comparison of ideology vs efficiency. Just before crossing into Idaho I see the Oregon patrol pointing their radar guns at westbound motorist just a mile or two beyond the "Welcome to Oregon" sign. Some welcome - yes we have goofy rules here and we enforce them!
As we entered Idaho, we said good bye to the "Pacific Wonderland" - a state motto even more apt than years ago, as I just gotta wonder what they thinking or wonder what they are smoking in this wonderland.
Truly a Pacific Wonderland on so many levels.
Oregon Rave
With the cool morning mountain air of Meridian, Idaho beginning to warm, we said our good-byes to our kin, scraped yesterday's bug off the windshield and shouted Westward, Ho! and we were back on the road.
The Oregon of my youth was known then as the "Pacific Wonderland" - at least that's what their license plates advertised. And without a doubt, the Oregon coast with is picturesque sea stacks, lush forests interwoven with sea mist hanging on the very precipices of handsome sea cliffs, Oregon is a beautiful place. A Pacific Wonderland to coin a phrase. Eastern Oregon, with its spacious skies broken on occasion by lofty mountain ranges and the sight is nothing short of grandeur when one approaches the Cascade Mountains from the east and catches first glimpse of one of the towering, broken-peaked Cascadian volcanoes stretching so far above the horizon it is difficult at first to know whether one is looking at clouds or really a snow capped peak seemingly rooted in the sky. A beautiful state.
Oregon Rant
Too bad the place is run by backward thinking bubble-britches lawmakers.
It is illegal in Oregon to fill up you own fuel tank!
You must have someone else do it for you - no choice in the matter. I had one gas station attendant in Bend, OR explain to me the dire "environmental consequences" of having the public handle a gas pump nozzle. "Yeah", I thinking as I listen to him, "Oregon sure wants to avoid becoming an unmitigated environmental toxic wasteland, such as one finds just across the border in such such nasty places like Washington, Idaho and Montana - where they do have self serve gasoline and suffer the 'environmental consequences'. Actually, the threat from self-serve gas stations is obvious to no one but those warped teenie-greenie minds of Oregon citizens that have been duped by reactionary scare tactics. I know crap when I smell it, and I know crap when I hear it. Spare the green morality lesson and just put the gasoline into my tank. Talk about the "oil companies" gouging the paying public - what about this Oregon law? The guy filling up my gas tank should be wearing a mask over his face when he asks for my wallet before filling up my tank with nearly $4 per gallon gasoline. Leave it to the "progressives" to mandate that everyone in 2011 play make-believe and live like it is 1966 with you friendly full service filling station on every corner (only no one offered to check my oil, washer fluid or tire pressure). By outlawing even the choice of convenience and lower cost, Oregon piles on regressive costs to the public in real dollars, time and convenience. Well, just tell everyone this law is "green" (whatever that really means) and then nobody can question your motives. Mendacity or a scam - or really the later covering the former?
I happened to have a brief conversation with a co-ed attending the University of Oregon, who told me that by Oregon outlawing pumping your own gasoline, it was "creating jobs". I countered with "How is that? Oregon has the second highest unemployment rate of any of the 50 states. So how is this law working for you?" Several days afterwards, (I should have gassed up in Washington) I pulled into a Flying J outside Umatilla, OR on I-82. There were 6 fueling islands at the Flying J Fuel Stop, a total of 12 gasoline pumps here, and every damn one of them had at least 2 cars waiting for gasoline. I pulled behind one car at pump #12 and waited... and waited and looked around and saw no attendant serving the customers. I walked up to the woman in the driver's seat in the car in front of me and asked her if she was expecting somebody to fill her tank, because I sure didn't see anything of the sort happening. She indignantly replied, "Yes. It is a $500 fine for pumping you own gas here!" About that time 2 guys with their names on there shirts walked around the corner of a side building, pulled the cigarette butts from their lips, tossed them onto the pavement, crushed 'em out, and then started taking peoples cash and credit cards as they stuck the nozzles into each vehicle. One dude, got to pump #7, before he turned around and went back to light up a second smoke on the side of the building. The more industrious dude, made it all they way to pump #12, took the woman's bills and started working back toward the other end of the traffic jam. Meanwhile, once the driver in front of me handed over her money, she and her traveling companion poured their ample behinds out of the fronts seats, their broods piled out of the car after them as they all waddled into McDonald's to get a face full of Happy Meals. Leaving her car unattended and parked in front of me. Of course her tank was quickly topped off, but she had no intention of returning to her parked car at pump 12 until the last french fry was finished. I would have moved to another spot, but by now there were 3 or 4 cars stacked up at every one of the pumps, thanks in large part to the lack of work ethic I had observed in the two smoking break service station dudes under this misguided "make jobs" government program. I told Grant, if you want lunch, go ahead and get it here, it looks like I'll be waiting around for awhile while I bear witness to Oregon's wonderful job-creating machine in action [or should that more properly be "inaction"?]
My suggestion: If Oregon truly wants to create jobs by legislating that others must do for you what you could quickly and easily do for yourself; Oregon should remove all self-dispensing toilet paper from public restrooms found in gas stations, restaurants and shopping venues, and employ state workers to be stationed inside each stall where they will politely ask all who use these facilities to bend over while the state employee wipes you with corn cobs recycled from the over-subsidized "green" ethanol industry. There would be a lot more jobs, they could be classified as green collar jobs and this way they could kiss my arse and thank me for providing employment for them. If you even so much as try and wipe yourself, you get a spanking and a $500 fine.
After 35 minutes waiting to get fueled up, we were back on the Interstate where the Oregon speed limit is 55 MPH. The same highway in Idaho the limit is 70 MPH - just a comparison of ideology vs efficiency. Just before crossing into Idaho I see the Oregon patrol pointing their radar guns at westbound motorist just a mile or two beyond the "Welcome to Oregon" sign. Some welcome - yes we have goofy rules here and we enforce them!
As we entered Idaho, we said good bye to the "Pacific Wonderland" - a state motto even more apt than years ago, as I just gotta wonder what they thinking or wonder what they are smoking in this wonderland.
Truly a Pacific Wonderland on so many levels.
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