Two disheartening incidents from a weekend drive in the country:
Every small town has a yearly festival, some sort of Pioneer Days or Round-up or Thrashing Bee. We expected the Vernonia Salmon Festival to include lots of Salmon tasting, casting contests, and perhaps a raffle. But, after speaking with the OSU extension booth about bokashi, and to the FWS woman about salmon habitat rehabilitation, all there was left to do after the silver jewelry hawkers and corndog stands was to crawl inside the giant chinook. We hung around for a bit by Rock Creek, to catch sight of them spawning, and in hopes of our expectations being acknowledged, if not met. When a girl of about 8 started throwing cans and plastic cups into the creek just upstream from where the spawning viewpoint was located, with the FWS display, we knew it was time for us to go. Which we did, right after chastising the little retard.
After fish and chips in Seaside we drove to Saddle Mountain, which I had been wanting to climb after seeing so many beautiful pictures of it. Ascending the trail people on their way down commented on the vistas from the top. It is a bit more strenuous than we had anticipated but made it to the top easily enough, just as the clouds rolled in to block any view. As we were catching our breath before clamboring back down, a chunky teenager came up to us, "Escuse me, I would like to ass you a quession. Do you think if they built a Taco Bell up here it would make any money?" Both of us paused for a moment, scanning his earnest face for something to tell us this wasn't really happening. Realizing he was serious, I walked on past him down from the peak as my friend launched into a deservedly belittling lecture about overhead costs to the fat little retard.
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