Recalling the Geiser Grand

Until last summer's road trip with my daughter, I'd never had occasion to stop in Baker City, let alone take time out for a leisurely lunch in a restored historic hotel once known as the finest between Salt Lake City and Seattle.

That place was the Geiser Grand Hotel, and it's where Simone and I made our first stop for a meal on the first day of our trip to Pittsburgh. So it was a pleasant surprise when I noticed that Saturday's Oregonian had a feature story on the Geiser, with a most unexpected angle: ghosts.

Turns out that the Geiser, built around 1889, was said to harbor spirits. And somehow, through a fluke of trans-oceanic curiosity, a Japanese television crew found themselves in Baker City last week, doing some advance work leading up to a live New Year's Eve broadcast back to the island nation.

Seems that about 10 years ago, a New York reporter who stayed at the Geiser wrote about her experiences in a supposedly haunted room and her sighting of an apparent ghost. The story got picked up in the Japanese edition of Newsweek, where members of the crew of a popular Asian TV show spotted it and, well, next thing you know, Fuji TV is sending its own cast and crew to the Northeast Oregon town to do its own story about the Geiser Grand. Their footage aired on a show called "Unbelievable" and it proved so popular that the network returned for a 10th anniversary show and then, yet again, last week.

It's been about six months since Simone and I sat down in the dining room of the high-ceilinged, elaborately decorated hotel to a lunch that included clam chowder and fancy, local mushrooms. Admittedly, menu prices were higher than we expected and, despite extensive restoration efforts, there were some ragged spots in the hotel. But we never even would have known about this piece of Gold Rush history had it not been for a recommendation from a fellow blogger who grew up in the area. So...thanks, Nike B.

Photograph by Motoya Nakamura, The Oregonian

Rockin' it in Cleveland

I've been to the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Hitsville USA (now the Motown Historical Museum) in Detroit, the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville -- and now I can say I've been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

During our recent road trip, Simone and I found ourselves far enough ahead of schedule to make a spur-of-the-moment side trip to Cleveland. Instead of bearing down and arriving late and tired in Pittsburgh last Saturday, we opted to leave the Ohio Turnpike and headed for the big city on the shores of Lake Erie. What a cool thing it turned out to be.

From our heavily discounted hotel room on Lakeside, the main drag downtown, we walked to the Rock and Roll Museum in 10 minutes and spent three hours there, leaving reluctantly at the 9 pm closing time. I could have easily spent twice as much time. Tickets were $22 each but even in that short time, I felt I got my money's worth.

For one thing, it's spacious and well organized. There was a special exhibit dedicated to all things Bruce Springsteen. But, really, the exhibits feature a little of everything -- handwritten compositions of hit songs, vintage posters and playbills, musicians' instruments, stage clothing, and plenty of interactive stations where you could use touch-screen technology to select audio samples by year, artist, genre.

At the risk of sounding like a starry-eyed groupie, I can say some of the cool items on display included: John Lennon's piano and grade school report card; Steven Tyler's scarf-draped microphone stand; Mick Jagger's outrageous stage outfits; Darryl “DMC” McDaniels' black eyeglass frames; Elvis Presley's high school ROTC certificate and one of his hideous Vegas-era outfits; and a collection of Stevie Nicks' concert dresses. Very classy.

What was striking about so many performers -- judging from their clothes -- is how small and trim they were (or are). Among them: Lionel Richie, Rick James and two sidemen from Santana -- percussionist Michael Carabello and bass player Dave Brown, both part of the band's searing performance at Woodstock.

For another thing, most of the featured music and artists speak to my generation. Sure, I was a little kid when the doo-wop sound was in vogue and I was born too early to appreciate many of the pioneering black artists like Robert Johnson and Howling Wolf. But I could totally relate to the exhibits that highlighted the artists and styles that characterized the British Invasion (The Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Animals...); Motown (The Temptations, Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Steve Wonder...); the San Francisco sound (Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Quicksilver Messenger Service...); and the L.A. club scene (The Byrds, Poco, The Eagles, Jackson Browne...).

Of course, there was more. The Seattle grunge and New York/London punk scenes and exhibits pointing out the similarities between black gospel music and country music ("the white man's blues").

The building itself, designed by architect I.M. Pei, is striking, and with 55,000 square feet of exhibit space, there's plenty of room for permanent and temporary exhibits. Obviously, the museum has had a huge economic impact for Cleveland, a distressed city that could use the help. If you get a chance to go, don't pass it up.

Mission accomplished

We did it! On time, in style, with lots of music, laughs, conversation -- and memories to sustain us for a long, long time.

I refer, of course, to the Portland-to-Pittsburgh excursion. Simone and I covered the 2,600 miles in six days and five nights and it went smoother than I could have imagined. We rolled into town just before noon Sunday; Simone attended an orientation for her summer class the following morning; and I flew home that afternoon/evening. I had hoped to blog at the end of each day but that didn't happen. So the question now is how to recap the experience. One long post? Or a series of short, albeit after-the-fact, entries?

I can't imagine cramming everything into a single post but neither do I want to string things out. So here goes with an overview:

Day One: Portland to Boise, Idaho.
Best experience: Pulling off I-84 at La Grande and Baker City, two eastern Oregon communities I'd never seen before, and cruising through their retro downtowns.
Worst: Seeing the Columbia River National Scenic Area recede in the rearview mirror.
Surprise: The Basque Block in downtown Boise, a concentration of restaurants and stores dedicated to preserving the Basque culture in Idaho.

Day Two: Boise to Rawlins, Wyoming.
Best: A dozen downtown murals highlighting the history of Rawlins, an authentic cowboy town that straddles the Continental Divide. Also, a general store in Buford (elevation 8,000 feet; population 1).
Worst: The dreary landscape in eastern Idaho. Nothing but scrub brush from just outside Boise to the Utah border.
Surprise: Thai food for dinner in Rawlins. Seriously. The freshest vegetables we'd get for the whole trip.

Day Three: Rawlins to York, Nebraska.
Best: The friendliness of people in places like Rawlins (a cop who told us the story of Big Nose George, a 19th century horse thief who was lynched by a local mob) and Ogalalla, Nebraska (a waitress at the Front Street Steakhouse & Crystal Palace Saloon, with its faux frontier facade).
Worst: The Days Inn in York. A musty room and an indoor swimming pool so small you could take only two freestyle strokes and you'd be at the other end. And a continental breakfast so meager there was a handwritten sign next to the bagels that said, "Sorry. No jelly."
Surprise: Greenery in eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska, a welcome change from the bone-dry browns and grays of western Wyoming.

Day Four: York to Ottawa, Illinois.
Best: Crossing the mighty Mississippi, dividing Iowa and Illinois. Preceded by a fabulous lunch, served family-style, in a German restaurant in the Amana Colonies near Iowa City.
Worst: The apparent inability of some merchants to spell. Examples: A drive-through espresso stand advertised a "Jamican Me Crazy" coffee drink while a restaurant referred to its "pina colodas."
Surprise: The volume of corn grown in the Midwest. I swear, a photo from outer space would show the state of Iowa blanketed in the stuff.

Day Five: Ottawa to Cleveland, Ohio.
Best: A great deal on priceline.com that enabled us to stay in a 3-star hotel near Lake Erie and walk three blocks to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (more on that in a separate post).
Worst: Toll roads and service plazas. From Illinois and Indiana to Ohio and Pennsylvania, you're paying for the privilege of driving on the freeway. All along the way, you've got these uninspiring plazas hawking fast food and tacky souvenirs instead of genuine roadside rest areas with picnic benches, shade trees and grass.
Surprise: Northern Indiana is so narrow that Simone powered through without me taking a turn at the wheel. Also, Indian food in Toledo. Tasty.

Day Six: Cleveland to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Best: Getting there, safe and sound.
Worst: Not having enough time to fully explore the city's museums and parks. (Ah, but that's a reason to return, possibly as soon as this coming fall.)
Surprise: Pittsburgh seems to have just as many trees as Portland and boasts far more bridges -- 446, according to Wikipedia -- compared to the 12 major bridges here.

Random thoughts:
-- I'm grateful that we didn't have any issues with Simone's car or close calls on the road.
-- While the Midwest has a certain charm, with its preponderence of small towns, I can't imagine living there full-time. The differences in climate, culture and terrain are too great.
-- We covered so much ground one day that we realized we'd had breakfast in Nebraska, lunch in Iowa and dinner in Illinois.

Photograph: Just off I-80, somewhere between Rock Springs and Rawlins, Wyoming.

Destination: Pittsburgh

The road trip has begun. We made it as far as Boise, and we couldn't be in a better place. Thanks to Priceline, I got us a cheap room at a DoubleTree on the river, with a massive outdoor swimming pool and hot tub. And thanks to Simone, we just had a cheap and tasty dinner at Bar Gernika, a corner tavern specializing in Basque food.

Simone went for the chorizo sandwich and croquetas and I wolfed down the lamb sandwich with -- what else? -- Idaho spuds. Delicious! And made even better by the pint of amber ale consumed at an outdoor table. Another diner volunteered to take our photo.

Quick observations: Boise has a lot of young adult bicyclists, with a lot of tats, so not much different from Portland. We both noticed that no one wears a helmet -- very unlike Portland.

Early this morning, we rendezvoused at the condo at 7 and hit the road around 7:45 after filling the gas tank. Stopped for lunch in Baker City and the Grand Geiser hotel, a place I'd never have known about had my cyberfriend, Nike B, not recommended it. It's a classic grand hotel, with a spacious dining room and pretty decent food.

We'll hit the road early tomorrow so we can do more driving in the cool morning, when we're both more alert. Mid to late afternoon driving make you feel lethargic.