Wednesday 5th April – In the footsteps of an icon

Our rainy Safeways overnight spot

The rain still hasn’t ceased.  It was very noisy on the RV overnight so I was awake in the early hours.  Still, it gave me an opportunity to send Jo and Stu a message at 430am (as they were on the way to the airport in the UK) to wish them a pleasant flight.

The skull key used to line up the rocks in the film and Chester Copperpot's wallet!

Our day couldn’t begin until the film museum opened at 11am, but we weren’t the only ones parked outside before the doors opened.  The reviews had warned that the Oregon film museum was somewhat tiny and underwhelming, but it’s just one of those things we felt we had to do in any case.  It was a bizarre layout and not just because it used to be the county jail.  There were some iconic movie props randomly stowed away in labelled Tupperware boxes on shelves.  There was no order to anything. That and the extremely confined space in some of the corridors made it an interesting visit! But it is impressive that a 31-year old film is still so special to people of all ages. It didn’t take too long to see what we needed to, so we were on the road to Aberdeen by about 1130am.

Data's bike, outfit and multi-purpose utility belt

Shopping heaven - Star Wars and Kurt Cobain memorabilia

Aberdeen, our next stop, was looking suitably gloomy and rainy as we were there to mark the 23^rd anniversary of the death of Kurt Cobain, the Nirvana frontman.  The fact that we were there on April 5^th has been a bit of a fluke, although we were aware of this fact last night when we made the decision on our progress.  We were heading to the memorial park but as we drove through the centre of the town our attention was drawn by this shop specialising in Star Wars and Kurt Cobain memorabilia – how could we just drive by?! 

The shop-owners were extremely friendly and before we knew it we had other locations to visit in homage to Kurt – his Star of Fame on the sidewalk and his childhood home.  Literally round the corner from the house was Riverfront Park on the Wishkah river.

 

Kurt's childhood home

Kurt's guitar memorial in Riverfront Park

Bridge over the Wishkah river

This is a relevant location as it is said that Kurt used to sleep rough under this bridge after falling out with different factions of his family.  The lyrics for the Nirvana track ‘Something in the Way’ were written about this river and period of his life, and the words are now on a noticeboard here as part of the memorial.  There had been people there before us who had placed these daffodils on his memorial stone (right) and someone had also left a couple of cans of spray paint, actively encouraging us to be creative and follow in the footsteps of many before us.  It is a small but poignant memorial to the music icon.  Friends and family gathered here after his death when a third of his ashes were scattered into the Wishkah.  

 

Underneath the bridge... where Kurt is believed to have slept

It was gone 2pm by the time we had done all of this.  At this rate, Jo and Stu would be getting to our Seattle camp ground before we did! The Satnav estimated a two and a quarter hour journey to Bellevue, just East of the city.  We hit some heavy traffic but thankfully arrived at 515pm, checked in and had a mad tidying up/making their bed session.  Thankfully, we had more time than we thought, so when we received a message from the Baileys at about 630pm to say they had not only landed but were now clutching the keys to their hire car, dinner was already nearing completion.

We felt that we had to apologise for the torrential rain that they arrived in having left what is apparently a lovely bright spring week back in the UK!  It was great to see some familiar faces and welcome them onto the RV, but they were understandably exhausted from a long day, seeing as it was now about 3am their time!  The fajitas disappeared rapidly (I definitely didn’t make enough) and we discussed the weeks ahead.  We hadn’t realised that they are also huge Goonies fans so they made the decision to get a hire car for two days to make the trip down to Oregon and Astoria tomorrow – a long day’s driving, but something they really wanted to do. So, we gave them the benefit of our experiences from the last couple of days with the hot tips for film locations.  They were going to have to start early so we all headed to bed about 10pm for a busy day tomorrow.