Eugene, again

Back in Eugene after an eventful week in Bend and elsewhere.

Thursday spun with Bend's fire crew, Fyreflyte;
An appreciative audience, some sweet fire breathing by Michael and Ian, and a great musical line-up (Janes Addiction, Greek wedding-ish song, Squarepusher, etc.)

Then Friday, Kirsten and I go out for a night on the town.
An illustrious dine-n-ditch at Red Robin followed by clever drunken sneakery at Les Schwab ampitheather. On stage with Ben Harper, woo hoo, ok!
We could/would have stage dived in a brilliant display of our unmuzzle youth-addled freedom, but there were boxes of steak and fish left over in the backstage hospitality center, and we were still hungry.

So Jilli Vanilli came up saturday and we camped in the woods outside of Sisters. Next day we rolled on out the Terwilliger/Cougar hot springs, a place that I'd heard mention of at least three times a day since arriving in Bend. It turned out to be a pretty sweet spot, with $5 cover fee and a series of pools fed by a cave and about 15 naked hippies and their babies chillin out. We left a few hours later, elated. Rennan reccomended the place months ago, talking of the natural lithium in the water which makes everything Ok. Ok!

That night we drank deeply and snuck once more into the ampitheatre and onstage with The Flaming Lips. Holy shit! What a show. Mike was thrilled on a head-full and found his way to the costume room, where he suited up and joined the dancing aliens on stage across from the dancing santa's. They ended the set with a cover of War Pigs and everyone was apeshit. Jilli and I slept in an abandoned house across the street from Mike's place and scrammed Bend in the morning.
I was considering taking 97 north to Portland, but J wanted company to Eugene. So we went to Eugene and had a bite at the Pita Pit, found some good advice next door for camping. Out 58 past Oakridge to mile-marker 45. A quiet river-side hot spring with no fee and no naked hippies. We drank a bottle there until the sun set, with rain above and hot water below; a triple rainbow arched over the valley and it was good. Ahhh vacation.
We almost got away from the campsite this morning without paying, but the Hoodoo man rolled up as we were packing the tent and demanded full payment of $12 for the night. Hodie ho.

Back in Eugene, more Pita Pit (try the baba ganoush) and then we said our toodle-oo's.
Great to see ya J!

In the library now at the University of Oregon;
all the avid little students bustling about for a few more weeks of school.

Big campus, so-cal attire,
so-on.

Eugene is the friendliest town I've ever been in.
There is a statue of Ken Kesey reading a book on the plaza downtown.
Yesterday there was a kid there with his laptop and amps blasting out homemade Reason beats and no one seemed to mind. I mean, you could hear it blocks away and the security dude is just like "oohh, that one was cool." He also told me and Jilli that you know Kesey was dead when they made the sculpture because he is sitting down. It's a little thing among sculptors. And a statue of someone on a horse with the front legs bucking means he died in war. Ok, cool.
I'm going to live here someday...maybe even now! Find a cozy rooftop and chill back for the summer.

Downtown Bend on Wall street there is a statue of a broke hobo sitting on a bench looking into his empty wallet with a bird sitting on his head.

It's kinda sad,
ya know?