oregon, usa

From The Ventures (Walk Don't Run) and the Kingsmen (the garageband classic Louie Louie of '63, see clip) through Jimi Hendrix, the grunge bands (Nirvana, Mudhoiney, Pearl Jam etc) to the Posies, Sleater-Kinney and Modest Mouse, the Pacific Northwest has been a breeding ground for rock'n'roll. It's fitting that it should be the home the EMP...
> fromthevaults/3335/joe-boot-and-the-fabulous-winds-rock-and-roll-radio-1958/

Norbert shuts off the small outboard and pulls the propeller out of the brackish water. He loosens the weeds which have fouled it and tosses them away. We sit in the silent stillness of Lake Martin beneath cypress trees and Tupelo gums, some of which are 300 years old. They have their roots in soil more than a metre below the still surface....
> travelstories/268/breaux-bridge-louisiana-in-cajun-country/

Dusk was dropping into night when I saw her. She was on the corner of North Russell and Mississippi in an industrial area of Portland, Oregon. She looked old and slightly painted up when I spotted her near the underpass, but she was inviting with her stories of shanghai-ed sailors and musicians who had taken comfort in her company. So I...
> travelstories/523/portland-oregon-a-light-in-the-window/

To be honest, I can’t tell you whether you can get a decent cup of coffee in Vancouver, coffee doesn’t interest me much. What I can tell you however is that you won’t be short of a cup. On fashionable Robson St right outside my hotel was a Starbucks, and two blocks down on the corner of Thurlow a couple more faced...
> travelstories/1784/vancouver-canada-a-users-guide/

The Sir Douglas Quintet out of Texas didn't have too many hits in the 60s but they cracked one successful and catchy single as the decade drew to a close. The band sprung the biggest hit of their career with a paean to the small town of Mendocino 250 kilometres north of San Francisco. San Antonio-born band leader Doug Sahm had relocated to San...
> travelstories/299/mendocino-california-life-in-the-mellow-lane/

This is the place where words fail, where comparisons seem inadequate or, at best, only marginally helpful. This is where sheer scale overwhelms you, has you gasping. If this were a natural phenomenon you could demur to a higher authority, make reference to the hand of God raising it up from the earth, say something about being humbled in...
> travelstories/295/seattle-and-the-boeing-factory-2005-we-have-lift-off/

There's always some mild embarrassment when you don’t enjoy some place everyone expects you will. "Oh, you'll love Whistler," they all said. But I didn't. Admittedly I didn't see it at its snow-covered best and I’m sure this town just north of Vancouver is very pretty and vibrant in ski season. But I was there...
> travelstories/285/beyond-whistler-canada-and-the-road-goes-on-forever/

In 2005 smalltown Cameron in southwest Louisiana washed away by Hurricane Rita and I suppose battered to hell again by Hurricane Katrina. It seemed tragic and . . . Well, let me tell you my memory of Cameron, a place we stayed in for one very long night while driving the Gulf Coast before heading up to Breaux Bridge then on to New Orleans....
> travelstories/275/cameron-louisiana-the-stink-of-shrimp-and-petroleum/

Drive through America's southern states tuned to country music radio stations and you'll hear it; Letters from Home by John Michael Montgomery. It's real catchy, was still in the top 20 of the country charts after six months, and you can guess what it's about. But in case you miss the sentimental message the video is even more literal:...
> travelstories/270/austin-texas-2004-deep-in-the-arse-of-texas/

In a flat field outside the small town of McMinnville in northwest Oregon is a building so large that cars visibly slow on the highway so the occupants can take a look at it. Even in America -- the birthplace of bigness -- this enormous squat A-frame with its frontage of glass panels is an outstanding structure. And it houses one of the...
> travelstories/266/mcminnville-oregon-howard-hughes-spruce-goose-folly/