“Everyone raise a glass! Woooooaaaahhh!” cried Lucas Steele, my typical alarm clock. It was 10am, and Erica and I needed to get out of the hostel and on our way. We’d stayed up til around 5a, unable to sleep til then even after our massively adventurous day. We packed our bags, and the check out at the hostel was pretty simple: just strip the bedding from the beds, and chuck them and our towels in a hamper at the bottom of the stairs, and then chucked our keys into a slot.

We made a pit stop at Subway, and then hit the open road. It was a blustery day with constant mist, fog, and rain. The ride was rather splendorous to Erica and I, who are both bored of the dry desert. Rolling hills hid under forests and clouds. I guess they were also mountains. Rolling mountains?

Halfway through our ride, I spotted a sign that says “Science Works!” and much like Fairy Tale Town, Erica didn’t believe me at first. But once again, I followed the signs and we ended up in a small community in Ashland. Buried past every level of schooling, on the East Main Street was a rather nondescript building that bore the logo of “Science Works!”

We passed a climb wall representing the different eras of time, and entered to find a cute, hands-on museum. We paid the $12 each for our adult selves to get into this museum aimed towards children (Liberace got in for free), and made a beeline for the bathroom. Inside the bathroom were two chairs and a table, inexplicably. We first stopped in the bubble room and attempted to trap Liberace in one.

There was a room restricted only to those under 3″ tall and I was sore about it. There was a huge walkway dedicated to optical illusions. Buried behind the room for those smaller than 3″ was the room of Dark Shadows or something like that. In it was a light harp, a shadow camera, and an electricity ball thingy.

The final stop was a game room, or rather, a room that shared science through a series of games that seemed almost carnival like. After ripping ourselves away from the gift shop, and passing through the solar-powered nursery, we continued our trek towards Portland.

There was so much rain. I knew Oregon was wet, but knowing didn’t quite prepare me for the experience of nonstop rain from bottom to top.

We stopped off in Eugene, and ate at a Thai place that advertised their boba. The boba was crunchy, the food saccharine. Erica and I are perhaps spoiled by the heavy asian population in southern California, because neither one of us were particularly impressed by what we ordered. I had to check their rating on Yelp and they have 4 stars. Maybe we just came on a bad night. We got a box for the plethora of leftovers and once again headed out.

The drive through the rest of Oregon wasn’t so bad. It was rainy at times, foggy at others, but it was much easier to see at night than during the day, for me at least. I’m just a night driver.

We arrived to our friend Gabriella’s house at 10:30pm. After moving ourselves in a bit, we tried to go out to a vegan bar for some late night eats, but their tire went flat. It was really chilly, and the tools in the car weren’t the best. Luckily, some Oregon police officers pulled over and checked on us. They had a tire iron and sped up the process threefold. They joked with us about it being shorts weather after I made a comment about us needing to endure the cold weather longer had we managed without them. It still seems so bizarre that it was 90°F on the day we left.

Anyway, we turned back to my friends’ house and ended the night with a Taco Bell run in my car, since everything else was too far or closed.