Three cheers for the new prez

The EastBurn threw open its doors extra early this morning for Obama. The bar/grill at 18th and E. Burnside in Portland fired up four flat screens and a projector, all tuned to coverage of the presidential inauguration, and served free warm croissants, $5 breakfast sandwiches and $2 pints for those in the mood.

Amidst neon signs, skeeball runs and buck hunting arcade games, dozens perched on sturdy stools to watch the 44th president's 18-minute inaugural address, all acutely aware of the historic significance of the moment and glad that a smart, articulate, principled man will be in charge of our country.

Energy was high. Applause was frequent. When Obama  finished, someone in the front of the room let out a "Hip-Hip..."

Everyone else responded with an exuberant "HOOORAY!"

Elsewhere in Portland, this was happening.

Foiled by ice in the Columbia River Gorge

I would have loved the waterfalls. At least that's what my sister Laura told me as we turned around less than a mile into our hike on the Eagle Creek Trail in the Columbia River Gorge, 40 miles east of Portland. After crossing several patches of black ice over a 60-foot drop into a rushing river — and listening to a string of turned-around hikers describe the trail ahead — we joined the parade of bundled up people and sweatered dogs heading back to the parking lot.

Laura on a vigorous hike

Good thing, too. On the descent, my right foot slipped on a patch of ice, sending me hurling toward the ground. Rather than busting, though, I caught myself in the deepest lunge I've ever done. My left knee hovered a mere centimeter from the ice for a few seconds before I pulled myself up and recovered my composure.

"Not the Eagle Creek Trail you're used to, is it?" asked a member of the Forest Service crew working on the trail, passing us by with a chainsaw balanced over his shoulder.

Under less-icy circumstances, it would have been a great hike:  The Eagle Creek Trail climbs 13 miles to Wahtum Lake along the wall of the gorge, passing through forests of moss- and fern-covered conifers and by a number of waterfalls, including Punchbowl Falls (15 feet high, two miles from the trailhead) and Tunnel Falls (100 feet high, six miles in). We'll definitely go back  when it's warmer.

On the way home, Laura and I stopped at Multnomah Falls, a 620-foot waterfall along the side of Interstate 84 — the second-highest year-round falls in the United States and one of 77 falls on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge.

The scene wasn't much better. We hiked a quarter mile up a paved path to take in the view from the arched bridge beneath the falls, and upon arrival, found a chaos of people sliding around the icy structure, holding onto fence posts, trash cans, anything that would keep their legs under them (the highway signs are true, bridges DO ice first). I clobbered a 12-year-old while trying to make my way past her along a fence. People clung helpless to the handrails as they tried to secure their footing. Grown men bowled over their children. Laura caught the tiny woman who came flying at her.

Fortunately, everyone present thought the situation was hilarious. And the falls was spectacular as well.

Candy Ass Crosses America: A Photo Essay

Laura and I road tripped across the country with a fish named Candy Ass made of shards of metal and rusty nails. The sharp-edged sea creature is the work of Greensboro artist Frank Russell, a new acquisition of mine that will hang in my room once I get one. Laura and I decided to document the fish's journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

Greensboro, North Carolina

All packed up, Candy Ass warms by the fire before his cross-country road trip to Portland.

Mississippi River, Tennessee

Candy Ass gazes over the slow-moving Mississippi, loving the fact that it's pouring rain.

Memphis, Tennessee

At 7 a.m. the morning after, Candy Ass is still on Beale Street.

The Plains, Oklahoma

Candy Ass is home, home on the range — but not feeling quite at home.

Amarillo, Texas

Candy Ass poses with a giant steer after completing the Big Texan Steak Ranch's 72-ounce challenge: eating a 72-ounce steak in less than an hour.

The Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico

Running on empty, Candy Ass curses the fact that this gas station's closed in the middle of the snowy New Mexican desert.

The Desert, Arizona

Candy Ass looks over the dry Arizonan desert and dreams of the mighty Mississippi.

More Desert, Arizona

Three fish out of water in the Arizonan desert.

San Francisco, California

After taking a much-craved dip in the San Francisco Bay, Candy Ass admires the Golden Gate Bridge.

Humboldt County, California

Candy Ass takes in the immensity of the redwood trees.

Laura has learned to handle her sharp-edged travel companion with care.

Candy Ass and Christina frolic through the redwoods.

Outside of Trinidad, Northern California

Candy Ass gets a taste of the Pacific Ocean and wonders what the schools are like on the west coast.

Portland, Oregon

Candy Ass arrives in Portland intact, a bit wiser and more worldly for the journey, and looks forward to settling into his new home.

And now, for few words on the Candy Ass' creator:

Frank Russell does not get upset when people leave broken appliances and scrap metal at the end of his driveway. In fact, he’s grateful. The Greensboro artist hammers discarded items he finds around town into sculptures of gape-mouthed sea creatures. At his hand, meatloaf trays become snouts, rubber hoses become tentacles and tin cans become dorsal fins. Piles of trash become fish, seahorses, turtles, crabs and stingrays.

In addition to creating a body of sea creatures that has gained a worldwide following, Russell has recycled nine tons of material since he started making the sculptures in 1999. He is central to the development of the art scene in downtown Greensboro.

To see more of his work, visit Artmongerz gallery on Elm Street in Greensboro or www.theartmaker.com.

Everything's bigger in Texas

The waitresses at The Big Texan Steak Ranch in the panhandle city of Amarillo wear sheriff's badges and leather vests and let loose hearty howdies when you walk in the door. And, they offer a challenge many can't refuse: the 72-ounce steak. Patrons who eat this $250-value in an hour or less get it for free. (If they don't finish or cheat by standing up from the table or getting help from others, they pay a discounted price of $72.) Let me, for one second, emphasize the enormity of this task: It's 4.5 pounds of meat, and it covers an entire dinner plate three inches deep.

The restaurant is painted smiley-face yellow and lit up as bright as a car dealership parking lot.

While Laura and I ate mac and cheese and coleslaw in The Big Texan (NOT cool, I know), a large man wearing a baseball cap took on the challenge. He sat in the designated spot, under a spotlight on the stage in the center of the dining room. As he cut, chewed and swallowed with the calm confidence of a man who knows he is capable, a red digital clock behind him counted down the time that remained. (We left before the time ran out, so unfortunately, don't know the outcome.)

According to the hostess, one in 10 participants succeed at the 72-ounce challenge, which has amounted to about 9,000 since the challenge started in 1960. About four women try each year; usually two succeed.

In addition:

* A 69-year-old grandmother is the oldest to have completed the challenge.

* An 11-year-old boy is the youngest contestant to have finished.

* A 20-something named Joey Chestnut currently holds the record, at eight minutes and 52 seconds (see it on YouTube).

* A 500-pound Bengal tiger from Florida completed the challenge in only 90 seconds, though he did it in front of the building and not on the stage.

Laura and I stayed at the old-west-themed motel adjoining the restaurant. We found the rooms worn but clean and full of character.

The bedspreads were patterned like cow skin, a wall-sized cowboy mural hung over the dresser and swinging saloon-style doors led to the bathroom.

In all, we found the Big Texan over-the-top, but much more interesting than the Howard Johnson.

Off to Oregon

I have packed up the back of my Subaru Forester, and tomorrow morning early, my sister Laura and I will set off from Greensboro, North Carolina driving west on I-40. We will probably be listening to the She & Him album we can't get enough of, or immersed in the teenage vampire angst of the book Twilight, which we're not afraid to admit we downloaded from iTunes. A few days later, once we hit Bakersfield, Callifornia, we'll turn right and head up the coast. Our final destination is Portland, Oregon, where we've both decided to settle for the next little bit; Laura, to study ceramics at the Oregon College of Art and Craft; me, to write-write-write.

There are tons of unknowns — where I'll live, and how — but I am excited about all the possibilities in this venture. Plus, I know I'll enjoy living in a place where excellent trail heads, cups of coffee and microbrews are just a bike ride away.

Oh! And in other news, Laura built me a new Web site, which you can find at www.christinacooke.net. Check it out!

Year in Pictures 2008

In the tradition of my friend at The Daily Bacon, I'm posting a year in photos to remember and celebrate 2008. For me, the year started in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park, where I lived for six months starting in Oct. 2007. It took me through Argentina, Boliva, Peru and Ecuador with my sister and then back to my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina in time for fall. The year ended in kittens and a Christmas tree (and, incidentally, kittens IN a Christmas tree). JANUARY

Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

I went outside early one morning and caught the sky on fire.

FEBRUARY

Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

Swarms of mosquitoes drove us into pants and raincoats as soon as my two friends and I descended to the campsite by Lake Dickson on the second night of an eight-day trek. The bloodthirsty bastards swarmed our faces and bit us through our clothing, though we wore our hoods and zipped our jackets to our chins. Then they held us hostage in our tents, buzzing incessantly at the door waiting, just waiting, for a crack in the zipper.

Aside from the insidious insects, however, the campsite was beautiful. It was located on a peninsula between Lake Dickson and the beginning of the Paine River:

MARCH

Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

Chapa, who works in the park as a hiking and kayaking guide, often played soulful folkloric music for us that he composed himself. He played for the horses sometimes too.

APRIL

Buenos Aires, Argentina

I am capable of fitting inside a large duffel bag.

MAY

Copacabana, Bolivia

I row, row, rowed a boat on Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake, on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It took a while to master the shortest distance between two points.

JUNE

Machu Picchu, Peru

The llama figurines my sister Laura and I bought at the Witch Market in La Paz met their real-life counterparts at Machu Picchu. The real-life counterparts were unimpressed.

JULY

Ecuador

Strolling the sidewalk in Ecuador during a bus trip layover, Laura and I glanced skyward and saw this dog staring down at us with crazy eyes. We were sure he was going to jump off the roof and onto our jugulars. Lucky for us, he stayed where he was.

AUGUST

Sylva, North Carolina

The Spring Street Cafe serves up the best plate of shrimp and grits you'll ever have (they're topped with sun dried tomatoes, asparagus, goat cheese, thyme and cayenne). As usual, we stopped in after a long day of paddling the nearby Nantahala and Tuckaseegee rivers.

SEPTEMBER

Charlotte, North Carolina

The swimming leg of the SheRox Triathlon held on an old plantation near Charlotte felt great. The biking leg was invigorating as well. During the run, however, I wanted to die.

OCTOBER

Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee

As the sun dropped through the sky and behind the Smoky Mountains, casting brilliant yellows, reds and oranges over everything, we watched from a lookout rock on top of Mount LeConte.

NOVEMBER

Denver, Colorado

I ascended St. Mary's ice field about 45 minutes from Denver with my friend Andrew and his dog during a trip to Colorado.

DECEMBER

Greensboro, North Carolina

We got kitties for Christmas. The kitties got boxes.

Main Street Chattanooga, revamped

Walk down the sidewalk of East Main Street in Chattanooga, and you’ll see dilapidated, falling apart, crumbling-right-before-your-eyes buildings next to freshly-renovated places open for business. You'll see graffitied walls next to iron sidewalk sculptures, brick streetscaping next to weeds in the cracks on the curb.

The shell of a brick building, no roof on the top, glass in the windows... or doors, for that matter.

Having recently spent millions building parks and paths along the Tennessee River that runs through downtown, the city has turned its attention to revitalizing a four-block stretch further inland. The idea is to move restaurants, businesses, galleries and art studios into the once gritty part of town, and to encourage people to live there.

Even as I strolled down the street during my visit to Chattanooga last week, change was happening: jackhammers pounded, construction workers in hard hats yelled conversations at one another, signs proclaimed “Coming Soon” and “Will Build to Suit.”

The mural painted on the side of Madia's Healing Arts studio

Private foundations have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into the project, and it seems to be working. The Bluegrass Grill was packed with lunch goers eating Greek salads or corned beef and Swiss cheese sandwiches, Madia’s Healing Arts had a full schedule of yoga classes and spa treatments available and people were tapping away at their computers in the office of CreateHere, an organization that supports the economic and cultural development of the city.

I stopped into Niedlov’s Breadworks, an organic, artisan bakery in a refurbished building at 215 E. Main, where the motto is "We love to knead. We knead to love." The ambiance was simple and nice — wooden tables, walls of exposed brick and pumpkin-colored plaster, a barn-like wooden ceiling — and the baked goods were delish. I had a cinnamon roll made with Indonesian course-ground cinnamon. I could taste the difference. OK, not really, but it was light, fluffy and melt-in-your-mouth.

My breakfast

With all the changes taking place on Main Street, I can guarantee a year from now, it will be a completely different — and a really cool — place to be.

Here are a few other pictures of Chattanooga. Sorry, I can't resist:

The Walnut Street walking bridge across the Tennessee River, which connects the shops and parks on the North Shore with the arts district downtown

The Tennessee Aquarium as seen from the opposite side of the river

The really-old, sort-of-old and new wings of the Hunter American  Art Museum, taken from the Walnut Street Bridge

The Hunter Museum and the Holmberg glass pedestrian bridge. (I hear they put that metal strip down the middle of the bridge so people on the road below can't look up women's skirts.)

A glass and iron sculpture around a balcony in the Bluff View Arts District

Broad Street, from the Tennessee Aquarium

A bench and trash can in front of a grassy hill in Renaissance Park

My sister Laura on the stadium-seating steps at Ross' Landing, in front of the aquarium. (This is right before she broke out in a dance routine to the Britney Spears' "Womanizer.")

Public Enemy No. 1: Lake Michigan

Nobody is safe.

When in Boulder

The Flatirons, by Boulder Artist Phil Lewis

Almost every inch of floor space was covered by yoga mats in the Om Time studio in Boulder, Colorado. As we class members moved from pose to pose, our heads mere inches from each other’s asses, we tried to ignore what might have been, under other circumstances, a very uncomfortable situation.

My sister and I adopted the “When in Boulder” mentality during our stay in Colorado last week. We ate organic vegetables, walked to breakfast, hiked every afternoon, and went to a yoga class that made us sweat so profusely onto our mats that our hands and feet slipped out from under us as we tried to hold the Downward Facing Dog.

The 100,000-person city of Boulder, Colorado sits 30 miles northwest of Denver, right up against the front range of the Rocky Mountains. A hundred and twenty miles of trails extend from the edges of the city, most of which you can reach by stepping off your doorstep and walking a couple blocks.

Boulder is all about green and healthy living, outdoor adventure — and Patagonia's latest Retro-X Jacket (a cult classic with a feminine cut!) or whatever other trendy piece of outdoor gear is new to the market. It's residents all seem outdoorsy, fit and well-dressed. The art and music scene is strong and the bookstores, clothing shops, art galleries and restaurants along the brick walk-only section of Pearl Street gives the downtown a quaint feel.

One drawback: For the privilege of the close proximity to the outdoors, residents end up paying $9 for run-of-the-mill deli sandwiches.

The Breadworks bakery on Broadway. Producers of tasty baked goods and so-so coffee.

Several afternoons, we ascended Ninth Street to Chautauqua Park, where we followed the trails at the base of the Flatirons, the five huge slabs of sedimentary stone that overlook the city (see the super-cool drawing by artist Phil Lewis above for an idea of how they look). The trails, which traverse forests of ponderosa and lodgepole pines, offer panoramic views of the city once you get high enough; especially striking are the red roofs on the buildings on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus. You can even make out Denver if you squint into the distance across the flatness to the south.

Me hiking, eyes closed, with my sister Laura (right). And yes, I am wearing a fanny pack.

One quick note: Be careful not to step on the prairie dogs that scamper around — and sometimes across — the trails north of town. Their camouflage works dangerously well.

Prairie dog territory

And, one more, pretty:

Magnolia Moonrise by Phil Lewis

Ocracoke Island, 300 years later

Lighted coals smoking in his beard, the pirate Blackbeard terrorized the Atlantic seaboard for years, stealing merchant ship cargo and murdering all who challenged him. The savage pirate met his demise near Ocracoke Island, the southernmost of North Carolina’s Outer Banks in November 1718 at the hands of British Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard. According to legend, when Maynard beheaded the pirate and threw his body in the water, the body swam seven laps around the ship before sinking to the bottom of Pamlico Sound.

My family and I spent a peaceful Thanksgiving holiday in Blackbeard's former stomping grounds. We stayed in a three-bedroom house on Fig Tree Lane, ate seafood for dinner and walked everywhere we went.

Boat docks in Silver Lake, on the western side of the island

Ocracoke Island sits 23 miles off the North Carolina coast and a quarter mile south of Hatteras Island. It usually measures 17 miles long and a mile wide. The deserted, windblown beaches of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore make up the northern 90 percent of the island, and a small village of hotels, restaurants, shops, homes and the smallest K-12 school in the state, makes up the southern 10 percent.

With no bridges connecting it to the mainland, Ocracoke is accessible only by the Cedar Island, Swan Quarter and Hatteras ferries that arrive and depart several times each day. We waited in the rocking chairs at the ferry terminal for the mustached men to give us permission to board and, once cruising across the sound at a steady 12 mph, could see dolphins leaping in front of the ferry and pelicans and seagulls hovering behind.

In case of emergencies

Ocracoke's whitewashed lighthouse, built in 1823, is the second oldest of those still in use in the United States. It's light reaches out 14 miles over the sea.

A couple buildings in Ocracoke Village stand more than three stories tall and a few shops sell kitsch like keychains and coozies, but many parts look as if they haven’t been touched for a hundred years. Gnarled oaks, red cedars and wax myrtles are rooted in the island’s sandy soil; crushed oyster shells litter the unpaved roads (making bare feet a bad idea); and every now and then, you come across a fenced rectangle containing the mossy headstones of a family graveyard.

My family strolling beneath the oak trees shell-covered Howard Street

Pelicans perched over Silver Lake

Mallards resting in the rain

Island natives — whose surnames are often Howard, Styron or Garrish — still speak with a brogue inherited from the Scotch-Irish who settled the island during the 18th century. On their tongues, "there" becomes "thar," "fire" becomes "far" and “high tide” becomes “hoi toide.”

Music is central to island life. Every Wednesday night from June to September, local musicians perform for a crowd of locals and visitors at the Deepwater Theater, a screen-enclosed deck tucked among a grove of low, crooked trees. Under the tin roof and the rafters strung with lights, performers sing lively and sorrowful stories to a crowd sitting captivated in green lawn chairs.

In addition to eating a feast of turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce during the holiday weekend, we walked on the beach, explored the shops and art galleries about to close for the winter and listened to a post-Thanksgiving Ocrafolk music concert in the community center. It was there I purchased a piece of homemade gingerbread cake and dropped it on the floor before paying.

My uncle Jim tossing a disc for his dog Sammy along the national seashore

We also walked around Springer's Point, the highest spot on the island and home to a grove of especially impressive trees, like this one:

The headstone of Ikey D., the favorite horse of Sam Jones, former owner of Springer’s Point

Public Storage Unit 207: The bane of my existence

I can’t ignore my public storage unit, no matter how much I’d like to, because it has eaten my favorite pairs of shoes.

See, before I left for South America last year, I shoved all my worldly possessions, including a cardboard box of my favorite footwear, into this 8 x 10 foot unit. I have not been able to locate this box since I returned to the United States three months ago, despite having ransacked the place multiple times. I just returned from Search No. 3 — and still… nothing.

Visiting my storage unit is not my idea of fun. Actually, I’d rather go dumpster diving in a receptacle of old banana peels, because at least then, you know the stuff around you is destined for a landfill and you won’t have to deal with it anymore. You're not, in fact, paying $40 a month to keep it around.

The density of the stuff inside my storage unit makes maneuvering around inside virtually impossible. So when I am looking for, um, I don’t know, A BOX OF SHOES, I spend most of my time with my feet higher than my shoulders, my body draped over a bookshelf and wrapped around a floor lamp and a box fan.

Some of the boxes in Unit 207 have themes — the labels identifying ‘winter sweaters,’ ‘kitchen utensils’ and ‘framed pictures’ are somewhat accurate. But most boxes contain a conglomeration of clutter that is not at all related. Take the first box you encounter as you open the door, for example. It contains a bottle of perfume, the vocabulary flashcards I made before taking the GRE, a battery charger to a broken camera and some coat hangers. (Toward the end of the move out of my apartment in Chattanooga, I vaguely recall sweeping tabletop contents into boxes with my forearm.)

The state of the storage unit has steadily declined with each shoe-searching mission. At first, the unit looked orderly inside — boxes perched neatly on top of each other, heaviest on the bottom, and a blue tarp stretched over the beanbag chair and carpet to protect them from dirt. It’s not like that anymore. Now, boxes tip at odd angles, heavy ones crushing light ones, and the blue tarp is balled up against the right-hand wall, not protecting anything at all.

Let me now take a moment to bullet point my feelings.

Reasons I hate Public Storage Unit 207:

• It contains crap I never wanted in the first place and certainly don’t want now: gas station receipts, near-empty lotion bottles, power cords to unidentified appliances. (For some reason, I have also stored an abundance of painting supplies from that time I decided to take up oil painting.)
• The lack of temperature control. Shoe hunting is a sweaty job in the summer, a frigid task in the winter.
• Looking at the inside of my unit makes me despair at the thought of moving, which otherwise excites me to no end.

OK, OK. I concede. There are a few reasons I love Public Storage Unit 207:

• Bruce, the officious manager of the lot, who has a number of rules you must follow as a renter. Rule No. 1: No sleeping in your unit (i.e. No storing yourself).
• The switchless light. The bare bulb inside automatically turns on when you open the door to your unit. Unless you lock yourself inside (which would be approaching a violation to Rule No. 1), you won’t ever see your unit in the dark. This phenomenon has me fascinated and also begs the question: If a light is off inside a storage unit, but nobody is there to see it, is it really dark?
• It keeps my clutter out of sight and out of mind, except for when I get to pining over my missing shoes.

Not like the other boys

I'm not sure when it was, exactly, that I realized I was different from the other campers. Maybe it was when they started a fierce splash war, and I had no interest in participating. Or when the conversation turned to hunting knives, and I had nothing to contribute. Or it could have been when I noticed that everyone else could stand up and pee from their canoes, while I had to paddle to shore and get out.

OK, fine: I am not pubescent, and I am not male. But there's not THAT big a difference between a 27-year-old woman and a 14-year-old boy, is there? Boy Scouts is for everyone, and plus, I think bathroom humor is funny too!

I joined Greensboro's Troop 203 on a paddling trip down the White Oak River last weekend. It's the troop my father scoutmastered for 10 years and is still involved with today. And, in my defense, there were many adults along, several of them women.

We slid our canoes into the water near the coastal town of Maysville, North Carolina on Saturday morning, setting off on a 20-mile journey down a blackwater river toward the Atlantic.

Rain fell steadily all the first day, and the mist that hung over the water lent a peaceful but eerie mood to the setting. The narrow river twisted and turned, cut back on itself and changed its mind. The boys belted out songs, laughed loudly, cursed each other for not paddling.

The decomposing plants in the swampy White Oak River Basin produce tannic acid, which naturally discolors the water, giving it the appearance of black tea.

We pulled off and camped beside the river as it began to grow dark. Burritos on a campstove. A thunderstorm at night. I wore about 50 more layers than my fellow campers, who walked around in shorts.

The burrito-making machine. Mmmmm.

Pumping water from the river so we don't all die from bacterial infections.

The sun came out on the second day. As we neared the ocean, the river widened, the trees on shore gave way to grasses, and the wind picked up. We rolled up to the takeout around noon, packed wet gear into our cars and begged our dads to stop at Bojangles on the way home.