duck

The Guy and I had, it turned out, two completely different ideas of what our vacation would be like. His, born in the steamy chaos of motorcycling and Jack Kerouac -- there we go again with Jacks -- was a devil-may-care, let the chips fall where they may creation that involved dust, sweat, occasional, random stops to see (for instance) the biggest ball of twine in the world, and crashing at motels when we felt like it.

My idea of a vacation would have done Martha Stewart proud. It would have involved a carefully mapped line of attack, complete with little flags for rest stops and refuelings. There would have been reservations. A checklist of "To See" items. Embroidered handkerchiefs for warm days, and Gucci sunglasses.

Some inkling of the disparity between our views came home to me on Friday, the day before we were to leave.

Since the Guy had had three weeks off already, and the entire concept of the vacation was his plaything, I'd trustfully left all the plan-making to him. "Let's hit Vancouver," he said at one point. "I want to see Canada." And: "Let's head back down through Montana. I hear that's great."

All this had led me to suppose that he was actually making reservations and planning routes of travel, and it wasn't until a few nights before our departure that I actually bothered to ask.

"Did you book any hotels or anything?" I asked.

He looked up from his laptop, which was presently exploring the wild and woolly world of Baldur's Gate. "Nope," he said, cheerily, and went back to playing.

I fretted, but in silence. It is the Japanese way. When one finds something irritating, one bites one's tongue and lets one's irritation ferment and grow until it finds release in an ulcer or domestic violence.

On Friday, coaxed into unwilling agreement by a quarrel and subsequent making-up, the Guy finally made reservations for two nights. In Eugene, Oregon. Home of the Ducks and, we were to discover, Teutonic hippies. That's a story for later, however. That same night, listening idly to the British Broadcasting Corporation news on NPR, we learned that Vancouver was sort of on fire. So was Montana.

"On fire? How big is it?"

"Uh, big."

"How big is big? Is it big? Or just big?"

"They're evacuating people."

"Does that mean we shouldn't visit?"

"It's on fire, Yuhri."

"Is that bad?"

With the exception of the reservations and dinner with my mother on Monday night in Seattle, Vancouver and Montana were the only definites of this entire vacation. I might have been a little loathe to give them up.

We piled into the car on Saturday morning, a little later than my good intentions the night before. I set the alarm for 7 am. At 7:10 am, I rolled over and slapped snooze. And then again. And again. When we finally left, it was 10:00 am. It was optimistic of us to think we would've avoided traffic by the earliness of our departure. I mean, 10 am on a Sunday, sure. 10 am on a Saturday?

Our lack of a coherent plan meant that we discovered ourselves entangled in San Francisco traffic before we'd thought out what our route should be. Before we knew it -- and yes, we are just oblivious enough to enter San Francisco without noticing -- we were wedged behind a puttering Neon on vacation from Arizona, and an SUV with Hummer-delusions that obviously thought "off-road" meant pulling into a three-car driveway.

I sunk down in my seat with hatred in my heart. It took us an hour to get out of San Francisco.

I-5 was uniformly boring. I don't recommend it. Don't get me wrong. As a means of transportation from Point A to Point B, it has a lot to say for itself. It's fairly straight. It doesn't contain a lot of distracting features like Natural Beauties and Sights. It has successfully reached the minimal level of cow-grazing-by-roadside phenomenon that, yes, is explored in such loving detail by both Highway 99 and Highway 199 en route to the Cow. On the other hand, it is the fallopian tube for semi-trucks, headed from their home ovaries to the warm uterii of their destinations. It took us eight hours to reach Eugene; at one point we drove by Ashland, site of much fun and frolic last year during the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

"Want me to stop?"

"I guess."

"You don't sound like you want to stop."

"No, let's stop."

"Look, there's the hotel we stayed in."

"It was a dive."

"It was."

"It wasn't even a hotel."

"It was a motel."

"What's the difference between a motel and a hotel?"

"A motel has, um, jive?"

"That's stupid."

"So should we stop?"

"Sure."

Silence.

"Why aren't you stopping?"

"I didn't think you sounded serious."

"I was serious."

"We can stop."

"It's too late. Look. We're in the next town."

"Oh."

Silence.

"Want me to turn around and go back?"

The same conversation took place several times over the course of the next eight hours. Jack Kerouac may have nailed the romance of the open road, but he'd failed to compensate for the indecisive mind.

The city of Eugene is a college town, built around the University of Oregon. The University of Oregon's mascot is a duck. Therefore, by transitive property, the City of Eugene is built around ducks.

There's something wrong with a college that chooses a duck as its mascot. Don't get me wrong. I like ducks. Ducks are inherently likeable animals. They have charm, and waddling dignity; they look good, taste better, and you'd have to go far to find another animal that believes so strongly in recycling food. On the other hand, insofar as your standard, "Hip Hip for the old alma mater!" inspiration goes, the duck sort of leaves you, well, cold. And glossy. And a trifle plump around the midriff. ("Quack for mommy! Quack! Quack!")

On the other hand, and here's probably the motivating factor in its selection as Oregon's college mascot, ducks tend to be, by and large, waterproof. Not only are they waterproof, in times of flood, they float. This is not a small thing in the Pacific Northwest. Weighed in the balance with their function on the food chain as prey, the waterproof buoyancy issue almost outweighs the negatives.

We unpacked at the hotel and went for a walk. The city was obviously built with college students in mind: brick sidewalks, jazz cafes, late night restaurants, and small gourmet groceries. It was late -- 10 pm -- on a Saturday night; all the little stores were closed, and with the exception of a few late feeders at two of the clubs-slash-restaurants, the only activity was a free tango class taking place in a small square, and skateboarders exercising freedom of expression in some alleys.

And, oh, the ducks.

Did I mention that there were ducks everywhere?

The Guy and I spotted them in the foyers of hotels, behind glass in banks, dressed as Egyptians, as Elvis, and as patchwork quilts. They were well over six feet tall, made of some implacably jolly waterproof plaster, and painted, one and all, in a display of primary colors. In shop windows there were little yellow rubber ducks, sandwiched in between displays of china and antiques. The jazz store had an electronic kiosk that appeared to be dedicated to the bathtub duck perched jauntily atop the terminal. We were, I will not hesitate to admit, disturbed by the ducks.

"Look at this," the Guy raved. He was shiny-eyed with the excitement of fowl-sightings. "There's one in Wells Fargo."

"Peking Duck," I said, dreamily. Dinner had consisted of a regrettable stop in some roadside Denny's, five hours ago. "Duck l'orange. Duck under glace. Smoked duck."

"There's no graffiti on any of them," the Guy pointed out. He sounded deeply disapproving. A college town had no business laying out monster ducks as provocation and then not acting on the temptation. It had a 'holier-than-thou' feel to it that left a bad taste in the mouth.

"Duck soup," I said hopefully.

I was born in Seattle, home of University of Washington. The mascot of the University of Washington is the husky. You don't wander about in the middle of the night and wonder wistfully how husky meat would taste under a glaze of pear juice, apple, mint and Calvados, served with a side of wild rice and steamed vegetables.

You see what I mean about picking a prey animal for your college mascot?

Posted by yhirata at August 2, 2003 11:35 AM