The Way They Mark Your Order at Burger 101

12Burger 101 is a charming little dive on the corner of SW 51st St and Hwy 101 in downtown Taft in Lincoln City. They have a simple but clever menu (the Burger 101 is a single patty, Burger 202 is a double-burger, up to Burger 404 and I have the impression that the secret menu is just how many patties they'll pile on for you), the burgers are right in the sweet spot as to serving size (not too small, not to large, exactly satisfying), and great char. Fries are superb.

And here's how they mark your order:

I drug a fry through that sauce before taking the pic. Sorry about that. But so charming!

15/10 would burger again. 

The L.C. Restaurant With The Problematic Name (1957-2022)

12For those of you adore long time traditions and landmark businesses, I have some news for you.

There has been, since 1957 a family restaurant with a name that has become difficult over the years. It opened originally as "Little Black Sambo's" and has sit in the same spot in the Wecoma Beach area Lincoln City for just a s'kosh over six decades. A family restaurant, it served American diner fare: breafasts, pancakes (appropriately, if you've ever known the story), sandwiches and burgers, and sit-down dinners. 

As time passed and attitudes changed, the word "Black" was eventually dropped from the name. Known as simply "Lil' Sambo's", as of 2021, the sign outside looked like this:

While the restaurant was not quite willing to give up the brand, the name had been demoted to the bottom of the sign. The bullying tiger, who stole Sambo's shorts and parasol, was still proudly atop. Questions about whether this was a leftover of the Sambo's diner chain, to which it was never related, still were asked betimes.

When we visited in 2021 it was still going strong, rather popular. The interior was comfortable, the breakfasts good, and memorabilia of the long history of the place as well as motifs based on the Bannerman tale on full display.

Lil' Sambo's is no longer a thing. Seems the owners retired and the business has been converted to some sort of arcade and adventure zone for kids. A tarp-style sign obscures the restaurant's sign ... but the tiger still struts proud on the top.

That's all they wrote.

A Piece Of 101 In Wecoma Beach

11I've been in love with the geography of Oregon Coast towns all my life, and it began with LC. 

I was boggled, as a boy, with a town whose population didn't exceed that of my own postage stamp of a burg (Silverton) but somehow managed to have numbered streets as far as 71st in the north and 64th in the south. This, of course, derives from the way LC was formed, as a handful of communities along seven-or-so miles of US 101 in northern Lincoln County came to realize that the whole of Lincoln City would be more than the sum of its parts, and so after some vigorous discussion in the early 1960s, unified and grew from there. 

Even today they retain their historic names: Roads' End (the late-joiner), Wecoma Beach, Oceanlake, Delake, Nelscott, Taft, and Cutler City. The secret to this is, of course, that Lincoln City is long, but not very wide. Even today, while being more than 7 miles from one end to the other, most of the town is less than 3/4s of a mile wide, and the widest part in the north just berely measures a mile and a half in lineal terms. Also, the blocks are fairly small. 

And there's really only one major road from one part of the town to the other. And that's 101. 

Here's part of it in Wecoma.

Twilight At The Edge Of the World in Delake, Oregon

10There is a peculiar and keen feeling one gets when parking at the beach and letting the dark fall about one. You feel, especially if you're aware of Oregon's unique geography, that you're on the edge of the world. Town lights shine out into the darkness to the west, a beacon that few, if any, out on the Pacific, see, and the continent at your back. This is the heart of the Delake district of Lincoln City as darkness fell on the 17th. On the leading edge of summer, darkness fell slowly, but it fell hard, as it does on the Oregon Coast.

The sound of the surf nestled and comforted us; it was a feeling of sparseness but at the same time closeness and comfort. 

Now it's Fujii Time

9The Fujii Farms roadside berry and produce stand at the corner of SE Stark St and Troutdale Road, south end of Troutdale, has opened again for the season.

If you wait until later in the day, though ... you might be out of luck. 

The Willamette Not-Valley

8There's a difference in tone and atmosphere between the part of the Willamette Valley around Portland and the rest of it.

Oregon's Willamette Valley is mostly broad and rolling, with undulating areas of hills and rural farmland that seem to go on forever, and then the foothills of the Coast Range and Cascades happen. As the river bends east before going north again, at Newberg Pool (they actually call it this), it's sinuosity is constrained by hills on each side. As Hwy 99E hugs the river from Canby north into Oregon City, it seems a different place entirely, still Oregon but somehow in a different state entirely.

It's in the Willamette drainage, but, somehow, it's not part of the Willamette Valley. Not really.

As seen from I-205 southbound in West Linn

I mean, I'm not Philip Jose Farmer, but if I were, this would inspire me to write Riverworld. 

Maybe that this is the oldest part of the community we modernly call the State of Oregon, maybe that has something to do with it. 

There Is No Room 13

7There is an utterly charming, basic-basic motel on the Oregon Coast, in Lincoln City, called the Sea Echo Motel, on North Hwy 101 at 35th Street, and we are in love with this modest bit of lodging, and if just being what it was wasn't seductive enough, we found, on leaving the morning after the evening before ...

... there is not a Room 13.

You can ask and ask and ask all you want to book room 13. 

It ain't happenin', chum.

Unicorns. It's an Oregon Thing

6We have said it before and we will say it again;

Portland was built on an ancient unicorn burial ground.

It explains a great deal, you have to admit. 

This is an image I created in Photoshop years ago when I was much better at Photoshop. I see it pop up on the web every now and then and that pleases me.

But if you ever see it; that was me that did it. Yeah, you'll have to take my word for it. But I tell you the truth. 

Junki's Place Is No More

5Out at the end of Stark Street, just before you cross the bridge, there is a thing on the right and a thing on the left. On the right is a wedding venue, very romantic, with trees and waterfalls and a sumptuous building and the gate reads Yoshidas Haven Estate even though it's not called that any more on the web. It's a wedding and event venue.

On the left is a place that, until February, was a fine-dining restaurant called Junki's Riverview Restaurant. The Junki is Junki Yoshida, the man who brought easy Asian sauces to the PNW and beyond, and was reputedly quite the character.

When the Stark Street Bridge re-opened after its closing for reconstruction of the east end, I noted, going through there, that there was a sign on the gate saying it was closed for renovations through March. Now, it just said 'closed'.

The signs proclaiming Riverview Restaurant have been changed to read Sandy River Gardens.

And so it goes. 

It's Almost Fujii Time

4The farmer's roadside stand for Fujii Farms at the corner of Troutdale Road and SE Stark Street has the 'help wanted' up. Roadside produce season will commence soon ...

The last two miles of SE Stark Street are a curious thing. Along the north side, east of Troutdale Road, is a tract of berry field that still grows berries and various produce for the legendary Fujii Farms concern; it's an echo of what must have obtained all along Stark east of Portland before sprawl took over. 

I remember eating a raspberry that my wife gave me when we stopped there one very warm summer day last year or maybe the year before.

The sweetness of that berry was culinary poetry. 

ATC: Halsey Street at Sunset

3The Artist Trading Card I did today was inspired by a picture I took looking west down NE Halsey St at 201st one sunset when I was out with my wife.

Diminishing power poles have always been evocative to me.