Driving down I-5 in Linn County, emergency alerts for strong storms squawking in the radio. Came up to a traffic jam where a perfectly delineated hailstorm had dropped about a foot of hail on the road for about 200 yards. A motorcyclist had laid his bike down in it but was fine, almost like he was sledding. No hail anywhere else.
Driving along further, come up to a similar situation but it smelled differently. Literally! Freeway was covered in white goo. Rolled the window down and it was garlic, getting smashed up by car tires. A huge garlic truck had accidentally opened up while driving and covered the whole road in heads of garlic.
The first one has happened to me before too. I was driving from Albany to Corvallis & for some reason the hail hit SUPER hard between Albany & the HWY 34 Exit. It was especially rough on that hill that all the state troopers sit at.
I created the hill & it was chaos- cars were sliding everywhere & loosing control. I wasn’t going too fast luckily so I was able to maintain control - but I ended up having to go into the grass to avoid hitting anyone.
Then it was like, 100% clear everywhere else.
I had similar. Driving into Corvallis and a car went past flashing it’s lights. I thought that was weird and was looking at them in my side mirror and looked forward as I came around a corner to a dozen smashed cars in my 32,000# 28’ Box Truck. I hit the brakes and went sideways straight at a dozen people outside their cars. Tapped the brakes a couple times and got it sideways the other direction more taps and I found some traction and slid through all the cars.
I grabbed my flares and sprinted back where the flashing lights car was and put them out. I had driven from PDX and that was the only ice I saw on the roads.
Haha, the second story reminds me of the time a truck flipped on 101 near Depoe Bay, and dumped HAGFISH all over the road! These eels secrete mucous all over their body when disturbed, so imagine the mess. The road and a few cars were coated in slime, it was a total mess, and closed up the highway. You can find the story easily, the news went national.
It was a real mess wasn’t it? Was still an interesting way to have my favorite little town pop on the radar for a while though! I still don’t know how people eat those buggers.
This is a strange phenomenon.
I was driving down 97 in north Klamath County, saw the dark cloud and precipitation coming down. Driving hail for about 3 minutes, it was piled up on the road like several inches of snow. Came out of it and a minute later, the sun was out.
It was like someone was flipping a switch. Fine, crazy hail, fine, carry on.
In 2007 or 08, a semi full of red wine bottles overturned in Portland. People were climbing mountains of broken glass and finding still-full bottles. It was pretty shitty wine but went on for quite a while. Someone I know went back several times.
In 2011, I was a tow truck driver in Eugene and a truck full of mash from one of the breweries lost its load on Delta highway. It essentially turned the highway into a giant oil slick. Trying to get through that mess to load up all of the cars involved in the ensuing pileup was fun.
I was camping at a pretty remote hot spring in Eastern Oregon. It was a chilly night, so I slept in the bed of my pickup. When I woke up at 7:00, there was this stunning woman standing, naked in the hot spring. I look over and there are like 10 elderly men with fancy cameras taking her photo. Then I notice something up on the hill. It's another beautiful naked woman, holding long pieces of sheer fabric so they blow in the wind. More old men taking pictures.
Turns out it was a magazine photoshoot, so in hindsight it wasn't that weird, but what a surreal way to wake up.
Was surfing just north of Newport in the 2000's when a huge 100-200 person karate camp marched up the beach and started doing mass drills. It was straight out of Enter the Dragon with the coordinated uniforms, flags on the corners, and them all yelling as one. Thought I was going to have to challenge their master just to get back on the beach. edit: a letter
HAHAHA dude this is the dojo I was in as a kid. Honestly never thought of it from an outsiders perspective. Sensei Best (real last name) from Best Martial Arts Institute in Eugene would take his dojo once a year on a coast trip. This was like 15 years ago but they still do it. We would camp at Honeyman lake, do kata under the stars in silence, punch and kick trees and branches in the morning. Then go up to the dunes to practice on uneven steep ground seeing if you could throw an opponent shin in sand, stuff like that. We would also go line up on the beach waste deep in water and practice moves striking and kiaing and trying to have strong enough stances not to get knocked over by the waves, we would try to impose our will on the immensity of the seas. Actually a really cool lesse in humility and insignificance. The whole trip could left you thinking about the easy strength and unending nature of the world.
I'm so grateful you posted this here because I had never thought about how cool and unique of an experience it was but it sticks with me to this day. Sensei Best and the whole team there are truly amazing and fundamentally formed who I am as an adult by how they mentored and taught me as a kid and young adult. They have classes for all ages and do all sorts of disciplines, aikido, judo, karate, hopkido, systema, taekwondo. Super welcoming community there, can't recommend highly enough. Here's the link if anyone's interested
https://bmai.org/
I'm going to be laughing about this for weeks it's so hilarious to think of it from an outsiders perspective but it just seemed so normal for me having done it from a young age. And yeah those groups were big , the dojo had hundreds of students so I'm sure it looked crazy. Ahhh man thanks for sharing your experience you made my week 😆🥋😂😂
I don't know what Claim 52 is, but the last time I was there, there were more restaurants, and medical buildings and parking lots had been replaced by student apartments.
Years ago I was on a bus in Portland on my way downtown. Two women in their early 20’s got on the bus and sat down next to each other. Then they started taking turns slapping each other in the face. This wasn’t playful little slaps either, it was full force SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!
The rest of the passengers on the bus looked on in stunned silence as this went on and on for a long time.
Finally a guy across the aisle turned to them and said something like “Is everything OK? Is there a problem? Do you need some assistance?”
One of the women turned and yelled at him: “Mind your own business!! We’re having fun!”
A few stops (and more slaps) later they both calmly exited the bus together. I never saw them again.
Sounds exactly like Portland. I was walking back from a timbers game and heard a woman in a wheelchair screaming and accusing someone next to them of trying to take advantage of them because they were handicapped, and I mean screaming. I asked if everything was OK and was told exactly that; mind your own business lol. And I guess it's a good point but still wild to just walk past like it's not happening.
I was driving through the Ochoco mountains from Big Summit Prairie to Paulina, in late May 2020. This route is a forest service road, and remote even for central Oregon generally. Early in the camping season, and early in the pandemic, there was *no one* around for miles.
I ran across a pretty nice looking dispersed campsite, vacant, and went to check it out. I realized there were things tied to trees. A stuffed animal. Plastic doll heads. The entire face of a deer, skinned off its skull, impaled on a branch.
It seemed like a good idea to not stick around.
Yeah I’m just used to everyone calling anyplace east of the cascades “eastern Oregon.”
I had family in prineville - I’d drive though and around the ochocos all the time. That’s just straight up creepy what you saw.
I know of a spot like that way up and old forest service road that leads to some fairly remote forest. A couple of other somewhat similar things I've ran across in that area leaves no doubt in my mind that the area is occupied. I don't go up there alone or unarmed ever anymore. Definitely not at night either. People are in those woods somewhere doing some effed off stuff. The Willamette Valley is full of surprises.
Saw some stuff like that at a dispersed site on Mt Hood once. No deer face. But baby doll heads, giant toy insects and spiders, all wired up/nailed to trees and in branches
I figure it's assholes "marking their territory".. aka, flipping the bird to Leave No Trace because *they* probably camp there *semi* regularly
The deer face definitely sounds like someone with a sicker sense of humor, though
Once, I was out at Cape Arago. I was looking at the ocean and saw movement in the water. It was a deer swimming in the ocean about 10-15 yards out. I thought that she was drowning and getting swept out yet she slowly started making progress and made it to land.
Way back in 2000, Dove Lewis Emergency Animal Hospital had a satellite clinic by mall 205. We would accept injured wild birds and ship them off to the Audubon Society when they opened in the morning. One busy night with a packed waiting room, a lady walks in with a bird with a broken wing. Only this isn't a robin in a shoebox like we normally see. No no. This is a full grown turkey vulture. Bird is about 3 feet long beak to tail with a 6 to 7 foot wingspan. And it's not in a box. The lady walks in the front door with the bird perched on her shoulder like she's Steve Mother Fucking Irwin. The woman calmly stands there like she had a parakeet on her arm instead of a painful wild creature. We grabbed the welders gauntlets and a big blanket and removed the bird gingerly from the lady while to her it seemed like just another Tuesday.
Just drove past it last week and me and my friend were speculating on what it was originally. I thought the the muffler dude. I'd never seen a Texaco guy before, but it's obviously him.
Thanks for solving a minor mystery!
At a rest stop between Bend and Eugene was a dead pig that was made to sit up straight wearing a top hat and monocle. 12 years later my daughter still won’t use those bathrooms because of that pig.
I've written the full version of this story before, but one time on a road trip with a friend's family, we stopped in Shaniko, Oregon, at the gas station which is also the post office and the general store for a town with a population of 25. The kind woman working told us about the upcoming heritage parade, where they had to march up and down the street twice just to give the band time to play one full song. But in the middle of her explanation of the town's history, another customer walked in and she went dead silent.
The tension in the air was thick, none of us dared to speak, something was clearly up. The man, wearing all black including a black cowboy hat, walked over to the condiment bar for a moment, and then left without buying or saying anything. Once he drove away, her attention returned to us, and she apologized. "It's just that.. well, that man has been coming in every day for almost two weeks. He never buys anything, not even gas. He just walks over, helps himself to a cup of horseradish, and leaves. No one in the entire town knows who he is."
That was the great mystery of Shaniko, Oregon. I don't think it's too likely I'll find myself back in Shaniko again, but if I do, I think I might just have to make a silent stop for some horseradish.
I once saw a large homeless woman washing her vagina in one of the bubblers downtown. She just threw her leg up over the thing and started dipping and rubbing. I no longer drink from public water fountains.
Here. Lemmy save everybody the trouble of looking it up.
https://www.oregonlive.com/living/2020/08/the-portland-sleestak-wanders-the-city-for-scares-smiles-and-general-weirdness.html
Wow I just looked this up, and he is selling the original Sleestack on Etsy. It's been converted from a costume to a sculpture, but dang that's a piece of Portland weirdness history.
Back in about 1998, I lived in Monmouth, and there was a city wide blackout.
It was at night, and I was driving back on 99 from Salem, and it was really weird.
If you've ever witnessed something like it, it's hard to explain, and it was definitely strange.
I was sitting at Yachats Brewing last year and saw a fully naked older man walking down the middle of 101. Apparently it wasn’t his first time that week, either.
I work at Portland Union station so I see lots of weird shit.
The most recent a person jumped off the sky bride landed on a train. And eventually fell off. And limped away refusing medical assistance.
when i was 5 in 1980 we had ball lightning in Stayton that krept around for what seemed like an eternity. never seen it again in real life.
One time when I was in HS my mom came in the front door covered in snow while in the back of the house we had the windows open to a hot spring day.
nice! It was in the big field that used to be behind Regis before they built the baseball fields and those apartments etc. off of Hollister. My mother just corrected me, it was August of '82.
Did you go to Stayton schools? If you did there's no way we don't know each other, hit my DM's! My family moved every year but I went to Stayton Elem. for a couple years and the Jr. High for half a year. Head lice outbreak drove us to St. Mary's for the rest of that year haha.
I know exactly where you're talking about. I did go to Stayton public schools from first grade to high school graduation. I'll DM you. If you don't know me you might know some other members of my family.
Downtown Portland several years ago, saw a man riding a bicycle with a basket and inside the basket was a giant paper mache pickle.
Immediately after that, we went to eat at Deschutes and sat on the patio. It was packed (full patio) and all of a sudden, across the street from us, an impromptu performance piece started up: girls dressed as the undead started popping up out of the bamboo stalks, a Dorothy from the wizard of oz skipping down the street, and the kicker….a man in a wheelchair came *flying* down the hill, screaming. We were all a bit stunned, but at the end, the group all stood together and bowed. Not sure what the plot was, if there was one.
We all clapped because it was pretty entertaining and very unexpected!
In Portland about 15 years ago, I believe it was out in front of Powells. Some guy was mumbling to himself acting all weird, then suddenly turned to this dad and his young daughter and smacked her then ran off. The funny part about it though was the guy had long hair, so after he ran off the dad turned to me and my friend and was like “Did you see that woman just hit my kid?!” He was furious and girl was crying and pretty shaken up. I’m pretty sure the fact that he thought the guy was a woman is the only reason he didn’t try and kick his ass
I didn't see this thank god but I know someone who did, A few years ago I lived in Central Oregon, a man was arrested for having sex with a dead deer on the side of the road, it was his second arrest for having sex with a dead deer on the side of the road
Driving in my neighborhood in NE, saw a fully and completely naked woman wandering around. Didn't seem to be suffering or anything, just literally naked in the middle of the day in public, taking a walk. I know this is relatively tame for Portland but I am from the south and had never seen anything like that before! I was also with my MIL in the car and we both were shocked to silence lol. The woman did have a mask on though, so good for her for being COVID cautious.
I had just moved back to Portland after two years in New York and three in Minneapolis, and I was sitting outside a restaurant at the corner of SE 26th & Clinton, not far from where I lived. If you don't know it, there's a four-way stop there, with a coffee shop on one corner, a former porn theatre on another, a Hawaiian restaurant (or at least there was at the time) on another, and then this space that always changed every six months or so. The streets are big but Clinton wasn't that busy back in those days.
As I'm waiting for my food, down Clinton street comes this guy on a big, old-fashioned red bike. He has really long, stringy hair, he's not wearing a shirt, and he's towing something behind him. As he goes by, I see that it's a Radio Flyer red wagon with a huge pot plant in it, tied down with bungie cords.
The guy was shouting, "God bless you! God bless! God bless everyone!"
It felt good to be back among my people.
Going south in a van on I-5 in the Terwilliger curves in the daytime. There was a car next to us with two couples in it. The woman in back was naked from the waist down and the man was on the floor going down on her. The couple in front acted as if there was no one in back.
205 near Oregon City, three lanes. I was in the middle lane at the speed of other cars. Dude in a truck passes me at high speed in the slow lane. No driver side door, no seat belt. 😱
When I was young I was there in the cabin with the wonky floors and a kid straight up collapsed and had a massive seizure. Part of me thought he was a plant because after that everyone was like “oh shit bro it was the eeeenergies” but I was also mind-blown
There’s a spot on that incline where I stood and I felt like I was being pushed in all directions by some kind of force. And I had that broom in my hand at the broom spot and that broom moved my hand to where the broom wanted to be.
I also saw the guides face morph at the spot at the end where people’s heights shuffle.
Naked very sexy woman downtown protesting by herself (with a sign and slogan) trying to raise awareness about the “barbaric practice of circumcision”. Screaming “babies cannot consent” to befuddled (and possibly aroused) passerby
I was riding my bike through a remote part of the rogue river valley - way up in the hills. Very dense vegetation, a one lane gravel type of road. No cell service. I came across a vehicle that had been flipped and was burning. The fire was making it’s way to a tree nearby. I used all the water I brought to put out the fire. I couldn’t imagine how that car got these, or who has lit that car on fire. I had seen no one the whole time. It was pretty surreal. When I got down to the river, I called 911 from a camp host’s landline.
One night I was driving across a bridge over the Tualatin river when I saw a man dressed all in black walking on all fours like a cat along the top of the cement barrier between the road and the bridge railing. There were no street lights over the bridge, so I didn't see him until I was just about to pass by. Not sure what that was about.
Probably not the weirdest but the first thing that comes to mind is driving into Ashland and seeing the [Naked Lady](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aclu-says-oregon-woman-has-right-to-bike-naked-local-law-begs-to-differ/) biking in her hemp thong. She was very tan.
Maybe not the weirdest but the funniest thing is the old guy who practices his sweet sword moves at Millers Landing Park in Bend. Like he’s a ninja or old timey knight. I think he thinks it’s tai chi but whatever it is it’s hilarious.
They say you aren’t a real Portlander until you’ve seen someone walking bare naked along the side of the road. Happened to me in 2021, on the 205. Lady just… letting it all hang out. Walking along the shoulder.
In a blues bar, Cruella Deville and a gangster walked in and made a lap to make sure everyone notices then. A little while later a pirate walked in (man with a real hook hand that really leaned into it with how he dressed and talked) and kept trying to buy us drinks because we weren’t clapping enough for the band?! Then he pressed a older tiny Italian guy from Boston, and this guy wasn’t having any of it. Suddenly we hear Italian guy yell “fuck off” to the pirate and everyone laughs and claps. Then a younger woman walks in and suddenly everyone is talking about her being on drugs because she had some odd behaviors (very clearly autistic stimming). Definitely my oddest experience in Oregon so far.
Cape meares loop highway has been closed for like 15 years. My girlfriend and I would walk it to bayocean and short beach. We decided to get off the highway and explore one time. About 30 feet from the road was about 100 used condoms nailed individually to a Sitka spruce.
Driving to work very early east on Denney Rd. Nobody else around. A massive very green fireball streaked across the sky in perfect view. I literally braced for impact, thinking it was the end of the world and I happened to have a front row seat.
Next to St. Helens blowing its top off live, it’s the most stunning natural event I’ve ever witnessed.
When I was a teen a fishing boat broke up and dumped tons of Thai sticks (weed) so everyone on the south coast was picking up bundles of weed washing up on the beachand the cops were trying to stop it but eventually they gave up and everyone got high as fuck for about a month. You could tell some of it smelled like diesel but a lot of it was pretty good. You could hardly give away weed for quite a while. It was like a festival.
The people in Cave Junction in the midst of forest fires a few years ago. They seemed traumatized, and one old man at the grocery store was denying the existence of the heavy smoke which was limiting visibility drastically. Felt really surreal and quite creepy.
3 "stars" making a triangular shape but then changing positions with each other. At times it looked as if there was some sort of pattern/orchestrated movement to them, at other times it was just completely random with no rhyme or reason.
This was during the meteor shower in the summer of 2016 in Silverton, Oregon, and I know of 2 other eye witnesses who confirm seeing the same thing in the same area..
Dude. I saw this exact thing about 20 years ago in the woods up near McKenzie Bridge. The three 'stars' were moving north in perfect formation, then suddenly, all three instantly started moving southeast. Never left formation, no sound, no turning/banking. Just one minute flying due north, next moment they were headed SE.
That was weird, for sure.
Oddly strange as OP implied they are from AZ. I was in south Phoenix when the same phenomenon happened for the second time in 2011. The first time was 97 I think. Super weird to see. Three lights in triangle formation seemed to be at about airline height and changed formation a few times and then took off.
I used Waze in its early days to navigate to a family home on the outskirts of Culver in farm country. I had done the drive in the daytime, but left late from work and doubted myself.
I trusted the machine, and it ultimately navigated me down someone's private farm dirt road from a pitch black stretch of 55mph side road at 10pm.
After realizing the mistake and turning around, I'm driving in the dark and come across this barefoot woman in shorts swinging gas cans as she walks along the shoulder of the road. She doesn't acknowledge me as the only car on the road for miles, I have no idea how she can see where she's going, but she just keeps swinging and walking. Times like that I regretted not having a dash cam to capture the experience.
First day working in the woods in central Oregon outside Sisters, and came across a uniquely-shaped burnt out tree that had been painted and adorned with accoutrements to make it look like some kind of weird cowboy with it’s wang out pissing into a toilet on the side of the forest road. Wish I could post photos in the comments cuz it was so random and strange. Great intro to weird Oregon. I absolutely love it!
Once when I was living in deep NE PDX I brought home a big charcoal grill that my work was getting rid of after upgrading the one we’d use for company cook outs. I cleaned it all up and planned a little kick back with some friends that coming weekend, only to wake up and find the grill missing when the time came. We got by, still had a good time, but imagine my surprise when the grill showed back up a few nights later - right on my back patio where it was last seen. I have no idea who used that grill or for what, and I never took the chances to find out as it went straight to the dump after that.
I went into a home’s basement in the Ladd Addition in Portland to turn off the water and the entire basement was full of BDSM apparatus, tables, wheels, swings, “chairs”, beds, things to hang on, be hung on, stretchers….there are at least 20 things if I recall. But the part that was weird was walking into the master bedroom there was a heavy chain hanging from the ceiling with a small English Bulldog sitting in front of it.
Like who chains a nice puppers like that? Upon approaching I saw that the chain wasn’t for the dog but for a human.
It was also a shock to walk into Walter Cole aka Darcelle’s house the first time. It was 7:00am and he still had lipstick stained around his lips from working late the night before. It was so out of context. He was a beautiful soul. I worked for him for almost 20 years.
The Unipiper is an amazing dude who just loves spreading joy and love to people. He also picks the song first and then the costume, apparently. Which is neat.
In 09 some friends and I were walking through SE between Stark and Belmont on like 43rd or something. I hear bagpipes and ask my friends if they heard them. They told me I was crazy but just as we step onto Belmont and look left, here comes the Unipiper! It was pre-Vader and flames, but it was still super cool. Saw him again a few minutes later as it seemed like he was doing Hawthorne > Belmont loops. Got to see him with the full Vader and flames at a Star Wars trivia benefit for Feee Geek years later, stoked that he found his niche and scratched it.!
For me it was the student age woman and her friend walking down the street near PSU. The woman was completely topless while her friend was not. And they were just walking along. I say this weird only because I have never seen it before, not because I consider it wrong or illegal.
So we are camping at the Oregon coast between Florence and Reedsport. We see this bright light coming towards us along the coast line. At first, I think it’s the Coast Guard helicopter, since they fly along coast line all the time. But there is noise at all. All of the sudden, it takes a 45 degree turn away from the coastline towards the ocean but the light stays as bright for a very long time until it disappears all of the sudden.
A few moments later same thing is repeated again. No noise. The light stays as bright as it takes sharp turn away from the coastline and into the ocean (away from land).
My wife and I were walking in a park after dark. We had our 100+lbs dog with us (Kangal). There were no lights and he started barking at the trees on the side of the path. I used my phone flashlight to see what was up and some weirdo was just standing their silently.
In the mid ‘90s a friend and I picked a random trail in the cascades to start a hike.
We go 2-3 miles in and find a coffee can, I lift it up to pack out garbage and found tp under it. I look around and found a latrine nearby. We went up the trail a bit, and found a clearing with tents, teepees and a watchtower. We got the hell out of there, before we were spotted.
A while community up in the mountains. Off the grid.
I had something similar happen a few years ago, but it was Washington and not Oregon.
I was doing the Tour de Blast bike ride from Toutle, WA up to Johnston Ridge and back. It was on the return leg, about 10-15 miles left in the ride. I was riding thru a forested stretch of road when suddenly I heard loud “shrieks” coming from the forest, spaced out over several seconds. It was a 3-5 second shriek. Pause. Another shriek. Pause. And another. Unlike anything I’d ever heard before, but definitely not a human.
My rational brain knows it was an animal of some sort and that Sasquatch is a myth, but man I could really understand how the whole Bigfoot legend sprung to life after experiencing that. It creeped me out big time. I did the Tour de Blast two more times after that, and I always pedaled a little faster when I went thru that section.
We didn’t even consider a squatch until like a month later when we heard the recordings of a coveted Bigfoot call online. idk man, but it sounded just like the thing we heard. Like part animal part something else you can’t really describe. I grew up in northwood territory and never had an animal call give me that kind of physical reaction before. Blood runs cold, eyes wide, frozen response with hairs on end. We literally packed up and went home in the middle of the night we were scared to death and didn’t want to find out what it was 😅😂
Can't really think of anything off the top of my head, but one thing that does come to mind is more sad than weird. One time, my friend (now wife) and I went to Wendy's in Portland for some lunch before her dentist appointment (I offered to give her a ride there since nobody else responded to her messages).
As we spend 45 minutes there just chatting and eating, I watched an older, presumably homeless gentleman pick up his phone, talk on it, and set it down to hang it up...Except there was no phone, it was his hand doing the 🤙thing.
He flirted and built up the courage to ask someone on a date (first call), talked to his friends about this new wonderful girl he'd met (second call), talked to the girl again and asked her if she wanted to move in with him (third call), talked to his parents about how nervous he was to ask her to marry him and telling them he loved them and appreciated them listening (fourth call), called his friend to ask him to be his best man (fifth call), got in an argument and had a huge blowup with I think an ex (sixth call), talked to his parents again about what kinda baby clothes he should buy or if there's something he isn't thinking of and was worried he was gonna be a terrible dad (seventh call), said "this is he" and started crying (eighth call), and then said nothing before leaving a really sad "I just wanted to hear you again" voicemail (ninth call). He threw his frosty at the window and walked out mumbling to himself angrily.
I remember this so vividly even ten years later because it felt SO real, like I just watched a mentally ill man recreate the trauma he'd experienced that he could never get over and was permanently damaged from. My heart hurt from the thought that he probably did that every day like a broken record, and no one ever helped him process his tremendous grief. It's just something that has stuck with me ever since, and it shaped my view on homeless people and my compassion towards them and the stories they can or can't tell. I can't put in to words how his conversation just basically put me in an existential crisis for a few days thinking about how life can be like that. I dunno, I guess I appreciate that moment for what it was.
I don’t think an upvote is enough for this experience. Heartbreaking. I congratulate you on hearing him, noticing him, most people probably ignored him. You didn’t, that gave him worth even if he didn’t notice. You gave his pain reality, that really worth so much.
What's actually weird for me is realizing that, as I was telling the story again, I now am no longer curious about what exactly happened. Ten years ago, I REALLY wanted to know wtf happened and guessed scenarios in my head for a few days after.
I'm glad I noticed. You're right in your assumption, the restaurant was running as if everything was totally normal and he was just brushed aside to a corner to do his thing, basically. It sucks to think that he likely has passed since then, too, but I hope he's no longer in pain regardless.
So many stories involving Powell’s! Here’s mine: left Powell’s on a hot day and had my car window down. Stopped at a light and there was this lady on a corner with her arms outstretched, moaning really loudly and swaying back and forth. Took me a min to realize that she had no pants on and was masturbating with a scooter handle. Sent my husband a text that I was NEVER riding one of those scooters.
Weird or creepy? I can tell you all kinds of horrific tales from the Gold Rush era of Jacksonville and the ghosts that still exist from it. Literally and figuratively....
Found a goat in a rat area between Eugene and Florence. It was like 2am in the middle of a pretty wooded and not heavily populated area. Just some random goat. A few other travelers arrived and no one wanted to abandon the goat. Lots of predators and fast traveling cars in that area. Finally, someone offered to take it home and see if they could find it’s owner in the morning. We had no way to safely transport that goat without it eating seats and our stuff. Every time we go by there now either my husband or I will say “I gotta go check for goats.”
I found a giant pile of crap and there was a mini Vaseline bottle inside of it. It was not pushed into it. That little Vaseline bottle came out of someone’s ass.
In the early 1990s, I was driving SB on I5 through Wilsonville with my mom and brother. We passed a wood paneled station wagon in the slow lane, and Mom glanced over at the driver. She sped on but quickly hit the brakes, pulled over, and erupted in laughter. She then jumped back on the freeway and paced alongside the station wagon. She frantically pointed out the driver and told us kids to get a good look. Younger male, dark hair... I couldn't get a good look at his face because there was a pair of women's baby blue silky underwear with picot trim on his head. The crotch covered his nose and mouth while he looked through the legholes. We all laughed our asses off and took our exit. As I looked back, a big black contractor bag was visible in the cargo area.
Edited: date range... cripes, I'm old.
One summer my son and I were driving aimlessly through Christmas Valley near the middle of the state. Despite the cheery name, this part of Oregon is pretty dry and desolate. There wasn't much to see, but our map showed some sand dunes nearby (we didn't have service, so we couldn't use GPS). Using the map we drove and we drove and we drove. We never did find the sand dunes, but we passed multiple sites where RVs and trailers were pulled into a circle Mad Max-style, surround by trash and wrecks and tattered tarps flapping in the wind. It was beyond freaky.
We gave up on the dunes and beat a hasty retreat to the cozy confines of LaPine.
Six or 7 years back I’m on the trolley with the fam and two people start singing their _asses_ off. Turned out they were from the Portland opera. It was amazing.
The way people drive never ceases to amaze me.
Literally killing you with kindness. Like, go already people! Stop trying to be overly polite.
Also: please Zipper Merge
No so much a strange thing to have seen but a strange person to have experienced. My brother and I were camping down near sisters and on our way out of town we picked up a hitchhiker and his dog right outside of town. We drove him all the way to Salem as he told us of his travels. The story that stood out the most is the one he told us of his magic stone. He said that he was deep in the woods and he was being hunted by wolves. He ran and ran and finally he fell down in a dried up river bed and below him was a magical stone that he held up above him and as he held his stone he prayed to Jesus with all his might and even though the wolves had surrounded him they dispersed and left him alone. He told us that ever sine then he carried the stone with him everywhere and it protected him. As he said this he produced a large quartz river rock from his backpack, it was at least a foot across and had to weigh at least 20-30 pounds.
Interesting fellow. I hope that he is doing well.
In Sherwood at the Taco Bell, I was in the drive thru once years ago and my boyfriend and I saw a man get out of his car in front of us and just start peeing.
Another time, the field behind the Sherwood Walmart, driving past one day we saw a man standing in the middle of the field, gazing out, no shirt on, no idea what he was doing. My boyfriend honked and the dude turned and looked at us lol
Saw a black cougar in the middle of a forest road a few years ago. It was huge and scared the crap out of me and my friend. Pure unadulterated danger and power as it snarled at us and leaped 10 feet into the brush.
Another time I cam around a blind corner to a stop light and the road was covered with a load of purple-reddish mush. Got further down and there was a dump truck on the side of the road with the whole front end covered with it. I figured it was sugar beet waste from the canning factory. The guy came around the corner too fast and had to stop at the light and the slop kept moving over the top.
Funniest part was the drivers window was open. If you've ever smelled sugar beet juice you know how gross it is.
I can imagine him getting back to the shop looking like a purple mutant.
From AZ, visit Oregon once a year to see family. This happened years ago, probably early 2000s as I was just a little kid. We had just got our rental and we drove around Portland because we had a day before we needed to go to the coast and wanted to explore the city. I swear I saw a man with a suit made of money waiting to cross the street. It didn't look like fabric, but actual dollar bills sewn together.
Downtown Oregon City, about 15 years ago. Sunday afternoon, pretty deserted. They must have some kind of PA downtown. It was playing Christmas carols. In the summer.
About 10 years ago my lady and I were out on a walk near the Franz Bread Outlet on 12th in Portland, and we heard some yelling from someone who was obviously intoxicated.
We turned the corner and saw a haggard old topless lady yelling at an old dude in an electric wheelchair.
"Gimme bra back"
Thing is, she coulda just reached down and took it since she was walking so close to him ...
But hey its Portland ...
Driving down 1-5 around Wilsonville long ago we see a guy walking on the side of the freeway naked except his shoes. Had a front and back pack. No clothes. It was a hot sunny day though so..
It made world news, years later still being re-broadcast, getting a small royalty check for yearssss... my neighbor in the mid 90s, a little old lady in Corvallis, had a tan, typical looking Chihuahua. She spoiled him wirh McDs chicken nuggets regularly. One particular time, in the McDs drive through on 9th St, she was buying him some nuggs like usual, and the money she had gotten ready, slipped out of her hands. She was looking all around, needing to drive forward, anxiously looking for the elusive dollar bill... so she popped her door open to see if it had fell down to the floorboard... and SHE fell out. Her car was an automatic, the door shut and was still engaged. The damn Chihuahua got into the driver's seat. Standing with his little paws on the wheel, and no cars in front of him, he "drove" himself across the street to Taco Bell. America, and the world, loved it... the Chihuahua didn't want McDonald's, "Yo Quiero Taco Bell!"
When I was a kid, my family was driving into Pendleton along I-84, and a fire truck was beaming through with its sirens on. A few seconds later we passed a car on the shoulder that was completely engulfed in flames with nobody near it. Everyone else was just driving past it like it was nothing. What was weird is that not even the fire truck that passed us earlier stopped there and must’ve been going somewhere else. It looked like the car had already been on fire for a long time, so it was very strange.
Eugene, 18th & Chambers. Guy in a full Samurai Ninja outfit, sword and all, taking a stroll down the street. Have not seen him in a bit. There’s another guy who walks around the forest in Knights armor as well, never have seen him, but know others who have.
Driving down I-5 in Linn County, emergency alerts for strong storms squawking in the radio. Came up to a traffic jam where a perfectly delineated hailstorm had dropped about a foot of hail on the road for about 200 yards. A motorcyclist had laid his bike down in it but was fine, almost like he was sledding. No hail anywhere else. Driving along further, come up to a similar situation but it smelled differently. Literally! Freeway was covered in white goo. Rolled the window down and it was garlic, getting smashed up by car tires. A huge garlic truck had accidentally opened up while driving and covered the whole road in heads of garlic.
Ok…that story took an unexpected and delicious turn! lol!
The first one has happened to me before too. I was driving from Albany to Corvallis & for some reason the hail hit SUPER hard between Albany & the HWY 34 Exit. It was especially rough on that hill that all the state troopers sit at. I created the hill & it was chaos- cars were sliding everywhere & loosing control. I wasn’t going too fast luckily so I was able to maintain control - but I ended up having to go into the grass to avoid hitting anyone. Then it was like, 100% clear everywhere else.
I had similar. Driving into Corvallis and a car went past flashing it’s lights. I thought that was weird and was looking at them in my side mirror and looked forward as I came around a corner to a dozen smashed cars in my 32,000# 28’ Box Truck. I hit the brakes and went sideways straight at a dozen people outside their cars. Tapped the brakes a couple times and got it sideways the other direction more taps and I found some traction and slid through all the cars. I grabbed my flares and sprinted back where the flashing lights car was and put them out. I had driven from PDX and that was the only ice I saw on the roads.
Haha, the second story reminds me of the time a truck flipped on 101 near Depoe Bay, and dumped HAGFISH all over the road! These eels secrete mucous all over their body when disturbed, so imagine the mess. The road and a few cars were coated in slime, it was a total mess, and closed up the highway. You can find the story easily, the news went national.
Yes! I was always surprised that one didn't end up a Farmers commercial.
I missed that one by fifteen minutes coming back from fishing. It held up traffic for like six hours if ircc.
It was a real mess wasn’t it? Was still an interesting way to have my favorite little town pop on the radar for a while though! I still don’t know how people eat those buggers.
This is a strange phenomenon. I was driving down 97 in north Klamath County, saw the dark cloud and precipitation coming down. Driving hail for about 3 minutes, it was piled up on the road like several inches of snow. Came out of it and a minute later, the sun was out. It was like someone was flipping a switch. Fine, crazy hail, fine, carry on.
In 2007 or 08, a semi full of red wine bottles overturned in Portland. People were climbing mountains of broken glass and finding still-full bottles. It was pretty shitty wine but went on for quite a while. Someone I know went back several times.
Two-Buck Chuck
In 2011, I was a tow truck driver in Eugene and a truck full of mash from one of the breweries lost its load on Delta highway. It essentially turned the highway into a giant oil slick. Trying to get through that mess to load up all of the cars involved in the ensuing pileup was fun.
I was camping at a pretty remote hot spring in Eastern Oregon. It was a chilly night, so I slept in the bed of my pickup. When I woke up at 7:00, there was this stunning woman standing, naked in the hot spring. I look over and there are like 10 elderly men with fancy cameras taking her photo. Then I notice something up on the hill. It's another beautiful naked woman, holding long pieces of sheer fabric so they blow in the wind. More old men taking pictures. Turns out it was a magazine photoshoot, so in hindsight it wasn't that weird, but what a surreal way to wake up.
Amazing 👏😂
I’m jealous! lol!
It was definitely wasted on me!
Oh well!
Was surfing just north of Newport in the 2000's when a huge 100-200 person karate camp marched up the beach and started doing mass drills. It was straight out of Enter the Dragon with the coordinated uniforms, flags on the corners, and them all yelling as one. Thought I was going to have to challenge their master just to get back on the beach. edit: a letter
HAHAHA dude this is the dojo I was in as a kid. Honestly never thought of it from an outsiders perspective. Sensei Best (real last name) from Best Martial Arts Institute in Eugene would take his dojo once a year on a coast trip. This was like 15 years ago but they still do it. We would camp at Honeyman lake, do kata under the stars in silence, punch and kick trees and branches in the morning. Then go up to the dunes to practice on uneven steep ground seeing if you could throw an opponent shin in sand, stuff like that. We would also go line up on the beach waste deep in water and practice moves striking and kiaing and trying to have strong enough stances not to get knocked over by the waves, we would try to impose our will on the immensity of the seas. Actually a really cool lesse in humility and insignificance. The whole trip could left you thinking about the easy strength and unending nature of the world. I'm so grateful you posted this here because I had never thought about how cool and unique of an experience it was but it sticks with me to this day. Sensei Best and the whole team there are truly amazing and fundamentally formed who I am as an adult by how they mentored and taught me as a kid and young adult. They have classes for all ages and do all sorts of disciplines, aikido, judo, karate, hopkido, systema, taekwondo. Super welcoming community there, can't recommend highly enough. Here's the link if anyone's interested https://bmai.org/ I'm going to be laughing about this for weeks it's so hilarious to think of it from an outsiders perspective but it just seemed so normal for me having done it from a young age. And yeah those groups were big , the dojo had hundreds of students so I'm sure it looked crazy. Ahhh man thanks for sharing your experience you made my week 😆🥋😂😂
Alan Best is a great guy. I used to own a bookstore below his dojo, when it was on the second floor of a building at 13th and Willamette St.
Yep! I remember that book store. Now that whole area is Claim 52 right? That block used to be so different
I don't know what Claim 52 is, but the last time I was there, there were more restaurants, and medical buildings and parking lots had been replaced by student apartments.
I love Reddit for these random interactions 🤣
I was on another subreddit where two Marine veterans realized that they actually trained together. They hadn't spoken to each other in years.
You should write Sensei Best a letter and let him know. Impacting a person's entire life for the better is a pretty amazing thing.
Years ago I was on a bus in Portland on my way downtown. Two women in their early 20’s got on the bus and sat down next to each other. Then they started taking turns slapping each other in the face. This wasn’t playful little slaps either, it was full force SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! The rest of the passengers on the bus looked on in stunned silence as this went on and on for a long time. Finally a guy across the aisle turned to them and said something like “Is everything OK? Is there a problem? Do you need some assistance?” One of the women turned and yelled at him: “Mind your own business!! We’re having fun!” A few stops (and more slaps) later they both calmly exited the bus together. I never saw them again.
Sounds exactly like Portland. I was walking back from a timbers game and heard a woman in a wheelchair screaming and accusing someone next to them of trying to take advantage of them because they were handicapped, and I mean screaming. I asked if everything was OK and was told exactly that; mind your own business lol. And I guess it's a good point but still wild to just walk past like it's not happening.
Ok I fully believe this one
Fetish people? It tracks for Portland, tho'
I was driving through the Ochoco mountains from Big Summit Prairie to Paulina, in late May 2020. This route is a forest service road, and remote even for central Oregon generally. Early in the camping season, and early in the pandemic, there was *no one* around for miles. I ran across a pretty nice looking dispersed campsite, vacant, and went to check it out. I realized there were things tied to trees. A stuffed animal. Plastic doll heads. The entire face of a deer, skinned off its skull, impaled on a branch. It seemed like a good idea to not stick around.
Thank you for calling it central Oregon
It doesn’t get a lot more central than that! I was within 25 straight-line miles from Post.
Yeah I’m just used to everyone calling anyplace east of the cascades “eastern Oregon.” I had family in prineville - I’d drive though and around the ochocos all the time. That’s just straight up creepy what you saw.
I mean, everything east of 82nd ave in Portland is eastern Oregon, right? /s
I know of a spot like that way up and old forest service road that leads to some fairly remote forest. A couple of other somewhat similar things I've ran across in that area leaves no doubt in my mind that the area is occupied. I don't go up there alone or unarmed ever anymore. Definitely not at night either. People are in those woods somewhere doing some effed off stuff. The Willamette Valley is full of surprises.
It was legitimately the only time in my life where I would have felt safer if I had been armed.
Wow I have been up there a lot and gone through the random weird houses and mill out there but never saw anything that creepy!
Saw some stuff like that at a dispersed site on Mt Hood once. No deer face. But baby doll heads, giant toy insects and spiders, all wired up/nailed to trees and in branches I figure it's assholes "marking their territory".. aka, flipping the bird to Leave No Trace because *they* probably camp there *semi* regularly The deer face definitely sounds like someone with a sicker sense of humor, though
Sounds like something a former college roommate would do. She was already doing that to stuffed animals. Maybe she escalated to real animals. Icky.
Who TF does that?
Once, I was out at Cape Arago. I was looking at the ocean and saw movement in the water. It was a deer swimming in the ocean about 10-15 yards out. I thought that she was drowning and getting swept out yet she slowly started making progress and made it to land.
Have also seen deer or maybe elk swimming in the ocean
Way back in 2000, Dove Lewis Emergency Animal Hospital had a satellite clinic by mall 205. We would accept injured wild birds and ship them off to the Audubon Society when they opened in the morning. One busy night with a packed waiting room, a lady walks in with a bird with a broken wing. Only this isn't a robin in a shoebox like we normally see. No no. This is a full grown turkey vulture. Bird is about 3 feet long beak to tail with a 6 to 7 foot wingspan. And it's not in a box. The lady walks in the front door with the bird perched on her shoulder like she's Steve Mother Fucking Irwin. The woman calmly stands there like she had a parakeet on her arm instead of a painful wild creature. We grabbed the welders gauntlets and a big blanket and removed the bird gingerly from the lady while to her it seemed like just another Tuesday.
Ah, Mall 205… Please don’t ever change.
I think it already did.
Harvey the Rabbit is actually a painted over Texaco guy
Remember to wave at him as you drive by so you don’t get a flat tire.
Just drove past it last week and me and my friend were speculating on what it was originally. I thought the the muffler dude. I'd never seen a Texaco guy before, but it's obviously him. Thanks for solving a minor mystery!
At a rest stop between Bend and Eugene was a dead pig that was made to sit up straight wearing a top hat and monocle. 12 years later my daughter still won’t use those bathrooms because of that pig.
In a stall? Or..?
Sitting on a fence post.
I've written the full version of this story before, but one time on a road trip with a friend's family, we stopped in Shaniko, Oregon, at the gas station which is also the post office and the general store for a town with a population of 25. The kind woman working told us about the upcoming heritage parade, where they had to march up and down the street twice just to give the band time to play one full song. But in the middle of her explanation of the town's history, another customer walked in and she went dead silent. The tension in the air was thick, none of us dared to speak, something was clearly up. The man, wearing all black including a black cowboy hat, walked over to the condiment bar for a moment, and then left without buying or saying anything. Once he drove away, her attention returned to us, and she apologized. "It's just that.. well, that man has been coming in every day for almost two weeks. He never buys anything, not even gas. He just walks over, helps himself to a cup of horseradish, and leaves. No one in the entire town knows who he is." That was the great mystery of Shaniko, Oregon. I don't think it's too likely I'll find myself back in Shaniko again, but if I do, I think I might just have to make a silent stop for some horseradish.
I once saw a large homeless woman washing her vagina in one of the bubblers downtown. She just threw her leg up over the thing and started dipping and rubbing. I no longer drink from public water fountains.
[kind of like this???](https://www.reddit.com/r/tooktoomuch/s/CGJBDE9fvM)
Oh. My. God.
I wanna unsee that please.
That’s enough Reddit for me today
Same
I watched a homeless guy washing his underwear in one a while back. Rule \#1 Don’t drink from a Benson Bubbler.
Saw the same thing in Skidmore fountain, later that day saw a homeless man chuck a Snapple bottle at another homeless man
My dog drinks out of them too, locals know that only dogs and the street zombies use them 🤷🏻♀️
i thought they were for the birds!
Yeah... The birds
Portland Sleestack is petty weird!
Here. Lemmy save everybody the trouble of looking it up. https://www.oregonlive.com/living/2020/08/the-portland-sleestak-wanders-the-city-for-scares-smiles-and-general-weirdness.html
Wow, I've been in Portland for 25 years and never heard of this guy.
Sometimes seen in Chinatown.
Wow I just looked this up, and he is selling the original Sleestack on Etsy. It's been converted from a costume to a sculpture, but dang that's a piece of Portland weirdness history.
I had no idea this existed. Thank you!
Back in about 1998, I lived in Monmouth, and there was a city wide blackout. It was at night, and I was driving back on 99 from Salem, and it was really weird. If you've ever witnessed something like it, it's hard to explain, and it was definitely strange.
It's like pre-civilization, you realize how detrimental light pollution is to enjoying the night sky.
Absolutely!
Headed down 199 to the coast, and saw a guy with no pants dash across the road
Josephine County, checks out.
I was sitting at Yachats Brewing last year and saw a fully naked older man walking down the middle of 101. Apparently it wasn’t his first time that week, either.
Saw a guy pull his pants off, make some adjustments and pull them back on in the middle of Drake Park once.
Was he wearing underwear or rocking that Winnie the Pooh look?
I work at Portland Union station so I see lots of weird shit. The most recent a person jumped off the sky bride landed on a train. And eventually fell off. And limped away refusing medical assistance.
when i was 5 in 1980 we had ball lightning in Stayton that krept around for what seemed like an eternity. never seen it again in real life. One time when I was in HS my mom came in the front door covered in snow while in the back of the house we had the windows open to a hot spring day.
I was also 5 in 1980 in Stayton and I do not remember this, but I wish I did!
nice! It was in the big field that used to be behind Regis before they built the baseball fields and those apartments etc. off of Hollister. My mother just corrected me, it was August of '82. Did you go to Stayton schools? If you did there's no way we don't know each other, hit my DM's! My family moved every year but I went to Stayton Elem. for a couple years and the Jr. High for half a year. Head lice outbreak drove us to St. Mary's for the rest of that year haha.
I know exactly where you're talking about. I did go to Stayton public schools from first grade to high school graduation. I'll DM you. If you don't know me you might know some other members of my family.
Man on a bike wearing a full face of Juggalo make up on a summer day
Was this anywhere near the clown house in NE Portland?
Eugene, near a McDonald's.
Sounds more like Springfield 😂
Two teenage boys riding a single skateboard as a means of transportation
Damn, that is impressive!! Not a longboard? I can't imagine trying to skate with someone else's weight and balance on the board either way though lol
I've seen some variant of this multiple times, and it's cute and fun every time.
Downtown Portland several years ago, saw a man riding a bicycle with a basket and inside the basket was a giant paper mache pickle. Immediately after that, we went to eat at Deschutes and sat on the patio. It was packed (full patio) and all of a sudden, across the street from us, an impromptu performance piece started up: girls dressed as the undead started popping up out of the bamboo stalks, a Dorothy from the wizard of oz skipping down the street, and the kicker….a man in a wheelchair came *flying* down the hill, screaming. We were all a bit stunned, but at the end, the group all stood together and bowed. Not sure what the plot was, if there was one. We all clapped because it was pretty entertaining and very unexpected!
In Portland about 15 years ago, I believe it was out in front of Powells. Some guy was mumbling to himself acting all weird, then suddenly turned to this dad and his young daughter and smacked her then ran off. The funny part about it though was the guy had long hair, so after he ran off the dad turned to me and my friend and was like “Did you see that woman just hit my kid?!” He was furious and girl was crying and pretty shaken up. I’m pretty sure the fact that he thought the guy was a woman is the only reason he didn’t try and kick his ass
I didn't see this thank god but I know someone who did, A few years ago I lived in Central Oregon, a man was arrested for having sex with a dead deer on the side of the road, it was his second arrest for having sex with a dead deer on the side of the road
Ew.
Driving in my neighborhood in NE, saw a fully and completely naked woman wandering around. Didn't seem to be suffering or anything, just literally naked in the middle of the day in public, taking a walk. I know this is relatively tame for Portland but I am from the south and had never seen anything like that before! I was also with my MIL in the car and we both were shocked to silence lol. The woman did have a mask on though, so good for her for being COVID cautious.
I had just moved back to Portland after two years in New York and three in Minneapolis, and I was sitting outside a restaurant at the corner of SE 26th & Clinton, not far from where I lived. If you don't know it, there's a four-way stop there, with a coffee shop on one corner, a former porn theatre on another, a Hawaiian restaurant (or at least there was at the time) on another, and then this space that always changed every six months or so. The streets are big but Clinton wasn't that busy back in those days. As I'm waiting for my food, down Clinton street comes this guy on a big, old-fashioned red bike. He has really long, stringy hair, he's not wearing a shirt, and he's towing something behind him. As he goes by, I see that it's a Radio Flyer red wagon with a huge pot plant in it, tied down with bungie cords. The guy was shouting, "God bless you! God bless! God bless everyone!" It felt good to be back among my people.
I was in Astoria. A hearse pulled up. Then like 30 clowns spilled out and ran amok on the street for a bit, then got back in the hearse and drove off.
Going south in a van on I-5 in the Terwilliger curves in the daytime. There was a car next to us with two couples in it. The woman in back was naked from the waist down and the man was on the floor going down on her. The couple in front acted as if there was no one in back.
205 near Oregon City, three lanes. I was in the middle lane at the speed of other cars. Dude in a truck passes me at high speed in the slow lane. No driver side door, no seat belt. 😱
You've never been to Mexico
Oregon Vortex: saw a glass soda bottle roll up hill. It short circuited my brain. I still think about that experience often.
When I was young I was there in the cabin with the wonky floors and a kid straight up collapsed and had a massive seizure. Part of me thought he was a plant because after that everyone was like “oh shit bro it was the eeeenergies” but I was also mind-blown
There’s a spot on that incline where I stood and I felt like I was being pushed in all directions by some kind of force. And I had that broom in my hand at the broom spot and that broom moved my hand to where the broom wanted to be. I also saw the guides face morph at the spot at the end where people’s heights shuffle.
Naked very sexy woman downtown protesting by herself (with a sign and slogan) trying to raise awareness about the “barbaric practice of circumcision”. Screaming “babies cannot consent” to befuddled (and possibly aroused) passerby
Well. She got your attention, didnt she?? 😂
Yes! And TBH she is right
Amen! And you still remember it. Point made, naked lady!
It's certainly an interesting protest but she's 100% right
Agree
I was riding my bike through a remote part of the rogue river valley - way up in the hills. Very dense vegetation, a one lane gravel type of road. No cell service. I came across a vehicle that had been flipped and was burning. The fire was making it’s way to a tree nearby. I used all the water I brought to put out the fire. I couldn’t imagine how that car got these, or who has lit that car on fire. I had seen no one the whole time. It was pretty surreal. When I got down to the river, I called 911 from a camp host’s landline.
One night I was driving across a bridge over the Tualatin river when I saw a man dressed all in black walking on all fours like a cat along the top of the cement barrier between the road and the bridge railing. There were no street lights over the bridge, so I didn't see him until I was just about to pass by. Not sure what that was about.
Ninja training. He probably lost points because you noticed him.
Haha, maybe so. Suburban ninja.
When I was at Crater Lake I encountered a man in full wedding dress hiking the rim trail.
I saw a BMW driver use their turn signal the other day in Medford.
Probably not the weirdest but the first thing that comes to mind is driving into Ashland and seeing the [Naked Lady](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aclu-says-oregon-woman-has-right-to-bike-naked-local-law-begs-to-differ/) biking in her hemp thong. She was very tan.
Maybe not the weirdest but the funniest thing is the old guy who practices his sweet sword moves at Millers Landing Park in Bend. Like he’s a ninja or old timey knight. I think he thinks it’s tai chi but whatever it is it’s hilarious.
I was running on a trail and saw a creepy doll on a bench in the woods. On my way back 30 minutes later, it wasn't there anymore.
One time I was in Bush Park in Salem and there was this lady in full black leather cowboy gear practicing her bull whip.
The site of the famous attack owl a few years ago.
This time she'll be prepared
The very same. Around that time period too actually
Classic Oregon weirdo
They say you aren’t a real Portlander until you’ve seen someone walking bare naked along the side of the road. Happened to me in 2021, on the 205. Lady just… letting it all hang out. Walking along the shoulder.
Seen this in Eugene on the edge of UO campus, but it was a guy letting all hang out in 2021.
In a blues bar, Cruella Deville and a gangster walked in and made a lap to make sure everyone notices then. A little while later a pirate walked in (man with a real hook hand that really leaned into it with how he dressed and talked) and kept trying to buy us drinks because we weren’t clapping enough for the band?! Then he pressed a older tiny Italian guy from Boston, and this guy wasn’t having any of it. Suddenly we hear Italian guy yell “fuck off” to the pirate and everyone laughs and claps. Then a younger woman walks in and suddenly everyone is talking about her being on drugs because she had some odd behaviors (very clearly autistic stimming). Definitely my oddest experience in Oregon so far.
Cape meares loop highway has been closed for like 15 years. My girlfriend and I would walk it to bayocean and short beach. We decided to get off the highway and explore one time. About 30 feet from the road was about 100 used condoms nailed individually to a Sitka spruce.
Driving to work very early east on Denney Rd. Nobody else around. A massive very green fireball streaked across the sky in perfect view. I literally braced for impact, thinking it was the end of the world and I happened to have a front row seat. Next to St. Helens blowing its top off live, it’s the most stunning natural event I’ve ever witnessed.
When I was a teen a fishing boat broke up and dumped tons of Thai sticks (weed) so everyone on the south coast was picking up bundles of weed washing up on the beachand the cops were trying to stop it but eventually they gave up and everyone got high as fuck for about a month. You could tell some of it smelled like diesel but a lot of it was pretty good. You could hardly give away weed for quite a while. It was like a festival.
The people in Cave Junction in the midst of forest fires a few years ago. They seemed traumatized, and one old man at the grocery store was denying the existence of the heavy smoke which was limiting visibility drastically. Felt really surreal and quite creepy.
3 "stars" making a triangular shape but then changing positions with each other. At times it looked as if there was some sort of pattern/orchestrated movement to them, at other times it was just completely random with no rhyme or reason. This was during the meteor shower in the summer of 2016 in Silverton, Oregon, and I know of 2 other eye witnesses who confirm seeing the same thing in the same area..
Dude. I saw this exact thing about 20 years ago in the woods up near McKenzie Bridge. The three 'stars' were moving north in perfect formation, then suddenly, all three instantly started moving southeast. Never left formation, no sound, no turning/banking. Just one minute flying due north, next moment they were headed SE. That was weird, for sure.
I love it up that way. I see something every night it seems like that just blows my mind. An incredible place.
I saw the exact same thing in Seattle about 30 years ago, mid summer.
We saw this same exact thing in St Helens in 2000!
Oddly strange as OP implied they are from AZ. I was in south Phoenix when the same phenomenon happened for the second time in 2011. The first time was 97 I think. Super weird to see. Three lights in triangle formation seemed to be at about airline height and changed formation a few times and then took off.
I used Waze in its early days to navigate to a family home on the outskirts of Culver in farm country. I had done the drive in the daytime, but left late from work and doubted myself. I trusted the machine, and it ultimately navigated me down someone's private farm dirt road from a pitch black stretch of 55mph side road at 10pm. After realizing the mistake and turning around, I'm driving in the dark and come across this barefoot woman in shorts swinging gas cans as she walks along the shoulder of the road. She doesn't acknowledge me as the only car on the road for miles, I have no idea how she can see where she's going, but she just keeps swinging and walking. Times like that I regretted not having a dash cam to capture the experience.
First day working in the woods in central Oregon outside Sisters, and came across a uniquely-shaped burnt out tree that had been painted and adorned with accoutrements to make it look like some kind of weird cowboy with it’s wang out pissing into a toilet on the side of the forest road. Wish I could post photos in the comments cuz it was so random and strange. Great intro to weird Oregon. I absolutely love it!
Once when I was living in deep NE PDX I brought home a big charcoal grill that my work was getting rid of after upgrading the one we’d use for company cook outs. I cleaned it all up and planned a little kick back with some friends that coming weekend, only to wake up and find the grill missing when the time came. We got by, still had a good time, but imagine my surprise when the grill showed back up a few nights later - right on my back patio where it was last seen. I have no idea who used that grill or for what, and I never took the chances to find out as it went straight to the dump after that.
I went into a home’s basement in the Ladd Addition in Portland to turn off the water and the entire basement was full of BDSM apparatus, tables, wheels, swings, “chairs”, beds, things to hang on, be hung on, stretchers….there are at least 20 things if I recall. But the part that was weird was walking into the master bedroom there was a heavy chain hanging from the ceiling with a small English Bulldog sitting in front of it. Like who chains a nice puppers like that? Upon approaching I saw that the chain wasn’t for the dog but for a human. It was also a shock to walk into Walter Cole aka Darcelle’s house the first time. It was 7:00am and he still had lipstick stained around his lips from working late the night before. It was so out of context. He was a beautiful soul. I worked for him for almost 20 years.
Bagpiper Vader on a Unicycle. Weird… but also makes me happy.
In case you didn’t know, he’s called the Unipiper and he is a really nice guy. I worked some charity events with him and he is super chill.
Is he still here?
Ooh, likely not the same person, but I once saw a man on a unicycle, juggling with a baby in a backpack.
Was it one of the days he also had his Santa trim on his Vader costume? And did the bagpipes shoot fire that day or nah?
The Unipiper is an amazing dude who just loves spreading joy and love to people. He also picks the song first and then the costume, apparently. Which is neat.
In 09 some friends and I were walking through SE between Stark and Belmont on like 43rd or something. I hear bagpipes and ask my friends if they heard them. They told me I was crazy but just as we step onto Belmont and look left, here comes the Unipiper! It was pre-Vader and flames, but it was still super cool. Saw him again a few minutes later as it seemed like he was doing Hawthorne > Belmont loops. Got to see him with the full Vader and flames at a Star Wars trivia benefit for Feee Geek years later, stoked that he found his niche and scratched it.!
Naked bike ride in Portland!
Mine is a crash at the naked bike ride in Portland. Everyone wanted to help but then realized everybody was nude
What, you can't help a nude person?
I mean yeah but it was the reaction and realization for everybody involved…awkward
Guy taking his pet goat to see the Peter Airedale
For me it was the student age woman and her friend walking down the street near PSU. The woman was completely topless while her friend was not. And they were just walking along. I say this weird only because I have never seen it before, not because I consider it wrong or illegal.
So we are camping at the Oregon coast between Florence and Reedsport. We see this bright light coming towards us along the coast line. At first, I think it’s the Coast Guard helicopter, since they fly along coast line all the time. But there is noise at all. All of the sudden, it takes a 45 degree turn away from the coastline towards the ocean but the light stays as bright for a very long time until it disappears all of the sudden. A few moments later same thing is repeated again. No noise. The light stays as bright as it takes sharp turn away from the coastline and into the ocean (away from land).
I love ufos! Sup, neighbors?
My wife and I were walking in a park after dark. We had our 100+lbs dog with us (Kangal). There were no lights and he started barking at the trees on the side of the path. I used my phone flashlight to see what was up and some weirdo was just standing their silently.
But was he naked or in costume?
Are you saying that standing silently in a park at night makes one a wierdo?
In the mid ‘90s a friend and I picked a random trail in the cascades to start a hike. We go 2-3 miles in and find a coffee can, I lift it up to pack out garbage and found tp under it. I look around and found a latrine nearby. We went up the trail a bit, and found a clearing with tents, teepees and a watchtower. We got the hell out of there, before we were spotted. A while community up in the mountains. Off the grid.
I swear I heard a squatch in the tillamook national forest while camping a few years ago
I had something similar happen a few years ago, but it was Washington and not Oregon. I was doing the Tour de Blast bike ride from Toutle, WA up to Johnston Ridge and back. It was on the return leg, about 10-15 miles left in the ride. I was riding thru a forested stretch of road when suddenly I heard loud “shrieks” coming from the forest, spaced out over several seconds. It was a 3-5 second shriek. Pause. Another shriek. Pause. And another. Unlike anything I’d ever heard before, but definitely not a human. My rational brain knows it was an animal of some sort and that Sasquatch is a myth, but man I could really understand how the whole Bigfoot legend sprung to life after experiencing that. It creeped me out big time. I did the Tour de Blast two more times after that, and I always pedaled a little faster when I went thru that section.
We didn’t even consider a squatch until like a month later when we heard the recordings of a coveted Bigfoot call online. idk man, but it sounded just like the thing we heard. Like part animal part something else you can’t really describe. I grew up in northwood territory and never had an animal call give me that kind of physical reaction before. Blood runs cold, eyes wide, frozen response with hairs on end. We literally packed up and went home in the middle of the night we were scared to death and didn’t want to find out what it was 😅😂
Can't really think of anything off the top of my head, but one thing that does come to mind is more sad than weird. One time, my friend (now wife) and I went to Wendy's in Portland for some lunch before her dentist appointment (I offered to give her a ride there since nobody else responded to her messages). As we spend 45 minutes there just chatting and eating, I watched an older, presumably homeless gentleman pick up his phone, talk on it, and set it down to hang it up...Except there was no phone, it was his hand doing the 🤙thing. He flirted and built up the courage to ask someone on a date (first call), talked to his friends about this new wonderful girl he'd met (second call), talked to the girl again and asked her if she wanted to move in with him (third call), talked to his parents about how nervous he was to ask her to marry him and telling them he loved them and appreciated them listening (fourth call), called his friend to ask him to be his best man (fifth call), got in an argument and had a huge blowup with I think an ex (sixth call), talked to his parents again about what kinda baby clothes he should buy or if there's something he isn't thinking of and was worried he was gonna be a terrible dad (seventh call), said "this is he" and started crying (eighth call), and then said nothing before leaving a really sad "I just wanted to hear you again" voicemail (ninth call). He threw his frosty at the window and walked out mumbling to himself angrily. I remember this so vividly even ten years later because it felt SO real, like I just watched a mentally ill man recreate the trauma he'd experienced that he could never get over and was permanently damaged from. My heart hurt from the thought that he probably did that every day like a broken record, and no one ever helped him process his tremendous grief. It's just something that has stuck with me ever since, and it shaped my view on homeless people and my compassion towards them and the stories they can or can't tell. I can't put in to words how his conversation just basically put me in an existential crisis for a few days thinking about how life can be like that. I dunno, I guess I appreciate that moment for what it was.
I don’t think an upvote is enough for this experience. Heartbreaking. I congratulate you on hearing him, noticing him, most people probably ignored him. You didn’t, that gave him worth even if he didn’t notice. You gave his pain reality, that really worth so much.
What's actually weird for me is realizing that, as I was telling the story again, I now am no longer curious about what exactly happened. Ten years ago, I REALLY wanted to know wtf happened and guessed scenarios in my head for a few days after. I'm glad I noticed. You're right in your assumption, the restaurant was running as if everything was totally normal and he was just brushed aside to a corner to do his thing, basically. It sucks to think that he likely has passed since then, too, but I hope he's no longer in pain regardless.
So many stories involving Powell’s! Here’s mine: left Powell’s on a hot day and had my car window down. Stopped at a light and there was this lady on a corner with her arms outstretched, moaning really loudly and swaying back and forth. Took me a min to realize that she had no pants on and was masturbating with a scooter handle. Sent my husband a text that I was NEVER riding one of those scooters.
Weird or creepy? I can tell you all kinds of horrific tales from the Gold Rush era of Jacksonville and the ghosts that still exist from it. Literally and figuratively....
Do tell, sounds interesting.
Found a goat in a rat area between Eugene and Florence. It was like 2am in the middle of a pretty wooded and not heavily populated area. Just some random goat. A few other travelers arrived and no one wanted to abandon the goat. Lots of predators and fast traveling cars in that area. Finally, someone offered to take it home and see if they could find it’s owner in the morning. We had no way to safely transport that goat without it eating seats and our stuff. Every time we go by there now either my husband or I will say “I gotta go check for goats.”
naked homeless man pooping in a public drinking fountain
I found a giant pile of crap and there was a mini Vaseline bottle inside of it. It was not pushed into it. That little Vaseline bottle came out of someone’s ass.
They said weirdest thing not best day evah
Naked homeless women rinsing her vagina in a public drinking fountain
In the early 1990s, I was driving SB on I5 through Wilsonville with my mom and brother. We passed a wood paneled station wagon in the slow lane, and Mom glanced over at the driver. She sped on but quickly hit the brakes, pulled over, and erupted in laughter. She then jumped back on the freeway and paced alongside the station wagon. She frantically pointed out the driver and told us kids to get a good look. Younger male, dark hair... I couldn't get a good look at his face because there was a pair of women's baby blue silky underwear with picot trim on his head. The crotch covered his nose and mouth while he looked through the legholes. We all laughed our asses off and took our exit. As I looked back, a big black contractor bag was visible in the cargo area. Edited: date range... cripes, I'm old.
One summer my son and I were driving aimlessly through Christmas Valley near the middle of the state. Despite the cheery name, this part of Oregon is pretty dry and desolate. There wasn't much to see, but our map showed some sand dunes nearby (we didn't have service, so we couldn't use GPS). Using the map we drove and we drove and we drove. We never did find the sand dunes, but we passed multiple sites where RVs and trailers were pulled into a circle Mad Max-style, surround by trash and wrecks and tattered tarps flapping in the wind. It was beyond freaky. We gave up on the dunes and beat a hasty retreat to the cozy confines of LaPine.
Six or 7 years back I’m on the trolley with the fam and two people start singing their _asses_ off. Turned out they were from the Portland opera. It was amazing.
The way people drive never ceases to amaze me. Literally killing you with kindness. Like, go already people! Stop trying to be overly polite. Also: please Zipper Merge
I saw DB Cooper and Sasquach riding a Tandem Bike in the Lents neighborhood of Portland.
No so much a strange thing to have seen but a strange person to have experienced. My brother and I were camping down near sisters and on our way out of town we picked up a hitchhiker and his dog right outside of town. We drove him all the way to Salem as he told us of his travels. The story that stood out the most is the one he told us of his magic stone. He said that he was deep in the woods and he was being hunted by wolves. He ran and ran and finally he fell down in a dried up river bed and below him was a magical stone that he held up above him and as he held his stone he prayed to Jesus with all his might and even though the wolves had surrounded him they dispersed and left him alone. He told us that ever sine then he carried the stone with him everywhere and it protected him. As he said this he produced a large quartz river rock from his backpack, it was at least a foot across and had to weigh at least 20-30 pounds. Interesting fellow. I hope that he is doing well.
In Sherwood at the Taco Bell, I was in the drive thru once years ago and my boyfriend and I saw a man get out of his car in front of us and just start peeing. Another time, the field behind the Sherwood Walmart, driving past one day we saw a man standing in the middle of the field, gazing out, no shirt on, no idea what he was doing. My boyfriend honked and the dude turned and looked at us lol
Saw a black cougar in the middle of a forest road a few years ago. It was huge and scared the crap out of me and my friend. Pure unadulterated danger and power as it snarled at us and leaped 10 feet into the brush. Another time I cam around a blind corner to a stop light and the road was covered with a load of purple-reddish mush. Got further down and there was a dump truck on the side of the road with the whole front end covered with it. I figured it was sugar beet waste from the canning factory. The guy came around the corner too fast and had to stop at the light and the slop kept moving over the top. Funniest part was the drivers window was open. If you've ever smelled sugar beet juice you know how gross it is. I can imagine him getting back to the shop looking like a purple mutant.
From AZ, visit Oregon once a year to see family. This happened years ago, probably early 2000s as I was just a little kid. We had just got our rental and we drove around Portland because we had a day before we needed to go to the coast and wanted to explore the city. I swear I saw a man with a suit made of money waiting to cross the street. It didn't look like fabric, but actual dollar bills sewn together.
Downtown Oregon City, about 15 years ago. Sunday afternoon, pretty deserted. They must have some kind of PA downtown. It was playing Christmas carols. In the summer.
Anyone that’s been driving around Central Oregon and randomly comes upon the old Rajneesh compound knows the “weird” feeling that comes over you.
Naked people running or biking through the streets. In a legit race.
About 10 years ago my lady and I were out on a walk near the Franz Bread Outlet on 12th in Portland, and we heard some yelling from someone who was obviously intoxicated. We turned the corner and saw a haggard old topless lady yelling at an old dude in an electric wheelchair. "Gimme bra back" Thing is, she coulda just reached down and took it since she was walking so close to him ... But hey its Portland ...
Truck camper lodged and abandoned midway across fenced pedestrian overpass on 205.
Driving down 1-5 around Wilsonville long ago we see a guy walking on the side of the freeway naked except his shoes. Had a front and back pack. No clothes. It was a hot sunny day though so..
I found a monkey in Avery Park in Corvallis.
First week we moved here definitely saw a guy practicing with nunchucks while skating boarding through a city park. Weird but more so ill advised.
That's just Chris
Being in the audience at a Jim Spagg show
Probably the tweeker washing his/her butthole out in a Benson Bubbler in downtown Portland. I only saw the video of it, and I really wish I hadn't.
White guy with dreads!
It made world news, years later still being re-broadcast, getting a small royalty check for yearssss... my neighbor in the mid 90s, a little old lady in Corvallis, had a tan, typical looking Chihuahua. She spoiled him wirh McDs chicken nuggets regularly. One particular time, in the McDs drive through on 9th St, she was buying him some nuggs like usual, and the money she had gotten ready, slipped out of her hands. She was looking all around, needing to drive forward, anxiously looking for the elusive dollar bill... so she popped her door open to see if it had fell down to the floorboard... and SHE fell out. Her car was an automatic, the door shut and was still engaged. The damn Chihuahua got into the driver's seat. Standing with his little paws on the wheel, and no cars in front of him, he "drove" himself across the street to Taco Bell. America, and the world, loved it... the Chihuahua didn't want McDonald's, "Yo Quiero Taco Bell!"
When I was a kid, my family was driving into Pendleton along I-84, and a fire truck was beaming through with its sirens on. A few seconds later we passed a car on the shoulder that was completely engulfed in flames with nobody near it. Everyone else was just driving past it like it was nothing. What was weird is that not even the fire truck that passed us earlier stopped there and must’ve been going somewhere else. It looked like the car had already been on fire for a long time, so it was very strange.
Eugene, 18th & Chambers. Guy in a full Samurai Ninja outfit, sword and all, taking a stroll down the street. Have not seen him in a bit. There’s another guy who walks around the forest in Knights armor as well, never have seen him, but know others who have.