Interesting post on Portland. Well written. I agree with some of it but not all of it, but it is interesting to see the conclusions he made.
(via Lost Oregon)
Posts Tagged ‘Oregon’
Portland
Friday, January 29th, 2010License Plates
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009Oregon is bringing back the blue-and-yellow license plates from my youth, which I was super disappointed to discover I could no longer get when I moved back.
They will be $100 with the money going to the Oregon Historical Society which I know has been struggling this year and also the State Capital Foundation. Wish I could justify it – I love a good Historical Society, and this is definitely my history here. Maybe as a treat next year, I’ll splurge and get one.
In which Dean and Michele come to Portland; we see more of the coast
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
View from Ecola Park.
Michele and Dean came for a visit. They were here for a few days and then drove to Coeur d’Alene to watch the Ironman.
Michele and Dean on Hwy 101, north of Cannon Beach.
While they were here, we headed to the northern part of the coast to drop them off for a bike ride. We got a late start, so they ended up only riding for a few hours, but they said it was a completely beautiful ride. They went over the passes on Hwy 101! They took the ride that I always say “wow, these are brave and crazy people to climb this mountain on a bike.”
Dean said the only really scary part was going through the tunnel, despite the fact that you can hit a button as you enter it that causes a light to flash and indicate “Bikes in the tunnel” “Bikes in the tunnel!” This is supposed to tell car drivers to go 30 mph, but I’ll be honest and say that this is the first time I noticed that I was supposed to go 30 when the light flashes, so someone might want to make that a little clearer. I wonder if I will ever be a person on a bike who sees a hill and says “Oh neat!” instead of “oh shit!”?
We picked them up just south of Tillamook and drove into Lincoln City just before sunset. We ended up eating at Fathoms and watching the sunset.
Lookign toward Cape Foulweather from our room at Inn at Otter Crest.
We stayed at Inn at Otter Crest again, which was alright. The restaurant is closed now, and it sounds like the hotel is undergoing a change of management. We stayed on the headland side, right up front. Very beautiful, and we had a few colonies of harbor seals in front of us, which were great to watch and listen to the next morning. We also watched the fog roll in and out as we waited for low tide.
Michele tidepooling.
Wandered down to the Devil’s Punchbowl tidepools, where we saw more hermit crabs than I’ve ever seen in a tidepool, and some spider crabs, and a ton of anemone. No urchins this time, although we did find bits of their tests. Given that urchins are often signs of an unhealthy tidal pool, that was great.
Michele, Brian and Dean inside the Devil's Punchbowl.
We wandered into the punchbowl during low tide (I’m so overly cautious about this due a number of people getting trapped there) and then up to Mo’s for some clam chowder, the reward of tidepoolers in Oregon. We saw some whales too – but I didn’t get a good enough look to identify. I’ll say greys, but I think they were smaller than that.
Finished up the day by going to the Oregon Aquarium and watching all the fish. They’ve raised the rates to $15/person, ouch! Maybe buying a membership again makes sense. We’ll see. I told Brian that maybe some marine biology or oceanography classes would be a nice birthday or Christmas present for me. I also think I should go volunteer at the Aquarium, it’d make me pretty happy. We’ll see, I’d have to pay for a hotel or camp, so that will have to wait until I have a job, and if I have a job, I’ll not have too much time to do it.
Then, off to Coeur d’Alene to watch the Ironman – I’ll post some pictures of that later. It was strange to be there without saying hello to Wilma, but fun to wander downtown.
More walking
Monday, May 11th, 2009
View from the Cascade Head trail.
It was a pretty good weekend.
Friday night, we walked down to Moon and Sixpence in Hollywood for a beer or two. The bartender there that night was super nice – I really have to make myself sit at the bar more rather than at a table because I like talking to people. After we were there, we decided to walk back on Broadway. Which meant that we needed to stop off for a snack. One plate of nachos, jalepeno poppers and a jalepeno-infused blood orange margarita later, and we continued our walk. Nice that we can walk to so many neighborhood from our house, depending on mood. All in all, we walked for about an hour and a half.
Saturday was pretty mellow – Brian had some work to wrap up and I wandered over to the Hollywood farmers’ market. Not so much my thing, I’ll head back to the PSU one next week. We cooked out, and that’s about that.
Sunday we got up and went to a hike on the coast. I had a few planned out, but the first made it difficult to determine how to get the day pass, so I’m going to do more research before we try it.
The next one we wanted to do – Harts Cover – turned out to be difficult to find (unmarked road to the trail off of Hwy 101). We eventually found the turn-off, but it’s not open for the season yet.
Brian just past some tree hazards on Cascade Head trail.
While we were looking for Forest Road 1861, we found a different trail – Cascade Head, and that ended up being the trail we took. Afterwards, we found out that it was closed due to tree hazards, but someone had torn the sign down and tossed it off the trail. We walked along a stream which provided a great background to a nice forest hike. Eventually, we came to the tree hazard – there were a lot of trees down, probably from the huge windstorm we had last year. There were a good number over the trail, and we limbo’d under them or jumped over them when possible.
Trail interuption.
Evenually, after a few switchbacks, the trail was gone, eaten by a tree. We could see the tree down the slope, and after carefully finding some footing, we navigated our way across the gaping hole left in its wake. It was pretty slippery, and with a good drop to the left of us, it was definitely dangerous. We continued climbing for a bit, and then came upon another gaping hole – the one was probably four or five times the size of the last. We could see a not-too-easy way for us to get across it, but at this point, it sounded like a good time to turn around and head back to the car so we’d have some time to play on the beach.
There had been a car parked by mine when we started up the trail, and we didn’t pass anyone so I was surprised to see it gone when we got back to the trailhead. Brian was not surprised, as he noticed the underwear they left behind, which lead us to a spirited conversation about why you always see that people leave their underwear behind. I don’t get that at all – I can’t imagine hiking in remote areas with nothing particularly protecting my more delicate bits.
After noticing where a car had driven off the road down the mountain slope toward the stream (a long time ago), we hit the road. It’s eery seeing a detached bench carseat snugged up against a stand of trees, and when Brian pointed out the bits of the hood that were still left in one of the trees, I vowed to drive even more carefully than normal. Yikes.
We didn’t do a lot more on the coast. We drove down towards Newport, and pulled over at Beverly Beach. We saw two whales closer to the shore than I’ve ever seen them before – they were right on the line where the waves start to break, and they looked big enough to be greys, so I’m not sure what that’s about – have any of you read about that behavior before? They were there long enough for us to see three or so bursts of air, maybe 10 minutes. Very strange, and it didn’t look like the water would be deep enough for them there, but maybe there was a drop-off we couldn’t see.
So all in all a good weekend – an urban hike, a coastal forest one, and whales.
Monday, April 6th, 2009
South Falls at Silver Falls State Park.
We got in a great hike yesterday even though we got a late start.
We drove down to Silver Falls State Park, and bought an annual pass for the state parks. We hate to waste money so that means we will go hiking in state parks at least seven more times this year. Should be easy, assuming neither of us decides to break a leg or something.
Anyhow, I distinctly remember doing this hike when I was a kid with my mom and sister. I remember that Gretchen and I were not really down with it, hiking just seemed like too much walking to us, and all of Oregon is pretty, we get it. Funny how perspective changes everything.
I had super grand expectations about getting in a number of the waterfalls (there’s a hike of ten waterfalls that we are talking about doing perhaps later in the summer), but after we got going, we realized that a) it was too late in the day to do much and the park would close before we did a lot of the waterfalls and b) going up is hard work when you are as out of shape as I am.
I can’t imagine where I’d be if I didn’t walk as much as I do, and didn’t work out five days a week. I am planning on adding more to my workout plan because clearly what I am doing is not quite cutting it.
We managed three waterfalls – South Falls, Lower South Falls and another one that we didn’t catch the name of (might have been just a springtime waterfall) but over which we got to walk on wooden planks.
Brian was impressed that the day lodge was super nice – there’s a cafe there (with FOUR vegetarian options. FOUR!) and a gift shop, and info about the park. It’s somewhat like a miniture toned-down version of the Timberline.
Behind South Falls.
The best part about South Falls is that after a hike down, you get to walk behind the waterfall. There’s a cave that is behind it, and you can stand there as long as you like and watch the water wall move in front of you. The mist feels phenomenal on your face. It’s my new plan to hike near waterfalls once per week in interest of skincare.
We hiked for about three hours – it was 73 degrees, and it felt like heaven to be out in the woods watching water and lichen and chipmunks.
After we got back to the parking lot, we decided to go to Salem for dinner. We couldn’t seem to find anything that appealed to us, and we weren’t in the mood for Mexican or Thai, so we ended up at McGrath’s, a restaurant that I’ve been going to since I was a little kid.
We had the worst meal I remember in a very, very long time, which surprised me as I ate there last year and had a completely fine meal. This time I was actually worried that Brian or I would end up with food poisoning. The salad was mushy – clearly the pears were old, and from the bottom of the can rather than fresh. It was drenched in dressing to the point of being sort of a lettuce soup rather than a salad, and the candied walnuts, instead of being cooked slightly in sugar, were encased in rocks of sugar (more sugar than nut, if you know what I mean).
The fish I had was old, and not good, and bland. I had decided to get a fish sandwich since we grilled fish the night before, and had asked for cheddar instead of tartar sauce. The cheddar was fried on the fish to the point of being hard.
It is the first time I’ve ever seen Brian order a prawn dish and not eat most of the prawns. The wait staff seemed great, but it took forever for the food to come out, with no apologies. The meal took almost two hours from the moment we were seated. Not what I had intended when I innocently suggested we grab a bite before heading back to Portland.
All in all, I think that’s going to have to be the last time I eat at McGrath’s. It was that bad last night.
However, we did have a nice walk around downtown Salem, and I got to see a building I didn’t remember but really love:
Capitol National Bank Tower in Salem, Oregon.
Today is gorgeous – 75 degrees, so I’m going to weed the backyard and take a long walk this afternoon. Gotta practice for another waterfall!
Longwinded rambles about the farmers’ market
Saturday, March 28th, 2009The farmers’ market today was awesome. It is raining steadily, and the crowds were just as thick as they always are, which makes me happy. Brian was astonished that I would think fewer people would go – it’s Portland, he said. Very few people with umbrellas either, heh. Both of us had rain-proof jackets. I had my rain hat on (a cabbie hat) and he has had a headache for three days, so the rain felt wonderful on his skull (crew cut again).
The best thing we bought today was a bag of nettles. Katie, Brian and I were talking about nettles over dinner at Lucca one night.
To date, after surgeries, and injured ankles and back and neck pains, and pulled teeth, burns and cat attacks, nothing stands out as pain quite like an Oregonian nettle sting does. When I think about pain, that’s the pain I picture, and if I focus on what it felt like that day, the hair on my arm actually rises. I remember what my mouth felt like (dry) and my face felt like (tight – the first time that happened) and exactly how it burned and burned. I think I was 13, we were staying in a cabin in the mountains, no clue where. I remember that I was bored and went for a walk and came back just perfectly to brush by that plant.
Our farmshare in Madison (Harmony Valley) would include them in the early boxes, so I’ve cooked with them before, adding them to pasta dishes. Gingerly, suspiciously.
Tonight, I am making pizza dough and we are going to have a nettle, garlic and olive oil pizza. I will also probably make a cilantro pesto pizza as we have left over pesto from last night. Brian is thinking about stinging himself with a nettle before I boil them, just to see what the deal is. I’m recommending against that.
The nettles were my last $2 in the farmers’ market budget. We got them from the mushroom people who are right up there with Groundwork Organics as my favorite vendors at the PSU farmers’ market. The mushroom people sold us the awesomely good dried shiitakes last year that we are still working on using up (a 5 pound bag, awesome to have), and the wild huckleberries that I gorged on and froze and make huckleberry pancakes with, and last week’s seabeans.
The mushroom people are great, because they are happy to sit and talk about how to prepare any of the unusual things they carry. They are going to have seabeans again next week, and she said I really have to get some for sushi since we didn’t use them that way last week. Cool, I can do that.
The person I liked the most today was an elderly woman — I’m guessing mid 80s. She was tiny, and dressed for the rain, but properly, very elegant. She had a good sized traditional black umbrella and she was talking to the oyster fisherman about which was the best type of oyster at this time of year. She was trying to decide which to get for her meal that night. I don’t know why that pleased me so much. She was clearly there on her own, in the rain with the rest of us, connected with the world and happy. That’s probably it, that’s my goal, that’s what I’m trying to achieve and maintain. Neat.
Photography 2008
Monday, February 23rd, 2009I’ve been meaning to put together a post of the best ten photographs I took last year. I had the pictures mostly picked out, and then got distracted so I thought I would post it today, better late than never.
It was interesting to consider a year’s worth of work and determine which I thought showed merit. It was a learning experience in itself to consider what makes a picture good, and what makes a picture merely mediocre.
These are not in any particular order, choosing a top ten was taxing enough!
Ironically, I have run into a bug recently on my laptop that prevents me from loading pictures directly through WordPress, so it’s funny that I’m getting around to it now.
Yaquina Bridge
Yaquina Bridge in winter.
This bridge in in Newport, Oregon in the central coast. We spent the night at a bed and breakfast and when we got up, everything was frozen from a rare cold snap. The sand crunched when we walked on it. We walked on the beach for several hours, and when I saw an opportunity to catch one of my favorite bridges from this angle, I took it.
Boiler Bay in winter
Winter shot in Boiler Bay.
We have many shots of the ocean from Boiler Bay, but this is one I took in the winter. The light on the coast is more beautiful than anywhere I’ve been, ranging from deeply grey and misty to orange to bright white. I caught this shot on a day when the light made all the colors turn very strange colors. I did not adjust this picture other than to crop it and resize it.
The Sound
Puget Sound.
We went whale watching in Puget Sound with my cousins. It was a great day to be out on the water. At various points rain threatened us but never it never actually did rain. Despite having fun trying to catch a whale with my camera, this ended up being my favorite picture of the day. I like that it is a color picture, but it could just as easily have been a black and white. This is what the Sound looks like to me, and it give me comfort when everything is grey. Can you tell I grew up in the Pacific Northwest?
Autumn
Autumn Japanese Maple.
I think this is the picture I got the most kudos on in 2008. I have a friend back in our former neighborhood who I try to walk to see once per week. I always have my camera with me, and when I came across this beautiful Japanese Maple in the fall with the light shining through it, I had to stop. Strangely, I only took one picture, and this is it, so I am glad that it turned out the way I wanted it. My eye is improving I think.
Pretty Glass
View from the bar at the Timberline.
Brian and I joined my sister and her family at the Timberline for a celebratory meal and an incredible overnight stay (seriously, you should do this. It was spectacular. Bring a swimsuit.). Brian and I stopped off at the bar before dinner to have a cocktail, and I wanted this shot.
The View
View from the Yaquina Head Lighthouse.
While we waited to make the climb up to the top of the lighthouse, I peeked into a few of the rooms. It was crazy windy out that day, and the salty sea spray was making everything dreamlike through the windows.
Five
Five near Hood River.
I am lucky that Brian like exploring as much as I do. He’s completely comfortable with me asking to turn around to see something and is content to go on long drives just to see what we can see. This was a spot we found on the way back from Mt Hood one day, somewhere between Government Camp and Hood River, off the main highway. I loved the greys and both of us have a thing for good fonts in unexpected places.
Shaniko
Old truck in Shaniko, Oregon.
One of the wanders we took in 2008 was to a small ghost town in central Oregon. It was the wool capitol of the world at one point, but now there are only 9 or so people that live nearby. It’s been preserved with the intent of attracting visitors, but is interesting to walk around and peer into windows. I loved how blue the sky was in contrast to the rust, and the angles of the light, the roofs and the horizon.
Sunset over the Bridge to Nowhere
Bridge To Nowhere in Astoria, Oregon.
This was a lucky catch of the sun, a storm, and a great reflection. I am fascinated by the light when I look at this, and definitely feel that this had much more to do with being at the right place at the right time rather than knowing my camera or framing the shot.
Where He Lives
Brian at Seal Rock.
Another lucky photo walk. We love the Oregon coast deeply, and tidepool every chance we get. We will contentedly walk the shoreline for hours on end, sometimes just watching the waves, sometimes taking pictures, other times collecting shells. If we are taking pictures we often go our seperate ways, and it’s interesting later that night to see what the other person thought was interesting. I looked up, saw him jumping over a tidepool, and loved the rocks in the background. Click. Probably my personal favorite, even though I think technically and artistically some of the others are much better.
I’m going to attempt to do this in January each year. It will be a good experience for me to see what I’ve learned to do over the course of the year.
hehe
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009Also, I’ve been chuckling for two days now over some proposed Oregonian mottos I read in an online community in which I am a member (this sentence was pretty awkward to write).
My favorite? Oregon: I get wet just thinking about it.
*snicker*
Shipwrecks
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
My sister and I at the Peter Iredale shipwreck.
If you are interested in shipwrecks, here’s a great PDF of a brochure from Oregon State Parks called “Graveyards of the Pacific” that I found today. I’ve been reading that a number of shipwrecks have been exposed due to the winter storms – mostly in southern Oregon. I’ll be tempted to go see what I can see, it’d be fun to explore a part of the coast I haven’t been to much since I was a kid.
Avoiding cleaning
Friday, November 7th, 2008I don’t have anything particularly miraculous to say, but I’m trying to avoid cleaning. I will get up and do it in a few minutes, but heh, don’t feel like it.
Snowing in Madison, today and tomorrow. Here, I am going to go into our backyard to cut some flowers for a small dinner party we are throwing tonight. I’m pretty gleeful about it too. And Mt Hood is snow covered again, so should I want snow? I can get to it really fast, hit Brian with a snowball and be home again to smell flowers. I’m pretty pleased by that.
Talked to some people at my local grocery store, New Seasons, and the woman packing my bags and one of the managers were telling me about the trip they were taking next week to the coast. One of the women mentioned they were taking a friend who had never seen the Oregon coast. She looked completely happy and full of anticipation, really excited to show the coast to someone who hadn’t seen it.
I sympathize with her entirely – when people come to visit us out here, I can hardly wait to show them the coast. When I was an angst-filled teenager, I’d stay up very late (o, two, three in the morning) stressing about things and reading. The only consistent way I could get to sleep was to close my eyes and focus on the Oregon coast. I’d picture the waves and the sand, and the wind. I could always tell how angry or stressed I was by how torn up the sand was – if it was pretty smooth, I’d go straight to sleep. If it was jumbled about, I’d picture storm waves crash and smoothing it out. It’s nice to be around people who understand how important the wild parts of the Oregon coast are.
Tomorrow night, we are having a birthday party for my friend Katie. It’ll be our first party in our new house (yeah, I know there’s some of you out there that are surprised it’s taken so long, heh). It’s making me think of all the birthday parties I’ve thrown for myself and for other people. Ellen, remember the cocktail party we had that went until 5 a.m., where the party broke into a dance party, and we danced the light out of our downstairs apartment? Or the birthday party in Madison where we had Mo’s Clam Chowder flown in from Oregon to surprise Brian for his 30th? Still the only surprise that’s been successful for that man.
Alright, I’ll go find a broom….