05/18/21 - Mount Shasta to Portland and Home

The next day, we pressed on to Portland. We expected the worst. Downtown was quiet. Our hotel, the Heathman, was open, but minimally staffed. There were two people who worked the desk, parked cars, assisted with the luggage, answered the phones, made reservations and so on. Our suite was designed to be a corporate hospitality suite with a fireplace, television monitor, heavy duty LAN router, wet bar and a wine cellar. Wine is a big business in the area.

We ate nearby at Southpark Seafood. They had set up outdoor dining on the street. We were under a marquee and had a powerful electric heater for added warmth. Wanting variety, we had the Chilled Seafood Feast, a collection of oysters, shrimp, dungeness crab and ahi poke. Then we had the paella with halibut, clams, shrimp, peas and bomba rice. Maybe we were missing the seafood of home.

We wandered around the neighborhood and dropped into Kinokuniiya, a Japanese book store where we bought wrapping paper and pencil cases. The streets were quiet, but not deserted. It felt like the central business district that it was, after business hours.

05/11/21 - Yachats and the Road to Orick

When the road reopened, we headed down to Orick and checked into our Elk Meadow Cabin. We were really glad we had lots of left overs for dinner in our cooler. We just weren't up to another round of driving to the nearest restaurant.

05/10/21 - Cape Perpetua and Heceta Head

We drove a bit farther south and explored Heceta Head with its beach and lighthouse nestled in the crags. There were roses in bloom, and the rocks were covered with gulls and cormorants.

Dinner was takeout from Ona's: excellent burgers and fries and a fried calamari appetizer. We had considered dining at Ona's, but their "outdoor" dining terrace was almost a greenhouse. It was much more fun dining in our room with its wide open view of the sea.

05/09/21 - Yachats - Arrival

We took a walk along Ocean View Road which starts in town and runs for miles along the coast as the 804 trail. We didn't go very far, but we did enjoy the scenery.

05/08/21 - Ecola State Park

We continued down US-101 which is billed as the scenic coastal route, but we were probably spoiled by California State Route 1. There were scenic stretches, but much of the drive was inland, and the road as it passed various beach resorts wasn't exactly scenic. Still, we pressed on to Yachats.

05/07/21 - Astoria

We had an excellent dinner at the Bridgewater Bistro near our hotel. We ate out on the deck with a view of the river. We were impressed with the hearty and spicy Thai style brussels sprouts and the fried Willapa oysters. We also had the beef short ribs. That's one thing about restaurant meals. There's a lot more variety than when one cooks for oneself.

05/26/14 - Lake Angeles Trail in Bloom

06/04/12 - The John Day Fossil Beds - Clarno

We took a side trip off the road to the Clarno unit of the John Day Fossil Beds, the smallest of the three parts of the beds. We crossed the John Day River and were soon greeted by a little picnic area and a handful of interpretive signs. We were surrounded by castles of stone, the eroding rock layers visible.

The fossil trail was short and led towards the base of the castle wall which rocks had fallen over the ages. They were mottled and marred by age. The little signs insisted that they were full of fossils. We looked, and we looked. Was that dark mark a leaf? Was that indentation a branch? It was hard to tell, but we soon realized that it was not the color of rock or its markings, but rather the texture that revealed ancient leaves and twigs and branches.

Once we had made this cognitive jump, we could see other fossils more quickly, and our walk grew more interesting. We almost brushed away one fossil leaf save that it was now part of the stone. We probably missed more fossils than we saw, but after the replicas at Sheeprock, seeing actual fossils in the living rock was quite a treat.

06/03/12 - Benham Falls

We crossed the river and followed the trail through the forest, following the river. Then we heard the falls. The peaceful river had turned into a violent torrent passing through a canyon of volcanic rock. It was quite a sight, and it is worth clicking on the image to see the video.

On our way back to sisters we had a nice lunch in Bend, a town with a good share of brew pubs and trendy shops. We enjoyed our meal at the Deschutes Brewery and even tried a couple of the brewery only beers. They were great, but extremely rich and really went with the chicken wings and ribs.

06/02/12 - The Newberry National Volcano Monument

We were pondering plan B when a ranger popped out, apparently during a break in a training session, and suggested we try following the red road up the Lava Butte. We had noticed the butte towering darkly against a gray sky behind its wall of jagged and crumbled black lava. The red road was indeed red and while it was closed to cars, it was open to hikers, so up we went.

First, we crossed the lava fields, black masses of stone, once molten, and now hardened into lumps and clusters and sheets, then folded and crumpled. Here and there were lava bubbles and tubes, now broken. We climbed the butte, spiraling around it and rising with increasingly spectacular views of the lava fields and the more distant country side. We made our way to the parking lot at the top and enjoyed the vista.

On our way down, the sun emerged. Had the visitor center been open, we would not have been able to hike to the top of the lava butte safely. It was only our bad planning that had given us the opportunity and what a treat it was.

06/01/12 - The John Day Fossil Beds - Sheeprock

The trail followed a small stream which had carved the basin, so we crossed on steel bridges and saw all sorts of erosion patterns. It is this erosion that reveals the fossils. While we saw signs of fresh erosion, we didn't see any new fossils here. The park service people, we were told, gather them. There were, however, a number of replicas of fossils of an ancient turtle and a sabertooth tiger. To be honest, some of them did indeed look like ancient bones or turtle shell, but others we would have mistaken for mud and rock.

There was a longer trail around the Blue Basin, which supposedly has spectacular views, but we didn't have time to explore it. The John Day Fossil Beds were quite amazing, but also amazingly remote.

05/31/12 - The John Day Fossil Beds - Painted Hills

05/30/12 - Smith Rock and the Monkey Head

From the parking area overlook, the river valley almost looked like one of those train track models with its dramatic cliffs and the snaking river below. We could even hear a train whistle, but the actual train was miles away and not down by the river. The rock walls were fantastic in the sense of being something from a fantasy. The setting seemed an isolated world within a world, a secret canyon hidden from the flat land above.

05/29/12 - Metolius Falls

05/28/12 - We Drove to Oregon

03/27/10 - Long Beach, Astoria and Environs

• The Long Beach - Yes, there really is a long beach there, quite long.
• The Columbia River Maritime Museum - gave us a feel for the river, the sea, and those who work at their meeting place.
• Astoria, Oregon - we had lunch at Gunderson's in Astoria
• River View Dining - the best barbequed oysters ever, in South Bend
• Lewis and Clark Interpetive Center - the story of the expedition
• Fort Clatsop - The Lewis and Clark expedition spent its first winter here.
• Leadbetter Point State Park - the park at the northern tip of the Long Beach peninsula
• Miscellaneous - a few pictures from the road