This is my view:
I’m working on a paper that is outside my normal area of reading and research, so the progress is necessarily slow, but the material is interesting.
He said, having stared at a concrete wall for two days.
adventures
23
Jul 11
Writing retreat, Day One
The reason we’re in Portland is to take part in a writing retreat. We just tacked on a few days of sight-seeing beforehand. The retreat started today, and so there won’t be much here but placeholders and filler for the next few days. This is supposed to be an intensive writing retreat, so my energies are elsewhere.
Here is a time lapse I took of Mt. Saint Helens the other day from the last viewpoint on the road up that range. This is sitting on a retaining wall about four miles from the volcano, looking into the crater.
Yes, it is brief. Worked great at first, but then the camera stopped taking all of the pictures I’d asked of it. Had I known, at that viewpoint, how cool this would eventually look I would have shot it over and over and over again.
I shot it using the now apparently unsupported Gorillacam (free) app.
The retreat continues tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll make some nice progress on this particular project. Wish me luck.
22
Jul 11
Oregon pictures, Day Three
Hit the beach!
The first white person here is believed to be William Clark — who did not lose a bet to Meriwether Lewis, really what happened was they Googled themselves, found a small accounting firm in the northeast named Clark and Lewis LLP and decided on their own brand. He and his team crossed what they texted back to Jefferson as “OMG, Worst. Mountain. EVAR.” before seeing the ocean and finding natives processing a beached whale.
Clark did not use AT&T, who’s coverage is somewhere down in the Five Bars and Lousy range in this region.
So they traded with the locals for whale oil and blubber, turned around and noticed there were suddenly condos everywhere. Such is beach life.
Cannon Beach was originally named Ecola, which was borrowed from the local stream. Ecola, not E. coli. We ate lunch today at a place named Ecola. They have their own boat and bring in their own catch from the Pacific which, I don’t know about the depth of your experience, is the way to go.
The water is chilly. The beach isn’t dirty, but the sand is darker than I’m accustomed to seeing. There are great rock formations to enjoy at the coastline and dramatic rolling hills rushing down into the sand. This is a beautiful spot.
Later, on the advice of someone who lives in Portland, we set out for the quiet Oswald West beach. You park on one side of the road and then take a path beneath it and through these woods:
This is a stream that is escaping into the ocean at Oswald:
Some people love the ocean, others find their home in the mountains or feel natural on a plain or a steppe, but I could stay in spots like this forever:
Here’s Oswald, in panorama. Click to open in a new window and magnify:
This is a shallow cove and a favorite of the surfers. It feels primitive and unspoiled and perfect. I brought a few round stones home, thinking I’ll put them in my office, so I can remember that sun and those waves and part of an afternoon walking over driftwood.
I shot it in my free iPhone app Panorama which isn’t perfect, but is very free. This one didn’t work very well because I stood in shade and shot sun-shade-sun. Now, though, the finished product — stitched by the app — looks wonderfully dramatic.
We went south for the next town, thinking we would find dinner, but nothing inspired us. On the way, though, we found this terrific view:
You see that and begin to wonder “How spoiled are these people?”
So we came back up to Cannon Beach for dinner, found some family-owned chain where the menu said “Not much has changed since the 1950s.” And to see the dishes, you’d think Yeah, my grandmother ate this. Even the pictures of the food on the menu looked dated. How does one make lemon slices and broiled shrimp look dated? The apathy of the staff was incredible. We ate there because of the view of those giant rocks on the shoreline and because we wanted to see the sunset on the beach. Our waiter, who was a little too old and just a few hits away from a Grateful Dead concert in his head, was only too happy to hold us up, but we just did make it.
If you’re curious and you know the area, here’s your hint:
More importantly, the sunset:
Those big haystack rocks. In fact one of them is called Haystack, but I believe that one is farther up the beach:
Those are my best cell phone pics of the day. The following are some of my D-SLR photographs. There are lots of kites on Cannon Beach. Some of them will find their way into my trip video.
Wild berries in macro at Oswald Beach West:
Need a hiding place?
The Yankee enjoys the side of Oswald Beach:
There’s sand in the center, separated by a wooded estuary feeding into the ocean. The beach, which is probably less than 250 yards, is framed by woods on one side and a rock face on the other side. Whomever donated or sold this land to the state did not understand what they could have done with this real estate, but generations are lucky they did share it.
Walking Cannon Beach at sunset:
The Yankee wraps up her day in style:
Tomorrow we go back to work.
21
Jul 11
Oregon pictures, Day Two
Or, more appropriately, Washington pictures. But the trip is about Portland, which is in Oregon, so this foray into the Evergreen State. Because if you’re this close, and you’ve never been there before, you want to see Mount St. Helens.
We’re in the woods, about a quarter of a way up the road that will take us near the volcano. We walked down one path, and then another, and over a stream, and down to the end of the path and then farther still:
The trees, they are very big:
One of the trails we strolled down:
Even in Washington you can’t get away from Alabama. We saw an elk grazing through the lens, but check out the bottom right corner:
It was overcast, and chilly, because you’re gaining altitude with each curve in the road, but we’re here to see the volcano behind those clouds:
There’s Mount St. Helens, partially obscured by clouds. On a clear day you can still see steam rising from the crater:
Though I prefer the pic that’s sitting two above for sentimental reasons, this is one of the best images I got of the mountain:
You meet interesting people on the side of a mountain. Some people get out of their car, take a picture and climb back inside to go on to the next place in their day. Others stop just long enough to read the signs. And then there was this couple who took this photograph.
I like to think I’m a fairly funny guy. I like to make people laugh. And if my jokes don’t do it I can always fall back on being funny looking. But they would hardly crack a smile. We traded pictures, though, they told us about the next view point and then they got back in their car and drove away.
I took this one from the road. Only passengers get this shot:
Look. Clearly there is snow on Mount St. Helens. There’s a small glacier on Mt. Hood. But I did not expect to see on the roadside. This is July. We’re wearing sweatshirts. It is a little bit chilly. And there’s snow. This is fundamentally wrong:
Overwhelmed by mountains? Have a flower:
We’ve transitioned from the phone’s camera to the D-SLR. The Yankee on our trail:
A Yankee-less trail.
Water on blades:
Mount St. Helens, just as the clouds moved out ever-so-briefly. We were told we’re about 10 miles off the face of the mountain sitting here:
20
Jul 11
Oregon pictures, Day One
Just half an hour outside of downtown Portland you’ll find the 611-foot-tall Multnomah Falls:
This is the second part of the two-stage falls. Rainwater, an underground spring and snow melt feed the falls through all four seasons. This is the tallest waterfall in Oregon:
Here’s the top of the falls, and part of that long, first drop, which measures 542 feet. We walked 1.25 miles to get to the top:
Also, there’s a tunnel carved out of a nearby hill:
This is another waterfall that stems from the same sources. Both are restive places, but this one, much smaller, gets a lot less traffic:
We ate dinner here, just sandwiches because everything was outrageously expensive. They offered a macaroni and cheese — like Mom used to make — for $15. I don’t know about your mom, but that dish didn’t set mine back like that. The cheese must be fresh from France, and flown in first class on silken made oriental rugs.
Our waiter, who was a nice guy willing to chat since we caught them at an off time, was talking up their barbecue night to his one other customer. The Yankee said, “Yeah, bring that over. Let’s try that.”
We’ve turned her into a proper barbecue snob. I’m so proud:
We didn’t eat here, but I had to stop and take a picture of the sign:
The locals needed a road paralleling the Columbia River in the mid-19th century. Sam Hill was a railroad attorney and a big fan of good roads. In 1913 he gathered people of means, met right here at Chanticleer Point and outlined his plan for a scenic highway. The setting worked. They were conducting surveys in a matter of weeks. They called it the “king of roads” in the 1920s. But most people were paying attention to what they saw outside their windows:
The Yankee enjoys the Columbia River:
Back to Multnomah — the above pictures were from my phone. These are from my camera. This is the top of the falls once again:
Being on the top of a big waterfall, making a big long walk up a tall hill, seeing a wide river and ancient trees, they all make you realize the size of beauty and the smallness of the viewer. And so you take a look at the macros:
This is the stream supplying the falls. This goes around one bend and then into a little pool and down the cliff face. I’m not sure I’m supposed to be here:
In that pedestrian tunnel, where The Yankee did her cartwheels.
At that second, smaller waterfall. This is where I decided to shoot a lot of video of this trip. I’ll show some of that at the conclusion of our adventures.
