Posts Tagged ‘oregon’

It was my idea, after the kitten rescue and the leaving again, to show David Foster Flat Road, a gravel road leading west from the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, almost chiefly because of its monotony. Get over the ridge, see, I urged, and you can see forever and forever of the same. I had driven [...]

Dinner was PB&J David smeared together using the hood of the ‘bru as a table at deepest dusk in Long Hollow. Long Hollow, an east-west passway through to the Alvord–the eastern, desert side of the Steens–in the narrow notch between Steens and Pueblo Mountains, takes all of the loneliness of the Alvord, all the vastness [...]

I have long ignored the dirt road leading off up and west from Alvord Hot Springs, heading up the steep, steep eastern ascent of Steens Mountain. I assumed it went nowhere; most of the little spurs don’t around there. On crowded days in the Alvord, this is where people camp (by “crowded” I mean: when [...]

One dusty day about two years ago, I, solo, in the Catlow Valley, after suffering misdirected starts and inaccurate maps, found the ghost town of Blitzen, Ore. You can see photos from that endeavor here. This time I brought David. This time at sundown. This time someone had graded the mud-rutted road enough that it [...]

Lakeview, Ore., named for its vantage over “formerly larger” Goose Lake (now shorelined some 15 miles from the town), is the county seat of the eponymous Lake County in south central Oregon. With about 2700 folks, it’s a veritable bustling metropolis, when considered against the vastness of Lake County–fully a third of the county’s population [...]

To get to where we’re going this weekend we are going to travel through the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge in southeastern Oregon, where I have not technically been. We were driving south on I-5 near Salem and I had anticipation. I asked, “Do you think we’ll see ‘lopes?” “Probably,” said David, “unlike bighorn sheep, which [...]

A foundational book for those interested in the history of Portland, Ore., and its surroundings. “Early Portland: Stump-Town Triumphant” is a comfortable, conversational look at the first goings-on in “The Clearing” on the Willamette that slowly became Portland. The chapters are a mix of biographical and economic history, with a strong thematic focus on the [...]

Oregon City, Ore., operates a public elevator that is technically a vertical street! From the Oregon City Municipal Elevator Public Art Project Blog (whew, that’s a mouthful): The Oregon City Municipal Elevator continues to operate as one of only four municipal elevators in the world and “Elevator Street” remains the only “vertical street” in North [...]

Did you know that when Pettygrove et. al first planted their roots in “The Clearing” on the west bank of the Willamette River (later known as Portland, Ore.) that Portland wasn’t even technically in the United States? If politics in the following few years had veered differently, we could be living under the British flag. [...]

We meant to go camping but the camping wasn’t meant to be. Saturday, a comedy of errors. Dithering meant a late disembarkation. We had to return to the house an unprecedented three times for forgotten items. Then there was driving, driving out east on Wash. SR-14. A failed foray towards a hot springs on the [...]