blue

we left portland this morning and headed south on us-5. our destination: crater lake national park. we took a scenic drive down towards it, which took us through the rogue-umpqua scenic area. we saw the umpqua river, above, on our way to the lake, and the rogue on the way back. and i have to say it: they dammed the rogue. the umpqua, though it is hard to see in this picture, was a beautiful emerald green because of minerals in it. you can also actually fish for salmon in the river, and a lot of people were. this part of oregon was what i also thought the state would look like--not the desert we had seen up until then. anyway, after a few hours, we had reached the heart of the cascade range and crater lake.

crater lake was the fifth national park ever created, and has been on my must-see list for this trip from pretty much day one. its elevation around the rim is roughly 8000 feet, and the lake is 1000 feet below. it used to be a volcano, but the middle fell in after it ceased being active, forming what is called a caldera. there are no streams or rivers leading to or from the caldera, so the lake is formed entirely from rain and snow melt. it is considered to be the purest water in north america, and even the world. you can see an 8 inch disc 400 feet below the surface, and the lake is about 5 miles in diameter.. this is also the reason it is so blue--the water is so pure that the light is able to penetrate really deep into it, sending back only blue color for our eyes to see. the picture of me was taken around the northern end of the lake.
of course, you have to drive for several miles within the park before you reach the lake. the surrounding area is filled with beautiful tall evergreen trees and....snow. there were still piles of snow reaching well above our heads. there was evidence that people had been snowboarding and snowshoeing. i found out later that the lake receives, on average, 44 feet of snow a year. 44 feet. and much of the lake itself was still covered with ice. i mean, this is late june, people. we could only drive about 1/3 of the way around the lake because the rest of it still needed to be plowed. only 1.5 miles out of 90 miles of trails were open--the rest were still inaccessible because of snow. and to top it off, it had snowed as recently as four days ago. so here we are, in our shorts/tank tops, wearing sandals in the 75 degree weather, walking on snow. that's my feet below; in the picture to the left i pressed myself into a person-sized imprint in the snow by a pull-out. needless to say, i did get snow in my sandals, but it also felt good in the heat. what a strange world.when you first walk up to crater lake, you see the far rim first, then the lake directly below it. which means that you are spending your first few seconds at the lake trying to figure out where the mountains end and the reflections begin. it's a little easier in this picture, but much of the rim was less peaked and more flat-topped. it took me a good while to figure this out. and then you spend several minutes marveling at the color contrasts. the lake, the sky, the snow, the green trees, the bark which matches the stone in the mountains. it really was enough to make blue/green/white/brown my new favorite color combination.

then you begin to notice other things--like how there are creeks of melted snow running beneath existing snow banks. or the island in the middle of the lake--called wizard island, it is a volcanic cone in and of itself. that's it to the left. you can actually hike to the top of it, but you have to take a boat to the island, which of course we could not do this early in the season. you have to wait for late july. and you can swim in the lake too--that would be a fantastic, albeit very cold, picture. there were quite a few people at the park, particularly around the rim village, which i suppose is understandable. i was glad that we had approached from the north, and thus had experienced that less crowded section. anyway, before long it was time for us to hit the road again. again. i could easily have spent hours and hours just staring at the lake--i wish we could have hiked to a viewpoint or down to the lake, but alas, we have not time for everything. i can hesitantly say, though, that this is my favorite national park so far.

as i mentioned before, we passed by the rogue river on our way south from the park, and the drive from here into california was truly stunning. tall trees, filtering sunlight, occasional lakes, rivers, and towns. entering california was like entering a foreign country, literally. they had a station to stop all traffic, and made us eat our cherries on the spot--i suppose that they were afraid we were bringing some sort of cherry disease with us. we would also have had to abandon any citrus, if we had had any. about 20 miles after entering cali, we realized we were on the redwood highway, and for good reason. while it was a hairpin highway, it also passed through several amazing stands of redwoods. so surreal to just be driving in between them. we didn't stop for the redwoods, knowing that we will be going to redwoods national park tomorrow, so we went on to crescent city, where we are spending the night. meanwhile, it is nice to finally be in our most western state. a little more than a week from now i will be heading back east.

portland

we woke up this morning in portland excited to explore the saturday market. this occupied about three full blocks in the riverfront park and adjoining open plazas, filled with artisan vendors and food trailers. the picture to the left is of the market before it got busy--we got there a little after ten, when it started. needless to say, we easily spent three hours browsing, buying, listening, watching, and eating. this was really the first time that we got a good glimpse of what we would expect a northwest city to be like: unique. we saw everything from roasted nuts to artisan soap, carved food, paintings, leatherwork, and everything in between, including a fair amount if kitsch. we also saw a bunch of interesting performers, including this band, whose cd we bought. they're called 'all the apparatus,' and play a kind of new-age big band music. apparently they are also from hawaii, which i just found out from their website. we bought some great soap from one of the local stalls, and i also got this fun beaded bracelet. for lunch we had great ethnic food--i had a gyro from a greek stall, and mum had perogies from a different trailer. and what good food. we sat on the steps of one of the plazas, surrounded by hundreds of people, half of them wearing pants, sweaters, and turtlenecks. apparently half of portland does not believe in wearing summer clothes--but who am i to judge? anyway, it was a lot of fun. after walking around the market we headed to stumptown coffee, the authentic local portland coffeeshop.i got a fantastic coffee, and we headed up town a little to go to the portland test rose garden, which is world-famous. of course to get there we had to take a tram and then a bus, requiring us to get transportation tickets and figure out how to get there. but, compared to other cities, it wasn't too bad. and i really like the fact that portland has trams and not a subway system--it seems friendlier somehow. after only about 20 minutes, however, we were at the rose garden, which was gigantic, had quite a few people, and was fantastically beautiful. there were so, so, so many different varieties of roses, some of them with names like 'blue yonder' and 'barbara streisand.' big and small, heavily scented and not smelly at all, and colors from white to red to purple and yellow, and everything in between. curly petals, different ways of unfolding, some with buds a different colors, some on vines and some on bushes.we had a great time walking around, sniffing and admiring the roses, as well as watching the various wedding parties that were there. before we knew it, it was getting late, and we needed to head back towards the center of town to go to dinner.

we took the bus out of the park/museum/ nob hill part of town back to 18th street, and walked back to 12th. on the way, somewhere around 14th, we saw this statue on a street corner--some artist's homage to the bicycle culture of portland. we did see a lot of bikers, as well as people just walking around--it is very pedestrian friendly, as far as cities go. for food we went to go to what is universally considered to be the best seafood in town: jake's famous crawfish. now, jake's has been in portland since 1892. no joke. and while it wasn't exactly cheap, it was fantastic. we sat at a bar in the back to not have to wait on a table, and had a funny bartender serve us. i got a fantastic dish of oregon rockfish with washington crab on top, with mashed potatoes and asparagus on the side. dessert was also great--mum got the 'famous' truffle cake, and i had the walnut apple upside down pie with ice cream. needless to say, we were quite full and ready to turn in for the night once we were done.

the beaver state

no joke, oregon is the beaver state. anyway, we woke up this morning in the happy little town of pendleton, pictured above as seen from our bed and breakfast, the riverwalk, which is at the left. our hosts were very hospitable and cooked up delicious blueberry muffins and great conversation to go along with it. interestingly, the building used to be a boarding house--the current owners have been operating their b and b for about 3 years now and really enjoy it.

our breakfast conversation had to be cut short, however, because we were going to tour the pendleton mill at 9, so off we went. as i explained before, pendleton has a special place in the hearts of our family, so we were really anticipating this visit. it was neat to see how these wool fabrics were made and to see the giant spools, which you can see part of to the right. they have these massive looms which can turn out a blanket in minutes, after being hand-threaded, which takes about 24 hours. after they are woven, a little old woman goes over the fabric with a fine-toothed comb, literally, looking for flaws. just her and these giant rolls of fabric. after that, it is usually fluffed, which involved essentially brushing them up into the wool version of an afro. then its cut, finished, etc. of course, we spent too much time and money in the store, but in our defense they had things cheaper there than you can find literally anywhere else.after leaving pendleton, we headed west on highway 84, following the columbia river the 200+ miles to portland, seeing quite of few of windfarms, like that to the left, along the way. the road was really beautiful, just following the river, which was mostly lake after lake built by dam after dam. at several points you can drive on pieces of the old highway 30, one of the first paved roads in the nation. it's on the land side of the new 84, and man, you can tell it is old: it was built in the 30s. the engineer tried to insist on things like having at least a 100 foot turning radius on the corners. the first trek of old 30 we took led us up the side of the gorge wall to rowena crest, which had a breath-taking view of the river, and was filled with stunning wildflowers. now, i'm not a huge flower person, but i do have a soft spot for wild flowers, particularly poppies, and now whatever these blue flowers are in oregon. the picture to the right is of highway 30, the one below of the columbia from the crest.











we stopped at one of the falls and took pictures in one of the fields filled with flowers. there were others too, wild sunflowers, some purple flower as well as poppies, but these blue ones were the most populous. we also stopped at a cherry farm to buy a delicious pound of cherries for the bargain price of $2.00. we got on another part of 30 a little later, which is where we saw the waterfall. this second part of 30 was more crowded than the first, so we tried to stay away from the gaggle of families and groups of teenagers to press on toward portland.
to be honest, i have been really excited about portland since day 1 of this trip. i've always wanted to go to a northwest city, and i've learned about the great city-planning and green trends in this particular one since i was in middle school. we checked into our hotel and wandered around the city a little bit (it was already getting towards late afternoon) by ourselves. mum apparently wandered toward the tradition city center, with the courthouse and large-ish square, where she saw these people having what they called a sit-in, trying to get people to just sit and meditate for a bit on these large pillows. not a definition of a sit-in that i am familiar with, but i appreciate their sentiment. and like many large cities, there was a place for people to play chess--they even had some chessboards carved in stone on these podium things. they also had these really cool statue fountains, each featuring a different animal. when we came by together after dinner of thai food at a place called typhoon, i snapped a picture of the one with seals. although, knowing what i do now, i should have gotten the beavers.

for myself, while i explored a little in the opposite direction, i mainly headed for powell's, which is the largest independently owned bookstore in the world. and it is big. founded in 1971, it has now expanded to fill up pretty much an entire city block. and it's awesome! they have it organized into 'rooms,' which share a theme--the rose room is for explorers, either literal as in travel books, or figurative as in metaphysics and religion. also neat is the fact that they sell new and used books--i picked up used copies of richard wright's autobiography 'black boy,' susan sontag's 'in america,' and drew gilpin faust's 'this republic of suffering: death and the american civil war.' mainly, though, i wandered around. the bookstore is neat, but you definitely do need the guide and map that you can pick up the door. parts of it are 3 floors, parts only 1, and another part is off by half a floor. needless to say, finding a specific section, like history, took me a while, but it was great once i did: i easily spent an hour and a half just browsing.

desert. in washington?

yes, in fact. we spent a couple days doing mostly nothing in spokane. nonetheless, my mom was able to snap the above picture of the city from across their river. i must say this about the northwest--they take their sports seriously. not only did we see countless people running and biking, but they were about to have hoopfest, a massive 3 on 3 basketball tournament at spokane. interestingly, the city also hosted the world's fair in 1873--the site was turned into a park along the riverfront afterward, and it is also home to gonzaga university. anyway, this morning we began heading from spakane, on the extreme eastern side of the state, to walla walla, in the southeastern part, just a few miles from oregon. on the way, much of what we saw was this: fields of wheat intermingled with grazing land, filled with these beautiful purple wildflowers. and i do mean filled.around lunchtime we rolled into walla walla, famous for their sweet onions and wine, named after an indian tribe that had inhabited the area. we ate at a delicious local place called olive and then went on a remarkably in-depth and quite interesting historic tour of downtown, in heat that rivals that of raleigh back home. (apparently this part of washington is in a desert--it gets over 100 in summer and below freezing in winter, with a freezing fog. that sounds scary). we went to a few wine stores to do some tastings, and i did learn quite a lot--the people were quite nice and helpful. anyway, by about 3:30 we realized that there really wasn't all that much else that we wanted to do in town, so we decided to push on.

but first we headed slightly to the west of town to go to the whitman mission, now a historic site. in 1835, reverend whitman and his young wife, along with a few others were sent out to what would become the oregon territory. whitman was trying to convert the cayuse indians--he was also a doctor, and helped to treat them. eventually, a small pox epidemic wiped out many of the indians, despite whitman giving them medicine. when the indians saw that it did not work as well on them as on the white men, they blamed whitman, and came to the mission, murdering him, his wife, and 9 other people. the incident led leaders in washington, dc to put a government in place in the oregon territory, the first on the west coast. whitman, incidentally, also helped to carve the oregon trail.

after visiting the mission, we went south into oregon, stopping in the town of pendleton. my family has a special relationship with pendleton--my grandmother used to sell their fantastic wool blankets and clothes in her store, and we all have quite a bit of it. so when we saw pendleton, we pulled over. sure enough, the mill is in the town where it all started 101 years ago. we decided to spend the night here, and found a great b and b called the riverwalk. much like walla walla, but much smaller, pendleton is a cute old west meets west coast town. we had dinner and then retired for the night. tomorrow morning we are going to go on a tour of the mill before heading west along the columbia river towards portland.