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Time to state the obvious. Bringing guns to the Oregon state Capitol is a bad idea.
Some Oregonian politicians don’t like the bill being presented that will place a cap on carbon emissions. The Democrats have a majority and it is expected that the bill will pass. Republicans are desperate to block it, and have responded by fleeing (probably to Idaho) so that there won’t be a quorum, and the vote won’t be valid.
Up to this point in the story, I personally support the actions. It’s childish maybe, but non-violent and powerful. Although I am in support of a cap on carbon emissions, I admire clever humans who find a way to work within a system and get their voices heard. Fleeing a vote has been done before, but not very often. It’s drastic, and has definitely hit the news now, which promotes a continued discussion. All good stuff.
The problem is fear.
In Oregon and all across the U.S. are these grass roots militia groups that fancy themselves saviors of American ideals. They’ve bought into the Trump-sponsored belief that there are only two kinds of people: Democrats and Republicans, and you can’t safely have both, and one must oppress the other. These militia people are usually country folk and usually align themselves with the Republican party. They are mostly good people who take their kids out fishing and have the neighbors over for a barbecue, and are quick to offer a hand to a stranger with a broken down truck, and donate to a good cause. But mention politics and they transform.
Politics and power trigger within country folk a deeply held fear of losing a way of life, while they desperately cling to jobs that are part of lagging and changing industries. People on TV talk about systems automation and unmanned transport trucks and using hydroponics to grow crops and making burgers in a petri dish, and this is frightening at a gut level, for folks who don’t know the first thing about all that, and have families to support right now by driving long-haul rigs and feeding the cattle, and repairing the combine, and clocking in at work each day. Those people on TV seem like the same people who talk about saving the environment and advocate for gun control.
So it gets all mushed up together and amplified with Fear Sauce in the common consciousness: “The people who talk about regulating firearms are the people taking away the jobs.” and “The people who want to put a cap on emissions are the people who want to take away our guns.”
“Is that how it’s gonna be? Well you can take away my firearm when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.”
Fear. It’s fear masked by angry words.
What will the future look like to country families who for generations have lived their lives in a way that seems to be disappearing? It is either frightening, or unknown. And not knowing is scary. It is so tempting to pull out a gun when feeling threatened, especially if you already own one. Or six of them. Legally owning multiple guns is not uncommon at all in rural Oregon.
Ok, so Oregon may be on the brink of economy-changing legislation to combat greenhouse gas emissions. Thursday, soon after the Governor said that law enforcement would be sent out to haul them back to their jobs if they left, the Republicans skipped town. One of the Republicans retorted that he is prepared to shoot any police officer that tries it. (Can’t you hear the fear in that comment?) And then militia groups rallied, convinced that they aren’t being listened to once again, and convinced that the only response left to them is firearms. They announced they will move on Oregon’s Capitol (Salem) to protect the Republicans, even though the politicians declined the offer of assistance. This has shut down the statehouse today.
If the militias want to defend American ideals, they need to focus on the primary one: democracy. Our country wants to be founded on the Rule of Law, not oppression.
Talking through difficult decisions is a skill that politicians need, and a skill that the rest of us need too. Being direct when things are uncomfortable is the only way to work through a problem like being afraid of what might happen. Imagine feeling so disenfranchised that you convince yourself that the only way to be heard is to threaten to shoot someone. It’s an awful situation.
I can’t stand conflict, and I will contort myself to avoid talking about scary stuff, but it never resolves the problem. In fact, come on, say it with me because we all know the cliche: avoiding the problem just makes it worse.
You know one way to avoid a problem? Bring a gun.
Guns scare the other people, yes. It shuts them up for a while, yes, so you can yell the stuff you want to yell. But it does not resolve anything! A protest group at the Capitol is going to be filled with fear, and hiding their fear behind angry shouts. And probably, somebody in their agitation is going to make the wrong move, probably by accident, and all hell will break loose. There won’t be any way to protect lives. Right to life doesn’t apply when there is a fearful mob and loaded guns.
Democracy turns out to be scary. Having to talk about decisions that might change your life forever is scary. Putting it all out there on the table means you might have to give something up. But you’ve got to believe in the process of negotiation and consensus. You’re probably going to have to let go of some things you want, no matter how it goes. You have to give up the idea of zero sum. The only way to win is to listen to each other, and to be brave enough to explain why you’re so scared.
If there is a gun in your hand, that will never happen.
Tara sitting beside the campfire. Yep, we had a strong wireless signal in camp!
Tara and I went camping on Sunday for Mother’s Day in Silver Falls State Park. We’ve been camping on Mother’s Day, rain or shine, since the kid was in middle school.
This year it was time to find a new place. Over the years I have had Silver Falls recommended for a hike because of the trails and waterfalls. This state park is over 9000 acres. It’s enormous. There is only one place to camp: a managed campground with paved roads, landscaping, indoor toilets, showers, several camp hosts and an office where you check in and have your problems addressed. There are 103 single-family sites and 3 group sites. I reserved our space online. It’s not at all the kind of place that T and I typically enjoy. We’re more of the kind to pull over in a wide spot in the road, and lug our stuff through the trees till we find a flat spot beside a creek.
So with initial trepidation, it was a relief and a delight to find it lovely. Full of people, yes, but overall a very acceptable large campground. It’s set up so that we could see a few campsites right next to us, but there are too many trees and strategically-placed bushes to get a sense of how big the place is from the inside. We will certainly come back some time.
I have one complaint. Even while our two vehicles fit perfectly well with lots of space left over on the paved pad at our campsite, there is a strict “extra vehicle” charge. And while others arrived in gigantic trucks and huge RVs that could barely fit, Tara’s teeny tiny Chevy Aveo was banished outside the park – outside the whole park! – or else pay the fee. We feigned not having made a decision yet, so the Ranger let us alone on her first trip through. No one showed up again that night and we celebrated that we had gotten away with a free second car. We assumed that we were so well behaved, and the extra car was so tiny, that they would certainly leave us alone. Nope. First thing in the morning they got us! I paid the fee.
South Fork of Silver Creek was near our campsite.
This covered walking bridge goes over the South Fork of Silver Creek to the cabins you can rent if you didn’t bring your own home for the night.
We found one tent site that allows access to the river so next time we will try to reserve this one.
We had a laid-back evening, exploring the campground a little. There are trails of many lengths that begin from the campground itself, from a one-mile nature trail crossing two small creeks, to a 7.2 mile loop past 10 waterfalls. It was perfect. That evening we walked to a wooden covered bridge over a walking path across the Silver Creek South Fork. We explored nearby campsites to find the best one for next time, and then we went walking on the nature trail.
We roasted sausages by the fire and talked and talked. Man, I love that kid.
We walked this nature trail around the campground.
We both thought these looked like prehistoric dinosaur plants! They are huge, and called American Skunk Cabbage, an invasive species in the UK.
Our plan was to get up early and start hiking first thing in the morning and do the 7.2 mile trail and hit all those waterfalls! We got up nice and early, but the weather had changed in the night, and it was cold. C-c-c-cold. So we moved slowly. I got the last of the sausages frying on my little stove, dropped in four eggs, and when it was close to done, topped up the scramble with some white cheddar. Yum! We made tea and held our cups in our hands to warm them, but it wasn’t enough. We finally got out of there, but it was with creaky, frozen joints.
On the map I saw there was a café! I mean, this place, seriously. So we walked from the campground almost a mile to the place where the café was supposed to be, which was on the way to the falls anyway. There is an adjacent lodge that holds a restaurant and I would have been happy for either, to go indoors, get a hot coffee and thaw out. The sign on the door said “closed Mondays.”
Building that hosts the restaurant and the cafe. Just not on Mondays.
The doors were open and we went in seeking coffee just in case, but they were having a flower show. We took some time to learn the local native flowers, all clearly having been harvested that morning from the forest. It was a great educational idea!
Out on the wide surrounding porch of the place, we sat for a bit because Tara needed to get a rock out of their boot. On inspection, it was not a rock, but a nail, newly erupted through the bottom of the boot. It had pushed up from the sole into the boot and had torn a hole in Tara’s sock. We could not begin a hike like this.
“I’ll be fine,” Tara insisted, not wanting to go back.
“You’ll be sorry, and you’ll be miserable, if you don’t protect your foot before this hike,” I said. Twenty years of hiking knocked all the tough-guy out of me. If there’s something wrong with your boots, it needs to be addressed immediately.
We hiked the mile back to camp. Tara put on two layers of socks and put a moleskin patch where the nail head is pushing up into the shoe. We hiked another mile back to where we had last left off.
We hit the trail in earnest and in about 100 yards we were met with the grandeur of the first jaw-dropping waterfall.
A lookout point above South Falls provides a view to the valley below.
Panoramic View of Tara looking down over the top of South Falls.
As the trail brought us nearer, the falls only became more and more beautiful.
Me
The hiking trail goes behind South Falls.
Standing behind South Falls.
I had my geologist Tara along with me on this hike, which added a fun dimension. Tara pointed out lava rock when I wasn’t expecting it, and of course the ever-present basalt columns that make these astonishing waterfalls possible. Tara also talked about the common rock types in Oregon, because of the millennia of volcanic eruptions, and described their favourite rock type: schist. Tara likes schist because other kinds of rock come together to make a new rock, called schist. I asked if that’s what geologists yell as an exclamation. “Schist!” You’ve heard of Dad Jokes, well, I do Mom jokes.
The next waterfall on the journey was Lower South Falls.
Approaching Lower South Falls.
The trail goes behind Lower South Falls too.
After our slow start due to the cold and the nail in Tara’s shoe, we were out of time and couldn’t make the whole waterfall trip. We will save it for another day. For the return trip, we went uphill and zig zagged up the slopes and returned along the ridgeline for a wholly different kind of look at the forest.
Larkspur grew in the cooler, wetter areas.
We found this big field of Camas up in the drier, warmer parts of the forest.
To our delight, late season Trillium were still blooming.
We then made the trip back to our campground and packed up the tent which had dried out by now. We were no longer freezing, and that made packing up easier. After big smooshy hugs, we said goodbye. Tara left south to go back to their college town of Corvallis, and I left to head north to home in Rainier.
Fields of tulips at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn, Oregon.
Tulips as soul food, I mean. We didn’t actually eat any of them.
This week started out on a down note. It’s getting a little warmer, but it was raining day after day and even though I did go do some yardwork in the rain, it’s just not inspiring to pull weeds and rake in the rain. Then I lost one of my Hussies on Monday, probably to a raccoon. I found her dead inside the chicken house and had to dispose of her body.
Tara said they would be coming to visit me on their one day off from work. I found out later that they were hoping to cheer me up. Awww. What a good kid.
Tara showed up late Tuesday night, after closing up at work where they live in Corvallis. We hugged and then told each other good night. Wednesday morning the sun came out! Tara requested Mom’s Best Baking Powder Biscuits in the World, and while we ate we decided to go to the tulip farm. I haven’t been there for years. Tara and their friends have tried multiple times in the last couple years, and keep showing up at the farm when it’s past tulip season or too early for tulips. In fact, Tara has already been there this year, but no tulips had bloomed yet.
Tara crouches carefully in a bare patch of dirt to get a close up photo without crushing any of the flowers.
At the top left, you can see a raised platform built for visitors to get a better look at the fields.
This is the view from the raised platform.
I needed the sunshine and bright colours to lighten my mood, and Tara needed to enjoy a rare day off from work and school, to simply play for awhile and not be responsible.
Our timing was good because it’s still within the main dates of the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm‘s 35th annual Tulip Festival. Each year the tulips are grown in a different portion of the farm, to ensure soil health. Since Tara had recently visited, they knew exactly where to go to find the tulips this year. In minutes of arrival, we were surrounded by tulips and eating them up.
My camera was hungry for all the colour too, and gulped it up out of proportion. I am a camera novice, so I don’t know what happened, but the colours in some of my photos are so saturated I’m afraid they’re going to start dripping.
So much colour. No editing here….just a lens gulping up colour.
A faded Mt. Hood in the distance behind the Hazelnut trees.
Tara and I had a lot of fun wandering through the fields of tulips and talking. We have a great relationship and even though we just spent a week together in Ireland, we already had lots of things to talk about again. I feel so fortunate to have this great kid who trusts me and shares with me. I asked T to take photos of me in the tulips because I realized in a whole week in Ireland, I had not asked them to take any photos of me. I’m the one always carrying the camera, so I need to remember to ask others to take my picture.
Me, warm enough to take off my sweater. Yay for sun!
Tara said, “Take off your sunglasses!”
Each field demonstrates tulips that are on sale from the farm’s flower catalog. Here is a popular choice for buyers: mixed tulip bulbs in a single bag.
Acres of blooming tulips.
I liked how these were all leaning toward the sun.
There is no picking area that I am aware of at this farm. The company sells bulbs from a catalog. Many people wander the fields in order to choose what to buy from the catalog.
At the back of the fields is an orchard of Hazelnut trees, one of Oregon’s most famous exports. It’s not yet hazelnut season, but the trees offer a nice backdrop to the tulips.
Hazelnut orchard at the back of the farm.
A tractor prepares a field nearby.
We were allowed to stand and look, but not to enter the orchard.
Also at the back of the fields, a lone man sat monitoring a couple of kites flying. He had a grey tiger shaped kite, and a giant purple shark kite. Tara said it looked like an animated character from a children’s movie, I can’t remember which one. I thought it looked ridiculous, and was irritated that I had to crop out an enormous purple cartoon whale shark from my photos.
….but I took one photo of it to show you what I mean.
The animated kite fit with the rest of the place though, which is entirely too corny for my taste. I refused to take any photos of the fake windmill, fake wooden shoe workshops, and all the carnival tents selling elephant ears and cotton candy. The place is set up mostly for kid entertainment, with rides and playgrounds and stuff that has nothing to do with tulips. I did like the game where kids place little rubber duckies into metal troughs and then rapidly pump water from old timey well pumps to flush the duckies to the other end of the trough and race each other. I do recall that when Tara was in middle school, we spent a lot more time in the carnival section though….so I should stop being so judgy.
The view as we headed back to the carnival section to find some food and wine.
One of the photos I took was of a bright red tulip shining her best self in a field of undisciplined yellow tulips bending every which way. I made a meme out of it.
View of Netarts Bay from the patio of our room at Terimore Motel. The Pacific Ocean is on the horizon.
The morning dawned splendidly in Netarts, Oregon, just west of Tillamook and right on the shores of Netarts Bay.
There was a notice posted in the room I had not seen the night before, asking people – admonishing people – not to touch baby seals. The flyer says that mother Harbor Seals stash their pups on the beach while they are out hunting, and if a person or a dog messes with the pup, the mother will not take care of it after that. The sign begs in all caps PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH OR MOVE A SEAL PUP. DO NOT LET YOUR DOG TOUCH A SEAL PUP! Sounds like this is a problem. So sad if it is.
We took the scenic route coming home and kept right on the coastline for a while, rather than return to Highway 101. At multiple beaches we saw signs posted that explain the catch limits for shellfish and marine invertebrates. It would be fun to live close enough to the beach to simply pop out there at low tide and fill a bucket with mussels or clams. By lunchtime we reached Pacific City, with its fabulous beach and eye-catching Haystack Rock and Cape Kiwanda. Interestingly, Oregon has a collection of rocks named Haystack Rock, including multiple sea rocks. This one is 327 feet high and is the fourth highest sea stack in the world.
A helicopter flies over Haystack Rock. Well, one of the Haystack Rocks.
Pacific City beach, looking toward Cape Kiwanda.
We stood awhile on the beach and gazed at the scene. Surfers were paddling out to try and catch a perfect wave. People built sand castles and threw frisbees for dogs and children launched kites. A stream of people climbed Cape Kiwanda’s sandy slopes to get to the top.
One great choice for a meal and a drink is the Pelican Brewery, because the deck with outside seating rests directly on the sand and the views are extraordinary. But it was crawling with people. We ate instead at Headlands Lodge. The Meridian restaurant has large open windows overlooking the beach. While we waited for our food, the air & sunshine coming in the window was warm and we contentedly watched surfers and parkers viciously vying for a parking space on the sandy lot. The parkers turned out to be the more interesting group.
Our corner table at Meridian, with open-air windows and the busy beach below.
Heading south we reached Lincoln City, and Will humored me while I ran into the local McMenamins to get a passport stamp. I’ve only just learned about this program, and found it too much fun to resist. McMenamins is a restaurant chain that began here in Portland. Frequently they are found in rennovated historic buildings, and the atmosphere inside a McMenamins is always creative and humorous. They have great food with a limited menu, because they are all about their craft beers, wines, and ciders. I am a fan of McMenamins and have been to many of them (I think there are currently 52 and have spread all across Oregon and into Washington), so the passport program sounded fun. Each time I visit a new place, I get a stamp. When a page is filled with stamps, I get a free thing, like a basket of fries, a pint, or a T-shirt. The free stuff is not as appealing to me as the game of getting all the stamps.
McMenamins passport, featuring the logo for Hammerhead Pale Ale.
Stamps for Kalama Harbor Lodge. Only one more stamp to go!
My stop at the Lincoln City McMenamins took a few minutes because some places make you earn the stamp and this was one of them. There is a riddle at the bar counter, that you must solve by finding the matching artwork inside the restaurant. Take a photo or a selfie with the art, then go back to the bar counter. If you got it right, you get your stamp!
We pulled over at Siletz Bay to soak up another view of the sea on a gorgeous day. We read an information sign about the 50-foot tsunami that crashed over this shore in the year 1700 and decimated everything there, including the local indigenous tribal villages. The sign said “Native peoples probably had little idea about the relationship between earthquakes and tsunamis…” There can’t be significant evidence to support this claim, and I am aware of evidence that proves otherwise; that native people have been aware of that very relationship since before written history, and passed on the knowledge through storytelling. I am sure that many Native people died in the 1700 tsunami, just as I am aware tsunamis kill many people in the 21st century. So much for advanced technology. I am irritated at assumptions that place the speaker in a position of power and knowledge merely because they don’t understand the group being discussed.
We went as far south as Newport, then turned east toward Corvallis, where we stopped to visit Tara and Brynnen and the OSU campus, as I mentioned in an earlier post. After spending the remainder of the day with my kiddo, we went on home back to Rainier.
A section of our beautiful Oregon coastline.
One thing I love about the Oregon Coast scenery is the frequency of rock outcroppings, often with trees on top. At this spot was an information sign about the 50-foot tsunami of 1700.
A section of our beautiful Oregon coastline.
It was time to head down the coast. Will had seen a lot of the area where I live, but I wanted to show him the unique coastlines we have on the Pacific that are unlike Atlantic coastlines.
I also wanted to introduce him to timberland. I grew up here in a U.S. Forest Service family, always close to vast areas of timberland, managed either by the government or private logging companies. So, rather than head west, then drop south along the coast to Tillamook, Will and I cut directly over the top of the Coast Range, and drove southwest to Tillamook. If you ever watched the reality TV show “Ax Men,” one of the crews worked here. (btw, any real logger will tell you the show was short on reality) It was a fun, narrow, windy road through remote hills covered in trees, and we passed many sections of recently harvested timber. In this area the method used is clearcutting, where every tree, sapling, and shrub is leveled and all that’s left on the land are stumps and sawdust. Evidence of what happens next came in the form of whole hillsides covered in young trees all the same age, with signs by the road telling what year they were planted. Trees are a sustainable resource, and every clearcut is followed by planting. But the newly harvested areas are hard to look at, and Will reacted with predictable emotion and distaste.
AIR MUSEUM painted on the side of the enormous Hangar B outside of Tillamook, OR. (Note the clearcut areas on the hills, showing patches of snow where there are no trees)
My Jeep parked at the turn-off for the museum, beneath a Douglas A4-B Skyhawk.
Hangar B is so enormous it dwarfs the Mini-Guppy.
We reached the coast town of Tillamook and headed first for the Air Museum in a gigantic airship hangar built in 1942. The history of the construction of Hangar B is fascinating, and it’s remarkable to stand inside that vast building with no internal structural supports. The museum includes a theatre that constantly played a short documentary of the building’s history in WWII, and also lots of donated items from wartime, including uniforms, instruction manuals, insignia, weapons, and all the usual things you find in a war museum. There are a few historical fire engines on one end, and the interior contains all kinds of aircraft that you can walk right up to.
There is a collection of flight simulators that we climbed into of course! And Will’s eyes glazed over in delight when we found a whole room filled with one man’s entire model collection representing practically every WWII battle field you can imagine. Will’s reaction was so awesome I wrote it down immediately on my phone so I would remember: “This is a little kid’s dream. I want to play with everything. I could stay here all day!”
Aeorospacelines Mini-Guppy. Look carefully and find the teeny tiny window where the pilots sit. That helps you imagine how enormous this plane is.
Fisher Flying Products British Tiger Moth
Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair ll
WWII Diorama Exhibit – model creations of every imagineable theatre and battle – a little kid’s dream.
My first time in the cockpit of an A-7E Corsair
My own view from inside there. All those gauges!
After the museum we ate an early supper at Old Oregon Smokehouse. This place had good reviews despite looking sketchy from the outside. We both had fish and chips of cod, halibut, salmon, and rockfish that were good, better than the famous Bowpicker in Astoria. Very generous portions and the chips (fries) are great. The seafood was super fresh and that makes all the difference.
Speaking of a little kid’s dream, our next stop was in search of ice cream! Directly across the street from Old Oregon Smokehouse is the Tillamook Creamery that offers my favourite cheese west of Vermont, and my favourite ice cream of all. Inside you can do a self-guided tour of cheese operations, sample their to-die-for cheddars, and shop at the restaurant or gift shop. We did the tour, ate samples, then got in line for ice cream. I ordered one scoop of Blood Orange Cream, and one scoop of Pendleton Whiskey and Maple. Each one was amazing. Will got Chocolately Chip Cookie Dough.
Assembly line where workers are getting 40-lb loaves of cheese ready for cold storage.
Cooler in the gift shop was drool-worthy.
Since it was March, I had not made any reservations for the night, thinking the season would mean we would have every hotel to ourselves. However, it was a gorgeous, warm, sunny weekend and guess what? Most of the hotels were booked. We took a short drive out of town to the seashore on a chance that Terimore Motel could accommodate us. They could! As we checked in, the owner told us we were just in time for the sunset, and it was going to be a good one. “I’ve seen many sunsets,” he said, “So I know.”
He was right. Will and I dumped our stuff in the room and immediately went down to the beach. Though the view from the room was incredible, I felt a need to be out there in the middle of it.
Sunset from our room.
Looking up at the Terimore Motel before we walked down the stairs to the beach.
From the trail down to the beach.
Kids playing at Star Wars on the sand with their light sabers.
Homes on the beach reflect orange light. PSA: Never, never, never buy a house situated as these are. Ocean storms, landslides, and tsunamis will eventually destroy the property. And uhh, “foundation built upon the sand,” anyone?
Sea bird just before it got nervous and flew away.
Margaret and I went to Ashland for Shakespeare as I wrote about earlier, but also to explore the local area a little bit. Sunday we went to Wildlife Safari, that I covered in my last blog post.
Wolf Creek Tavern in southern Oregon
Built in 1883 and continuously operating since then.
After Wildlife Safari, we stopped at The Historic Wolf Creek Inn for a cocktail. This stop was a delight because it’s in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t know anything about it other than having seen the highway signs for it for many years as I passed through on I-5. Henry Smith built his third hotel to be “the upscale one” along the stagecoach route. Built in 1883, Wolf Creek Inn is the oldest continuously operated hotel in the Pacific Northwest.
Famous guests include Clark Gable and Carol Lombard, and the bed they used is still in use today in the largest guest room. Mr. Gable liked to fish in the nearby Rogue River. The most famous guest was Jack London, whose room is considered so special it can’t be touched, and everything is maintained today as it was for Mr. London when he occupied it.
The Women’s Parlour
Jack London’s Room. Complete with Jack London’s chamber pot.
Our next stop was to find a covered bridge. Oregon has many, and I never tire of seeing them.
Grave Creek Bridge
Touring Wildlife Safari, then Wolf Creek Inn, then a covered bridge, was enough adventure for Sunday, and we dropped to sleep happy at our hotel in Ashland.
Monday morning we left to try to find a trail to the top of Table Rock. This is a volcanic mesa with a wide flat top that is easily seen from I-5. We found trail descriptions for Upper Table Rock and Lower Table Rock trails and made a wild guess that the one we wanted was “upper,” since we didn’t know there was another one, so the other one must be “lower.” We guessed wrong. But the trail was wonderful.
An interpretive sign at the beginning of the trail explains that these mesas were formed as the result of lava flow from a volcano 7 million years ago. Most of the flow eroded away, but the parts that remain are eye-catching plateau formations today. A website I found later claims that the volcanic flow was 9.6 million years ago. The website also explains that the Takelma Indians lived there when the area became overrun by miners and settlers in the gold rush. The Indians fortified themselves on Upper Table Rock and then launched an attack in 1853 to reclaim their lands. Apparently a reservation was assigned to them that included the Table Rocks area. (And there the website narrative ends…leading me to wonder if the Indians ever got to live there in peace, and at what point was the reservation dissolved, since there isn’t one there right now. And frustrated that anyone can say, “The Indians were given some land,” and can pretend with a straight face that it’s the end of the story. Ok, sorry. End of rant.) *
Up close look at the anthracite formations at the beginning of the trail.
Fabulous red trunks of madrone trees that are common along the Oregon coast.
The trail was super short and easy, but Margaret and I extended our time there by delighting in the beauty of the views and the lovely forest of black oaks and madrone.
At the top we headed directly for the edge of the mesa and were impressed with views of the Rogue River Valley.
Margaret looking toward Medford, Oregon.
We chatted with other hikers up there as well.
In the distance I spotted Lower Table Rock, the one I’ve seen a hundred times from the Interstate.
Canyon in the U-shaped mesa.
The top of Upper Table Rock is not as flat as I assumed it would be. As an unrepentant volcano-lover, I was excited to see these formations.
After our hike we went into the darling town of Jacksonville to wander shops and antique stores and enjoy the lovely weather. Next we went to the Rogue Creamery Cheese Shop and sampled some too-die-for blue cheeses. I confess, I purchased a couple pounds of it. Across from there is Lilliebelle Farms Handmade Chocolates, where we also sampled. I was tempted by the chili chocolates, but ended up purchasing the lavender sea salt caramels.
On Tuesday we decided to find another hike before our matinee show. This time we chose what looked like a loop, titled Toothpick Trail to Catwalk Trail Loop in our hiking app. It was a forest trail with a single view of something other than forest, very little interesting nature, and in the end, no loop. Turns out, there is a road the trail eventually intersects with, and you can return down the road, making a loop. Not what we had in mind.
The one and only viewpoint from Toothpick Trail was indeed lovely.
Intrepid hikers that we are, we found things of interest anyway, to keep our spirits up. As with the hike the day before, this trail was super short and easy, so once we realized it connected to other trails, we just kept going. There is a maze of trails on top of the ridge, and I was tickled to find their names all Alice In Wonderland themed, such as Caterpillar, Lewis, Jabberwocky and Bandersnatch.
These trails are popularized by mountain bikes. We were passed by multiple people on bikes, all of them polite and careful not to run us down. There were plastic ribbons strung between trees all over the place to keep the bikes on the best paths, lots and lots of warning signs and informational signs for the bikers. Probably helpful for them, but really ugly for us. We were intrigued by the trails built with humps and banked corners for bikes. This is trail construction we had not seen before.
Humps and banks built for mountain bikers (I cropped the photo to remove all the plastic tape strung between trees).
Trail marker for mountain bikers.
The other amusement we found on the trail was when we came across some experienced older male hikers. M and I must have looked dubious in our light, girly tourist clothing, carrying no pack whatsoever and a single water bottle between us. Makeup, jewelry… you get it. No one else knows that M and I both have over twenty years of backpacking experience. The reason we showed up looking completely unprepared for the forest is because we are *so* experienced that this truly was like going for a walk for us. None of these trails was more than a mile from a road, we were merely trying to kill time waiting for our Manahatta matinee down the hill in Ashland. We weren’t winded in the least, and did not consider the trails a challenging hike.
So. We spot some other hikers and we beeline for them, because we’re hoping to get some insider knowledge on how to make an actual loop out of all this hilltop wandering we’ve been doing. There are three men, 50-60 ish, in full Outdoor Gear, hiking poles, day packs, water bladders, specialty footgear, protctive hats – all of it. They tell us they are locals and hike up there all the time. They are immediately concerned for us, considering that our first question was “Is there a trail over on this side of the mountain that will link us back to Toothpick Trail?” which they interpret as us saying, “We don’t know where we are.” They ask us if we’re hungry, can they share their water with us, are we lost, are we ok? Oh good grief. I don’t think they ever really understood what we were doing up there. We kept saying we were fine, we weren’t worried or lost, we were only trying to make a more interesting hike. They assured us that there was no link back to Toothpick Trail and our best bet would be to return the way we came. “Can you find your way back?” they asked. We managed not to roll our eyes and waved goodbye and thanks. I hope none of them lost any sleep worrying that there would be two emaciated and terrified women trapped on the hill that night. I imagine that must happen around here, with the bazillion tourists who show up for plays like we did.
We got to the play on time and now the timeline goes back to my original post of this trip.
* Quick research on Wikipedia indicates that the Table Rock Reservation lasted a whopping three years. After which, fighting broke out again. Some Indians were marched Trail-of-Tears-like, on foot 300 miles to another reservation; others were put onto ships and moved, all of them that lived eventually ending up on reservations south of Portland.
Looking across the landscape of Wildlife Safari from the bears area.
Wildlife Safari is in Winston, Oregon and is the only drive-through animal park in the state. It covers over 400 acres, is home to over 500 animals, and hosts over 200,000 visitors a year. Margaret and I bought tickets for a close-up cheetah “enrichment encounter” at 11am before we drove through the park.
Cheetah celebrity of the day.
She sat patiently while people stood behind her and had their photos taken by park staff.
Margaret and me with the beautiful cat.
At the cheetah encounter, everyone stood in a semi-circle and gazed at a cheetah while she had her photo taken with other tourists. The park employees explained that they have one of the top cheetah breeding research centers on Earth. Here in Oregon is the number one cheetah breeding facility outside of Africa & number two in the world. I recalled coming here as a kid on school field trips and for birthday parties. Back then, when you drove through, for fun the cheetahs would run in packs beside the cars, close enough that I would be tempted to reach out and pet them. Today, the big cats are kept behind fences.
After the encounter, we hopped into the Jeep and went through the gate where we were handed a map, then drove into the park. The rules here are to go slowly, stay in your car, and don’t touch the animals. Brochures say, “Where you are captive and they roam free.”
We were absolutely delighted by everything, and surprised how frequently other vehicles passed us because we were going too slowly. We stopped and gawked at every creature we saw, talking to them and laughing.
Some of the enclosures are so huge that fences couldn’t even be seen, and that helped us to imagine these animals really are free. I used the photo of the bear at the top first, to help you understand what it really looks like here. As you gaze across the vast landscape, there are fences and roads and buildings and other cars. I tried to cut those out of most photos.
This was my actual view. Everything from inside the car. There’s me in the rear view.
Clever photography helps one erase the reality of being inside a car the whole time.
Giraffes are barely interested in us.
Long legs can pose a challenge for getting food off the ground.
Common Cape Eland grazing on a hill.
Common Cape Eland closer to the road.
Small group of zebras. My memory tells me that when I was a child, this was a larger herd. Maybe the others are behind the hill.
We also spotted Southern White Rhino, Whitecheek Gibbon primates, Yaks, Watuski cattle, and Gemsbok, but these were too far away for decent photos. Blog photos come from my Nikon, and both of our phones. We grabbed whatever was easiest to use when we spotted an animal. Consequently, you’ll see the poor resolution in some of the phone photos.
Margaret noticed some hippos on a nearby road and insisted we use a staff access road to get to them before they went back underwater. The photos were incredible!
About as close to a hippopotamus as I want to get.
I backed up and returned to our place on the other road before blocking another tourist’s passage, nervous the whole time about authorities telling me I wasn’t allowed to do that. My friend teased me that the Fun Police were going to get me.
East African Crown Crane showing us his balancing skills. That looks like a turkey behind him.
Predators like the African Lions were behind fences.
I think Margaret may have enjoyed the Brown Bears the most.
This shot shows their impressive claws.
This photo makes me laugh. Not sure if he was eating something, or what. Look at that hump on his back!
While we were there, two Brown Bears stayed close to the road, so she was able to get many great photos.
There was a small herd of American Bison that moved back and forth across the road in search of good eating.
This one keeps an eye on Margaret’s camera while it eats.
Roosevelt Elk are always gorgeous, but plentiful where we live, so not very exotic.
The stripes on the White Bearded Gnu look like paint dripping in the rain.
This African Elephant spotted trainers nearby and stood up on its back feet and did a pose, hoping for a treat. It got the treat. We were so astonished to see the voluntary trick we forgot about our cameras.
Margaret was excited to see their giant ears.
Around one curve was a little hut where a staff member answered questions and sold little cups full of animal food. She said for the next mile, we were allowed to feed animals from the car. The animals knew this, and surrounded us.
I couldn’t identify this buck, who took the food right out of my palm. So much for not touching the animals.
A Sitka deer waits for food.
This one didn’t appear to be interested in the food pellets.
This Rhea and all her cousins were very eager to make our aquaintance.
The Emus were the biggest crack up, with their curly mop of feathers on top, and those giant red eyes. I could swear that half of them were posing for photos. Conditioned by my own chickens, I was convinced they wanted to peck me, and stayed way back.
The Black Buck is a very pretty animal.
When the cup of treats was exhausted, we were at the exit, and we parked once more and explored the grounds at the entrance. This is more zoo-like, with smaller cages, a restaurant, gift shop, feed-the-giraffe tours, and the like.
Flamingos are free to go where they will.
A couple of cheetahs are in this area, for people who can’t make it to the drive-through park.
We spotted a lemur
Black Swan
An anteater! I had no idea they were so crazy-looking.
Margaret fed some Koi and Mallards
Fat happy fish
There was a walk-in aviary filled mostly with Budgies.
We saw many, many more animals than what I’ve been able to show here. It’s a great place to take the family, or as I’ve just demonstrated, a great place for girlfriends to find hours of fun. A point I’d also like to make is that it’s very inexpensive, compared to similar tourist attractions, and it was explained to me that this is because they are not for profit. All proceeds are merely invested back into the park. It was $19.95 to drive through, and $15 for the special cheetah encounter. Everything in the gift shop was reasonably priced and high quality.
Our backstage guide, Sal, talking about the Elizabethan Theatre.
I made my debut on the Elizabethan Theatre stage!! Then they asked me to get off – for safety reasons. Ha ha ha ha!!
Margaret and I met up for a vacation a little closer to home than our two most recent trips to Chile and to Myanmar. This time, we went to southern Oregon! She drove north 5 1/2 hours from Santa Rosa and I drove south 5 1/2 hours from Rainier. We met at a hotel in Ashland.
The town of Ashland, in Southern Oregon, is famous for its Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), founded in 1935. These days it’s a pretty big deal. Wikipedia says “Each year, the Festival offers 750 to 800 performances from February through late October or early November, to a total audience of about 400,000. The company consists of about 675 paid staff and 700 volunteers.” The website also notes that by 2015, 20 million people had attended.
Even though my mother went to high school in Ashland, and my grandmother lived here when I was a kid, and I have family that lived in the area for decades, and even while I traveled through constantly on my way to northern California to pick up and deliver Tara while their dad and I were sharing custody, and even though I have lived in Oregon for the last 11 years, this was my very first visit to Ashland for the purpose of seeing Shakespeare. It’s about damned time.
We had tickets to two matinees (they’re expensive – I couldn’t afford more), one Tuesday and one Wednesday. We arrived Saturday night and entertained ourselves with other things Sunday and Monday. We did a couple of hikes, one of them the morning before our Tuesday show. I’ll get to all that stuff later. Stay tuned.
The first play we saw was Manahatta, by Mary Kathryn Nagle at the Thomas Theatre. It was my choice that we see this one, because the playwright is Cherokee, and I continue my quest to learn about my Native history and support other Indians when I can. Two stories are told at once, overlapping. One is set in the 17th Century when Dutch colonists were recently arrived on the island called Manahatta by the occupants and while trading with the local Lenape Indians, decided they wanted control of their land. The other is set on precisely the same piece of land, 380 years later called Manhattan, as a modern Lenape woman fights her way into employent at the white male dominated Lehman Brothers bank and begins to make a name for herself on Wall Street.
The young woman in both stories is at first filled with hope of youth and all the possibilities of life ahead of her, and both are eventually devastated through wrenching tragedy. The Dutch trick the Lenape into allowing them to settle on the island, and then the kick all the Indians off the island and build a wall to keep them out, then shoot and kill her husband and father of her unborn child. The wall is later immortalized in the name of a street in Manhattan, synonymous with a financial center. Lehman Brothers is embroiled in sub-prime mortgage lending and fails and the young woman knows she was a part of the bad practices, while simultaneously the woman’s childhood home is foreclosed upon, making her own mother homeless.
The author said one of her goals in Manahatta was to show the audience how our history is always part of our present, whether or not we realize it. The final line of the play was when the modern Lenape woman speaks introspectively about the interaction of the Lenape with colonists saying, “Ever since they arrived they have been trying to get rid of us, and we are still here.”
That line wrecked me. I am no Indian activist, but I guess with the years that I have spent learning over and over and over how to recognize subtle and sometimes unintentional but always consequential attempts to erase indigenous Americans, I too have begun to feel a resonant idignation at how hard it is to convince people that we are here. Right in front of you all: we are here! Living in 2018, using smart phones, running companies, getting graduate degrees, flying cross country to visit grandma, standing in line at Starbucks, watching Netflix, marrying and having families and shopping at Target.
Ahoy, ye mateys!
The lights came up immediately and I was bawling so hard I couldn’t speak. Margaret practically had to lead me by my arm to get me out of there. She insisted that I needed to go next to the fabulous gift shop and try on masks and hats on display for Halloween. I acquiesced, and it definitely helped. (Thank you Margaret)
That night my friend decided that we should do a backstage tour the next morning, only $20 each. We both went on line to try and book one, but we couldn’t make it work. She called the box office to buy tickets and was informed that first of all the backstage tours are only available to OSF members (minimum membership $35), and second of all the tours were sold out for Wednesday. The man on the phone said that sometimes there are tickets available just before the tour, when someone returns tickets they can’t use…but they are still only available to members. Margaret did not recognise any particular obstacle.
At 9:30 am we showed up at the box office and asked if any tour spots had opened up. None had. Margaret walked out the door and began questioning people sitting on rock walls and benches waiting for the tour to begin, “Hi! Do you have any extra tickets?” Can you believe it: after asking her third group of people, a woman nearby overheard and came over to tell us that her daughter could not come and would soon be returning two tickets and she would not accept payment for them. Viola! Margaret waited and sure enough, soon she had the other woman’s tickets. She took those into the box office and asked to get them converted to our names. Margaret was told she couldn’t use them because 1) we are not members and 2) these are special tickets for handicapped people anyway.
My ballsy friend met me outside with all the other waiting people who were now queuing up at the doors of the Thomas Theatre, where the tour would begin. “Just get in line,” she says to me, conspiratorially. As we arrived at the door, the man taking tickets burst out laughing at something someone behind him had said. Still chuckling, he took our tickets and added them to his growing stack of tickets, and joked to us about the funny thing that happened. He then turned to the people in line behind us. He never even LOOKED at our tickets!
Boom. Backstage Tour. For free. Not members.
In the Thomas Theatre, we were told about the history of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and about the amazing versatility of Ashland’s newest theatre: the Thomas Theatre, in which every single seat can be moved and the audience and stage rearranged in any configuration you like. We were handed off to a second tour guide, actor Christopher Salazar, who asked us to call him Sal. We crossed the street to the Elizabethan Theatre and went underground to the tunnel connecting it to the adjacent Bowman Theatre. We sat in the Green Room and learned about the incredible choreography of making this festival happen. Think about it: typically when there is a play, it continues on the same stage daytime and evening, for months until the run is over. However! In Ashland, festival directors want visitors to be able to see every single play in 10 days, or to be able to choose from multiple options each day, no matter how short your visit. This season there are 10 separate productions using three stages. That means a complete breakdown and set up of the stage twice a day for two theatres and once a day for the other theatre. Wow. We then walked over to the Angus Bowman Theatre, named for the founder of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Sal told us about his favourite part of OSF: the outreach productions into communities not able to participate in the festival itself.
Our final stop was backstage at the Elizabethan, an open air theatre, where Sal (currently an actor in multiple productions at the festival) described how many of the people are employed behind the scenes, stories about inspiration for costumes, economies for typical actors at OSF, and what it’s like to have to change from one character to another in less than a minute, while running from exit to entrance behind the scene, dropping pieces of costume onto the floor and pushing arms into clothing extended by waiting assistants.
The tour was fabulous! And highly recommended, even if you need to go the route of obtaining membership, followed by purchasing an available ticket.
Henry V, a good man
We lunched, then explored lovely Lithia Park that borders the theatres, before returning to the Thomas once more for our matinee show of Henry V. In the intimate Thomas Theatre, we recognised Sal right away in one of the five roles he plays in Henry V. He all but winked at us when he spotted us, only 15 feet away.
This was my first exposure to Henry V. I hadn’t even read it before. I learned long ago that it’s helpful to research prior to seeing a Shakespeare play for the first time, so I had crammed a little in the hotel room the night before. Basically the story tells the tale of King Henry V as he has just ascended the throne and no one is quite sure what kind of king he’ll be, especially considering his history as a carouser. He turns out to be a good king: strong, fair, and in multiple ways still a confused young man. His leadership is outstanding and he conquers France by sheer force of will, and finds his match in a woman.
Daniel Jose Molina is phenomenal as Henry. I understand now why the Henry V performances sold out so fast. Molina lets himself go so freely that I think for the first time I recognise, in hindsight, that every other actor I’ve seen has been holding back the tiniest bit. I was all in from the first scene. What really strikes me with this actor is his body language and facial expressions that go beyond flattering hyperbole I’ve heard before. This stuff is for real. Just watch his FACE, and somehow you know what’s in the character’s mind, and then…watch it change as the character has a new thought…and realize even before the next line is spoken, that the character has told you what he’s going to do and you’re right there in on it with him. What an extraordinary, personal way to be introduced to this typically massive play, in a small theatre with only 12 actors other than those in the ensemble. I was so close I could see the notch in his eyebrow: not sure if it’s from a scar, or is a bit of fashion.
I found Molina’s Instagram page and I’m following him now, because he (like my actor friend, Sheldon Best) is going to blow my mind periodically with his artistry, and I want to be there to see it.
My other favourite actor in Henry V is Rachel Crowl who was an understudy that stepped in for the original actor. Crowl acts in multiple roles but is most memorable and excellent as Pistol. I noticed her instantly, as she took the stage in the chorus as the play begins. I saw a person presenting as a woman but also reminding me of a man. Rachel plays multiple men’s roles, and as Pistol has a deep, gorgeous voice that cannot be mistaken for anything feminine. I am delighted and fascinated, and now have so many questions for some future transgender actor I meet: Are there additional layers of conflict compared to a gender normative person who plays a different gender? And also, is your transformation to play both male and female roles a more familiar task than many actors with the same challenge?Do you have more insight? Does this give you an advantage? Is everyone else jealous? haha
As soon as the lights came up, we slipped out of the theatre ahead of everyone else and got totally soaked in the rain as we hurried to the Jeep (glad I wasn’t in the Elizabethan just then). I gave M a ride back to the hotel to get her car. Then we hugged goodbye and hit I-5 going opposite directions.
{I’ll post soon to tell you all the other stuff we did.}
Entrance to Willamette Valley Vineyards
Lavender and vines along the entranceway to the hilltop facility.
My dragon spawn turned 21 recently. It’s so hard to wrap my head around the concept of this full-fledged adult being the same teeny wrinkly purple thing I brought home 21 years ago. I have realized that 21 years is not that many years. It’s nearly half my life, but dang, it went like a blink!
A small Tara with wooden sword at a Renaissance Faire
Tara and me at one of our first Faerieworlds festivals.
Our tradition, you may recall, is to go to The Enchanted Forest in Salem. I’ve had loads of fun with Tara and their awesome friends, visiting the theme park year after year and living out our childhoods with abandon on one brilliant July day. Right next door to Enchanted Forest is a winery that we had only spotted from the Interstate. This year, since Tara is of legal drinking age, their birthday idea was to visit the winery.
I called Willamette Valley Vineyards and explained it was a birthday visit and asked what a person might do there for fun, other than tasting wines. They suggested a tour, and I made a reservation.
Willamette Valley Vineyards is a first-class destination, which made this a serendipitous choice. Until we arrived, we had no idea what an enormous, visitor-centric place it is. Sadly, I neglected to get some photos of the main tasting room, but it’s huge and oh so beautiful. There are three bars with about 8 people tending, who can all help you with tasting a flight of wines, or purchasing, or eating lunch, or touring, or even booking a night’s stay because yes, this place also has guest lodging. I imagine it would be a wonderful stay.
The main buildings are at the top of a hill, and thus visitors are afforded incredible views in every direction. Just in case you want something even better than the view available in the dining and tasting rooms, there is a tower one can climb, which puts you another 50 feet up.
Tara celebrating their birthday in the tower.
View from the tower.
Molly and me, at our main gathering place during the tour.
The tour is also a tasting. We tasted 5 different wines, some award-winning, during the tour. Our guide, Suzanne Zupancic, put us at ease and made us feel like she was our friend right away. Suzanne led us through the different stages of wine production at Willamette Valley, to include the history of the vineyard’s existence, and the bottling station and of course the barrel storage. She told the story of the founder, Jim Bernau, who grew up knowing wines because his father was an attorney for the first vineyard in Oregon after prohibition. She explained how the winery is solar powered, doesn’t irrigate, and instead of typical pest control, partners with a raptor rescue organization to use owls to control the rodent population!
She explained some general concepts to help us in choosing a wine, such as when a wine is sweeter, there is generally less alcohol. Knowing this, a quick glance at the label can help you choose what you’ll like. She talked about Oregon’s famous pinot noirs, a thin-skinned grape that has caught the wine world’s attention. She taught us about cooperage, the craft of building wine barrels, and how to understand the labels on the outside of the barrels. She also explained why so many barrels are stained red. It’s because the wine slowly evaporates and the only way to maintain its integrity is to top off the wine frequently, and not allow any oxygen inside the barrels. Topping off tends to end up with a little bit of wine spill, that drips down the side and stains the barrel. She explained that Cabernet sauvignon and Merlot benefit from aging, but others do not.
Barrels of white wines.
A door leading from the red wine barrels section.
Me with as much wine nearby as I could ever wish for.
It’s not a flattering photo, because everyone is squinting in the bright sun.
Suzanne also told us about Bill Fuller, a legendary winemaker in Oregon. He left California’s Napa valley in 1973 to take advantage of the ideal geography in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. His Tualatin Vineyard 1980 Pinot Noir and 1981 Chardonnay took home “Best of Show” in both red and white categories at the 1984 London International Wine Fair, a feat unduplicated by any winemaker in the competition’s history. Bill Fuller’s winery merged with Willamette Valley Vineyards, and Mr. Fuller began working with Willamette Valley Vineyards in 2013.
She also explained about the remarkable geologic processes that made the Willamette Valley so rich for agriculture and particularly for grapes. The history includes a historic sea, volcanic processes, and the Missoula Floods. Tara, a geology major at Oregon State University, was interested in this portion of the tour.
Brynnen, Tara, me, Molly
After the hour and a half long tour, and five wines, we were all ready for some food! We ate from their gourmet menu and sat out on one of the many outdoor patios to eat it. We were joined by bees. Interestingly, the staff handed us fabric softener sheets to place on the table to keep the wasps away. It was a little effective. At lunch, I gave Tara a gift I had made of childhood photos through the years. Tara read the book outloud to all of us.
Tara opens up the memory book I made as a birthday gift.
Tara reading their birthday book to us.
Finally, we were ready to go and purchased some of our favourite wines from the day. I said goodbye to the kids who were all headed back to Corvallis.
We live close to the Pacific Ocean, so that destination had to be on our itinerary.
For our last day of mini road trips, my friend Vladimir and I headed to the coast. Isn’t it wonderful how many different kinds of experiences we were able to have in only five days of travel? Almost each day began at our own doorsteps. It is like living in Paradise.
Vlad is new in the area and doesn’t have a car, so we made a plan to do a week’s worth of mini-road trips so he could see where he lives. Since I have the car, I got to plan the trip. Monday we went to Mt. St. Helens to see what the volcano looks like 38 years after an eruption (hint: it’s beautiful). Tuesday we drove into east central Oregon to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument to explore desert geology and the history of that particular region which holds an exceptional collection of Cenozoic Era fossils. There were many places to explore in that region, and it is a four-hour drive away, so we stayed the night out there. That allowed us to hike and find fossils for two days. Thursday we drove out to the most commanding volcano in the region because of its proximity and its beauty: Mt. Hood.
Friday morning we drove out highway 30 in hopes of catching a ferry across the Columbia River. I have not taken the ferry before and thought it would be fun. Since I live on highway 30 and Vlad hadn’t been to my house in about a year (because he has no car), we stopped by “real quick like” and see the latest changes at my farm. It was a fun visit, Racecar said hi to Vlad, and off we went.
But it was 5 minutes too late, and we arrived at the dock in time to see the ferry tenders locking the gate and the ferry departing. Bummer.
I had the idea of making a loop, so I thought we could reverse direction and if things worked out ok, we could just catch a return ferry from the Washington side into Oregon on our way back.
It was a short drive to Astoria from there, but it was midday and we were already hungry. We decided to eat first before anything else. While at the Hotel Condon, we spoke with other guests who raved about the fish&chips place across from the Astoria Maritime Museum. That was as good a reason as any to go find it.
A line of people faithfully waits to buy food served from a Columbia Bowpicker.
The Bowpicker was easy to find as our friends had described it: in the shape of a boat, with a line stretching down the block. Turns out, the eatery occupies an actual converted gillnet boat, which makes it a great tourist draw. By the size of the line, I was anticipating the best fish&chips of my life. There are four menu items, but three are merely a variation on a single menu item. 1) whole order (5 pieces w/fries) 2) half order (3p w/fries) 3) fish only 4) fries only.
The line to buy fish for lunch did indeed stretch quite a distance. I appreciated the information sign to entertain me for a few minutes:
You are standing next to what was known as the Columbia River Bowpicker. These boats were 28 feet in length. They were planked with Port Orford Cedar, oak frames, and Douglas fir cabin and deck. These boats evolved from double-ended boats from the 1870s that used sails as their power source.
By the 1920s, all boats were powered by 6 to 10 hp single piston engines. By the 1940s and 1950s these boats became the modern version you see here; square stern and powered by V8 marine engines. During this period, there were hundreds of these boats anywhere on the Columbia River.
The Bowpickers fished for salmon and sturgeon on the Columbia and other waters of the Northwest. They employed long floating gillnets, hundreds of feet in length, that were retrieved from the bow of the boat. The fish were then picked out of the net. Thus the name Bowpicker.
Peep into the kitchen
Lunch! Note persistent seagull in background.
We finally got our meal of fresh Albacore tuna and thick slabs of potatoes. We tasted them while fighting off a pigeon and a seagull. I’d give the meal a B+. Definitely fresh. Clearly real fish steaks. Cooked at the proper temperature, so not greasy at all. The batter was too bready and seemed heavy, and not very flavorful.
Satiated, we took off for the Astoria Column. We traveled in to Astoria from the east, so were still miles from the beach itself. I know, it’s not original, but for anyone who has never been here, it’s a must-see to get your first views of the ocean from the column and its astounding vantage.
City of Astoria in the foreground, bridge across the mouth of the Columbia River, Cape Disappointment in the background.
We crossed the bridge of another tributary river (just out of sight to the left of the image above), and went to Fort Stevens. Fort Stevens was once part of a military defense installation at the mouth of the Columbia River. The fort saw service for 84 years, from the Civil War to World War II. Today it is a park with multiple camping options and fun stuff for day visitors.
The remains of the old fort are still here (in fact, we saw military remnants at many stops in the area today), and visitors are allowed to climb all over them at our own risk. “Caution: beware of unprotected drops and open pits.” haha. We poked around, trying to identify what each structure was for.
Standing atop what’s left of the main Fort Stevens structure. There are many small bunkers scattered in this area. The trees are newly grown and when the Fort was in use, it had a clear view of the Pacific Ocean.
The original earthen fort, completed in 1865 to protect the mouth of the Columbia River from Confederate gun boats and the British Navy during the Civil War, was named for Union Army Major General Isaac I. Stevens, first territorial governor of Washington, who died in 1862 at the Battle of Chantilly. The post later served as Oregon’s only coastal defense fort during the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II. The fort has the distinction of being the only military fort in the United States to be fired upon by an enemy during time of war since the War of 1812, when it was attacked by a Japanese submarine on June 21, 1942. ~https://oregonstateparks.org/
Next stop was finally the beach itself. We parked and walked out onto the sand, being drawn to a shipwreck, as many people are. The Peter Iredale was a four-masted steel barque sailing vessel that ran ashore October 25, 1906, on the Oregon coast en route to the Columbia River. It has been slowly decomposing and generations have returned to walk around it and climb upon it at low tide.
I love that I captured the boy in mid-leap. The kite also adds to the scene.
The Peter Iredale ran aground October 25, 1906. Now it’s a playground for boys in uniform.
Beach at Fort Stevens.
Looking north along the beach we could actually see the jetty at Cape Disappointment, in Washington.
Vlad and I walked up the beach a spell, spotting fishing vessels on the horizon, enjoying the smells and sounds of the sea, then turned back to the Jeep. It felt strange getting to the beach and then leaving. But this was not a beach trip and rather a Let’s-get-a-look-at-the-land trip.
We crossed the magnificent Astoria-Megler Bridge to Washington state (that’s the one you see in the photo above). The southern part of the bridge is extremely high to enable free passage of any kind of ship up the river. And we do get everything in Portland: enormous tourist cruise ships, tall-masted sailing ships, Navy ships, and every kind of ship and barge for commerce. The bridge has no means of opening or lifting, and rather is built very high, which is exciting for motorists! It is just over 4 miles (6.55 km) to cross the river.
On the Washington side we turned immediately for Cape Disappointment, named when an explorer had tried and tried to find the mouth of the Columbia River and was forced to admit defeat. Ironically, at the mouth of the very river.
My Discover Pass came in handy one more time this week. I purchased it in October to park at the trailhead when I hiked the Enchantments. Anyone who lives around here and does some exploring in Washington state should have one. They’re $10 for a day pass, but only $40 for a year. Many of the parking lots to recreational areas require one, so it pays for itself easily if you get out of the house. We had free admission to Mt. St. Helens observatory, and now free parking at Cape Disappointment.
We hiked the first trail lined with informational signs about weather in the region. For two people with a weather background, the signs are interesting for different reasons than most people I imagine. Personally, I like to see how weather is explained for the layperson. But also, knowing weather, I skim through all the facts and see what is impressive based on my own knowledge. For example, coastal wind speeds can exceed the minimum requirement for hurricane wind speeds. That’s a fun perspective.
The end of the informational weather trail.
Trail to North Head lighthouse. Can you see it, smack in the center of the photo?
This is a view of the jetty looking south from Cape Disappointment. The mountains in the distance are Oregon.
North Head Lighthouse.
I then gave up my plans to head along the smaller road in Washington and catch the ferry back to Oregon. We had been out all day. We had been out all week, actually. My vote was to cross the bridge back to highway 30 and head home by the quickest route. Vlad agreed.
All in all it was a successful week of exploration. I hope my friend now feels more keenly his place on this particular spot of the Pacific Northwest.
