NORTHEASTERN CALIFORNIA: LAVA BEDS NATIONAL MONUMENT

 September 6, 2020

On July 22, 2020, a thunderstorm rolled through northeastern California, and lightning strikes started several fires, including one in Lava Beds National Monument. Named the Caldwell Fire, it roared through over 83,000 acres before it was contained. The area, dense with ponderosa and lodgepole pine, had not seen fire in over 40 years.

About 70% of the park was scorched. If you do a Google image search of Lava Beds National Monument, you get photos like these that show trees and grasses growing on the perimeters of the lava beds . . .

From here

. . . and also throughout lava fields.

From here

When we turned into the park, we didn't realize what had occurred there six weeks before.

SOUTHERN OREGON, DAY 4: LOWER KLAMATH NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE AND TULE LAKE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

 September 6, 2020

In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt established the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, which straddles the Oregon-California border, as the nation's first waterfowl refuge. Its more than 50,000 acres host 80% of the Pacific Flyway's migrating waterfowl, with peak waterfowl populations reaching 1.8 million birds.

But while it is known for its waterfowl, there are plenty of other species to be seen, such as these red-tailed hawks, a bird we often see in our neighborhood in Southern California.

Turkey vultures congregate as if they were attending a funeral.

Later on we spied a golden eagle surveying the area from his perch atop a telephone pole. 

SOUTHERN OREGON, DAY 3: CRATER LAKE, THE PINNACLES, AND KLAMATH FALLS

 September 5, 2020

I was excited to visit Crater Lake, which, at 1,949 feet, is the deepest lake in the United States and the ninth deepest in the world. As its name implies, the lake is in a caldera that was formed by the collapse of a volcano 7,700 years ago.

Crater Lake is less than 10 miles from Diamond Lake, and as we were driving between the two lakes, we noticed a lot of fire damage. The 2020 Oregon wildfire season was one of the most destructive in the history of the state, similar to the 2020 California wildfire season. The fires had started the week we were there, and by the end of the season, over a million acres had burned. These trees had burned in a previous fire, but it gave us an idea of the devastation that the fires would cause in other places.

I was struck by the appearance of these burned trees. Don't they look like Watts Towers in South Los Angeles?

We weren't the only ones on our way to Crater Lake. This is the line at the ranger station.

SOUTHERN OREGON, DAY 3: TOKETEE FALLS AND DIAMOND LAKE

 September 5, 2020

After our two safari experiences, we decided it was time for some trees, so we headed into the Umpqua National Forest, which is located on the west slopes of the Cascade Mountains and covers almost a million acres.  

It only made sense to start out with some Umpqua ice cream, especially when chocolate peanut butter was an option.

The road into the park snaked alongside the 111-mile-long turquoise-colored Umpqua River, which originates in the Cascade Mountains and makes its serpentine path in a northwest direction to the Pacific Ocean.

We had been in the car for a good part of the day, and I was ready for some exercise. This looked like a good place for a little walk.

SOUTHERN OREGON, DAY 3: WILDLIFE SAFARI IN WINSTON

 September 5, 2020

Just 70 miles from Bandon and its West Coast Safari Park, down a long, winding two-lane road, we discovered, quite by accident, the Wildlife Safari in Winston. How these two animal parks can exist in such out-of-the-way places and so relatively close to each other is a mystery to me. 

We were on our way to our hotel in Sutherlin but had taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up going through Winston, where we noticed the signs for the Wildlife Safari. Curious, we turned in at the sign and drove up the road for a bit.

It was just before dusk, a good time to see wildlife. We slowed down when a doe ran across the road in front of our car, and it was a good thing we did, because not far behind was her sweet little fawn.

A little further up the road we came across a flock of wild turkeys.

We thought these two sightings boded well for the park, which was already closed, but we determined to come back the following morning when it opened.

SOUTHERN OREGON, DAY 2: WEST COAST GAME PARK SAFARI IN BANDON

Friday, September 4, 2020

We drove past the West Coast Game Park Safari in Bandon, Oregon, on our way to our hotel. We were still in the "wandering mode," so I suggested that we wander through the game park. It isn't a big place--just 75 species on exhibit in a park covering 21 acres. It has been open since 1968 and gets about 60,000 visitors a year.

The small gift shop that doubled as a ticket office had some intriguing t-shirts and decor.

It took us about an hour to walk through the park. We saw a few kangaroos.

SOUTHERN OREGON: DAY 2, LONE RANCH BEACH AND FACE ROCK

 September 4, 2020

We had been so swept off our feet by the Oregon beaches that we decided to spend a few more hours at Lone Ranch Beach before going north. 

A quote from the author D. H. Lawrence perfectly describes our morning meanderings: "That's the place to get to--nowhere. One wants to wander away from the world's somewheres into our own nowhere."  

There is something about having the sounds of human life wiped out by the sounds of waves and gulls.  We had plenty of time to just wander up and down the beach with no real agenda except to see what was around us.

To start, I'm not sure I've ever seen a concentration of mussels quite this dense.

I love the patterns in sand made by living things--seaweed for the first photo, but what do you think made the pattern in the second photo? Maybe a snail? Perhaps a twisted strand of seaweed? 

There were patterns everywhere I looked. This looks like a shattered windshield--a very muddy one.

SOUTHERN OREGON: DAY 1, BEACH CITIES

 September 3, 2020

Six-and-a-half months into COVID, we found ourselves desperate for another trip. We settled on a relatively short round-trip flight to Medford, Oregon, a city of about 83,000 people located 27 miles north of the California border and about 230 miles south of Salem, Oregon's capital city. Bob planned out a basically circular route with a few detours. Almost all of it was in less populated areas, far from the COVID epicenters during that time.  

We flew out of the Palm Springs Airport, a first for us even though it is only 40 miles from our home. It is a very small but very nice little airport with a definite Palm Springs personality, including a tribute to Sonny Bono, who was mayor there from 1988-1992 and then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for California's 44th District from 1995 until his death in a skiing accident in 1998.

As you can see, there weren't many people in the airport.

We took every precaution we could think of to protect ourselves from COVID, this being our first flight since the March 2020 outbreak. Once we got to our seats, we added face shields to our gear.

We had a short stop in San Francisco, and then landed in Medford, Oregon, at 12:27 PM, where we picked up a car and headed for the coast. From Medford, we started on a more or less clockwise circle of driving that dipped into Northern California at Crescent City, from which point we headed north up the coast.

Somewhere near the Oregon border (I am pretty sure it was the Oregon side), I saw Sasquatch out in the middle of a field. I made Bob pull over so I could take a picture. I mean, how often do you get to take a picture of Sasquatch, much less one of him wearing a COVID face mask and standing in a field of . . .  

MARIJUANA? Yes indeed, I do believe those are healthy, thriving, marijuana plants. No wonder Sasquatch is guarding the field.

PORTLAND, OREGON: JAPANESE AND CHINESE GARDENS

Portland has both a Japanese Garden and a Chinese Garden. My daughter and I thought we would only have time for one or the other, and so we read the descriptions and reviews of both gardens and tried to choose just one. They both got rave reviews, but as my daughter had lived in Japan twice, we opted for nostalgia and the Japanese Garden. The evening before we flew home, however, we discovered that our flight had been changed, giving us just enough time to add the Chinese Garden.

So which was better? Having been to both, I still can't make a recommendation of one over the other. 

THE JAPANESE GARDEN covers 5.5 acres in Portland's West Hills neighborhood, a nice break from the noise and commotion of the city, which is important as traditional Japanese gardens seek to unite the visitor with nature and provide a sense of peace and tranquility.

We visited the garden at the end of the day when there were very few other visitors, and it was definitely peaceful and tranquil.

PORTLAND, OREGON: MUSEUM OF ART

The Portland Art Museum, founded in 1892, is the oldest art museum on the West Coast and the seventh oldest in the United States. 

The sculpture garden surrounding the museum is worth a stop even if you don't have time to go inside.

Brushstrokes (1996) by Roy Lichtenstein

It was fun to see this piece by Allan Houser, an artist I had become acquainted with on a previous trip to the Oklahoma State Capitol:

                              Desert Harvest (1982) by Allan Houser

Hungarian artist and emigre Frederic Littman is credited with reviving the art of sculpture in Oregon in the 1940s:

Mistral No. 2 (1961) by Frederic Littman

PORTLAND, OREGON: COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE

One of the "must dos" for someone visiting Portland is a day exploring the Columbia River Gorge. The drive begins about twenty miles outside of Portland in the quaint town of Troutdale and cuts through the Cascade Mountains

Called "The King of Roads," the 75-mile-long Columbia River Scenic Byway was started in 1915 and took seven years to complete. It is considered a significant engineering feat. The man who was responsible for the project, Samuel C. Lancaster, worked hard to showcase the gorgeous waterfalls and views of the area without "marring what God had put there."

Our yellow Kia Tilly handled the hairpin curves and elevation changes just fine.