Wow...better than six months to finish a single trip report...pathetic!
Pathetic, that is, until one considers what we've been doing (or, more correctly, where we've been going) instead of updating our blog. From Moab to the Uintas, the Tushars to the Sawtooths, Yellowstone to Great Basin National Park, and finally England, Scotland and Wales...we've had an epic 2006. We've seen and done more cool things this spring, summer and fall than any other time of comparable length in our lives.
We're hopelessly backlogged here, but, winter is coming (and with it perhaps a little time to catch up). I look forward to it...
Sterling
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Sunday, October 22, 2006
The last day and a half of our trip was a blur. From Sweet Home we raced along Highways 20 and 22 to Detroit, Oregon. We'd planned on taking NF-46 north from Detroit (through the high cascades) but a local insisted that the road was impassable.
Determined not to repeat our adventures on NF-11, we continued west on the 22 into the Willamette Valley and the little town of Sublimity. From Sublimity we headed north, to Silverton, through some of the most beautifully pastoral countryside we'd ever seen...rolling hills and green fields stretching from one horizon to the other.
The Willamette Valley...
Silverton was a sparkling little town, and Shauna fell in love with it as we sped down main street(it bums me out that we had to blow through so quickly). She still fantasizes about buying a house and living there someday. Not a bad daydream...we plan on taking a trip to check out the area next spring.
The Willamette Valley outside of Silverton...
From Silverton, we took a circuitous route north, through the Willamette Valley and up the western flank of Mt. Hood. The Sky had turned gray, and the summit was shrouded in clouds as we ascended. The sky cleared for just long enough near the top to snap a couple photos of the snow covered peak before moving on.
Mt. Hood...
We spent the last night of our trip in Hood River; an ultra-quaint little Victorian town on the banks of the Columbia River. The scenery from our room was completely ridiculous with views of the Columbia River Gorge and Mt. Adams out one window, and panoramas of Mt Hood out another.
The next morning we a raced down the Gorge, stopping only briefly at Multnomah Falls en route to Portland International. The falls and The Gorge were both amazing, and we would have taken a lot more photos if we hadn't been trying to catch a plane. We had seen so many spectacular places in so few days that we might have started to become desensitized to it all.
Multnomah Falls...
I'll admit to being a bit sad as I handed the keys to the Escape off to the parking attendant at the airport. We'd practically lived in the thing for 11 days. It had gotten us safely through some fairly hairy spots, and it had held up to everything that the road could throw at it. Hats off to ya' little Ford.
After checking our bags and wading through airport security, we had a few moments to finally decompress, reflect on what we'd seen and done before boarding. The Pacific Northwest had exceeded our expectations so thoroughly. From the Hood Canal, to Sekiu, to the Hoh rainforest and Kalaloch. From Astoria and Ecola State Park, to Cape Mears and The Willamette Valley. It was all so damn cool! And despite having seen so much I felt like we had barely scratched the surface. Though we were tired, ready for our own beds, we were busy planning our return trip before we had ever even left.
Determined not to repeat our adventures on NF-11, we continued west on the 22 into the Willamette Valley and the little town of Sublimity. From Sublimity we headed north, to Silverton, through some of the most beautifully pastoral countryside we'd ever seen...rolling hills and green fields stretching from one horizon to the other.
The Willamette Valley...
Silverton was a sparkling little town, and Shauna fell in love with it as we sped down main street(it bums me out that we had to blow through so quickly). She still fantasizes about buying a house and living there someday. Not a bad daydream...we plan on taking a trip to check out the area next spring.
The Willamette Valley outside of Silverton...
From Silverton, we took a circuitous route north, through the Willamette Valley and up the western flank of Mt. Hood. The Sky had turned gray, and the summit was shrouded in clouds as we ascended. The sky cleared for just long enough near the top to snap a couple photos of the snow covered peak before moving on.
Mt. Hood...
We spent the last night of our trip in Hood River; an ultra-quaint little Victorian town on the banks of the Columbia River. The scenery from our room was completely ridiculous with views of the Columbia River Gorge and Mt. Adams out one window, and panoramas of Mt Hood out another.
The next morning we a raced down the Gorge, stopping only briefly at Multnomah Falls en route to Portland International. The falls and The Gorge were both amazing, and we would have taken a lot more photos if we hadn't been trying to catch a plane. We had seen so many spectacular places in so few days that we might have started to become desensitized to it all.
Multnomah Falls...
I'll admit to being a bit sad as I handed the keys to the Escape off to the parking attendant at the airport. We'd practically lived in the thing for 11 days. It had gotten us safely through some fairly hairy spots, and it had held up to everything that the road could throw at it. Hats off to ya' little Ford.
After checking our bags and wading through airport security, we had a few moments to finally decompress, reflect on what we'd seen and done before boarding. The Pacific Northwest had exceeded our expectations so thoroughly. From the Hood Canal, to Sekiu, to the Hoh rainforest and Kalaloch. From Astoria and Ecola State Park, to Cape Mears and The Willamette Valley. It was all so damn cool! And despite having seen so much I felt like we had barely scratched the surface. Though we were tired, ready for our own beds, we were busy planning our return trip before we had ever even left.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
After visiting the Tillamook Air Museum (a post dedicated to just the museum is forthcoming), we began to realize just how much territory we had to cover in the short time remaining. The map below shows how desperate we had let our situation get. The Yellow represents how far we had gone in 8 1/2 days while the dark pink illustratess how far we wanted to go in about barely 2 1/2 days.
Clearly, if we wanted to see what we had planned on seeing, we'd have to fly. And fly we did!
We made record time from Tillamook to Newport, then from Newport to Corvalis. A few thoughts from the road:
1) The Oregon coast is a scenic wonder. It pained me to speed down it without snooping around a bit...without taking little hikes down to the surf, through the rainforest...without taking a few pictures.
2) The coast range is beautiful....reminded me a little bit of the Scottish Moorlands. Huge trees everywhere.
3) The Ford Escape V6 is a remarkably capable compact SUV. It felt solid even at very high speed.
From Corvalis we screamed across the Southern Willamette Valley and into the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains. The sun was setting as we rolled into Sweet Home, where we decided to stop for the night.
Sweet Home was an acid trip from the minute we arrived to the moment we finally escaped its dark, swirling vortex. Our first misadventure was simply trying to find a room. It seemed every motel in town was inhabited by semi-permanent residents, and without vacancy. One place was especially creepy...a small religious cult had settled in for the long haul, or so it would seem. There were clothes drying on lines in front of each of the rooms, and grubby children were running naked from door to door. There also appeared to be a disproportionate number of women to men...I saw several chicks, but only a couple guys. The whole setup gave me a very Charles Manson type vibe. They actually had a room if we'd wanted it, but we thought we'd look elsewhere. We finally found a place at the western end of main street, across from the A&W.
The next morning we glanced over our maps and decided to try a scenic route that also promised to cut significant miles and minutes off the day's drive. Instead of taking Highway 20 east to Highway 22 like normal (sane?) people, we elected to take Quartzville Drive, past Green Peter Lake, then take NF-11 to Highway 22. A fine plan indeed.
The scenery along Quartzville Drive was drop dead gorgeous, but it quickly became apparent that we weren't saving any time at all. The road was winding, and the lanes became narrower and narrower as we went. Soon, the route was little more than a single paved track, only one vehicle wide, with short pullouts every few hundred yards. We climbed steeply into the Cascades where we started having to ram tall snow banks that blocked our path. About 5 short miles from highway 22, the road came to an abrupt end where an avalanche had piled trees, rocks, and snow so high that nothing could pass. We tried getting around it in 4 wheel drive, but only succeeded in getting ourselves momentarily stuck. In the end we had to turn around and retrace our path some 35 miles back to Sweet Home.
Our only consolation was that we saw a whole lot of this...
Needless to say, I was pissed, and used up most of my yearly allowance of swear words on the drive back into town. There had been no signs warning that the road was impassible, and no indication on any of our maps that NF-11 was little more than a glorified game trail.
Sumbitches!
It was lunch time when we pulled into town and we grabbed a quick bite at McDonalds. The rental was covered in mud, so, we wolfed down a couple quarter pounders with cheese and made for a carwash I'd seen earlier.
Naturally, the change machine was out of order (we were quickly learning that very little worked as it should in this place). Undaunted, though, I walked to the A&W next door. I handed the guy at the counter a five spot and asked for as many quarters as he could spare. To my request he replied, and without further explanation "We don't give change on Sunday". Suffice it to say, I spent what little remained of my annual cuss word allowance right there.
We went from one end of that ruddy back woods hole to the other looking for enough change to run the wash. Finally, a strangely lucid gas station attendant (with a full compliment of teeth t'boot) dug a few dollars worth of quarters out of his own pocket, and out of his car for us. We are forever in his debt.
We finally managed to get the Escape looking a little more presentable, and we blew out of Dodge one last time. That is, until noticing that the gas light was on some ten miles down the road! Knowing we'd never make it to Detroit (Oregon) on fumes we turned around, yet again, for Sweet Home.
At this point we were starting to feel like the universe, or at least the black hole that is Sweet Home, was conspiring against us. Sucking us in. Fortunately the fill up was uneventful and we put Sweet Home in the rear view mirror faster than you can say "Deliverance."
Clearly, if we wanted to see what we had planned on seeing, we'd have to fly. And fly we did!
We made record time from Tillamook to Newport, then from Newport to Corvalis. A few thoughts from the road:
1) The Oregon coast is a scenic wonder. It pained me to speed down it without snooping around a bit...without taking little hikes down to the surf, through the rainforest...without taking a few pictures.
2) The coast range is beautiful....reminded me a little bit of the Scottish Moorlands. Huge trees everywhere.
3) The Ford Escape V6 is a remarkably capable compact SUV. It felt solid even at very high speed.
From Corvalis we screamed across the Southern Willamette Valley and into the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains. The sun was setting as we rolled into Sweet Home, where we decided to stop for the night.
Sweet Home was an acid trip from the minute we arrived to the moment we finally escaped its dark, swirling vortex. Our first misadventure was simply trying to find a room. It seemed every motel in town was inhabited by semi-permanent residents, and without vacancy. One place was especially creepy...a small religious cult had settled in for the long haul, or so it would seem. There were clothes drying on lines in front of each of the rooms, and grubby children were running naked from door to door. There also appeared to be a disproportionate number of women to men...I saw several chicks, but only a couple guys. The whole setup gave me a very Charles Manson type vibe. They actually had a room if we'd wanted it, but we thought we'd look elsewhere. We finally found a place at the western end of main street, across from the A&W.
The next morning we glanced over our maps and decided to try a scenic route that also promised to cut significant miles and minutes off the day's drive. Instead of taking Highway 20 east to Highway 22 like normal (sane?) people, we elected to take Quartzville Drive, past Green Peter Lake, then take NF-11 to Highway 22. A fine plan indeed.
The scenery along Quartzville Drive was drop dead gorgeous, but it quickly became apparent that we weren't saving any time at all. The road was winding, and the lanes became narrower and narrower as we went. Soon, the route was little more than a single paved track, only one vehicle wide, with short pullouts every few hundred yards. We climbed steeply into the Cascades where we started having to ram tall snow banks that blocked our path. About 5 short miles from highway 22, the road came to an abrupt end where an avalanche had piled trees, rocks, and snow so high that nothing could pass. We tried getting around it in 4 wheel drive, but only succeeded in getting ourselves momentarily stuck. In the end we had to turn around and retrace our path some 35 miles back to Sweet Home.
Our only consolation was that we saw a whole lot of this...
Needless to say, I was pissed, and used up most of my yearly allowance of swear words on the drive back into town. There had been no signs warning that the road was impassible, and no indication on any of our maps that NF-11 was little more than a glorified game trail.
Sumbitches!
It was lunch time when we pulled into town and we grabbed a quick bite at McDonalds. The rental was covered in mud, so, we wolfed down a couple quarter pounders with cheese and made for a carwash I'd seen earlier.
Naturally, the change machine was out of order (we were quickly learning that very little worked as it should in this place). Undaunted, though, I walked to the A&W next door. I handed the guy at the counter a five spot and asked for as many quarters as he could spare. To my request he replied, and without further explanation "We don't give change on Sunday". Suffice it to say, I spent what little remained of my annual cuss word allowance right there.
We went from one end of that ruddy back woods hole to the other looking for enough change to run the wash. Finally, a strangely lucid gas station attendant (with a full compliment of teeth t'boot) dug a few dollars worth of quarters out of his own pocket, and out of his car for us. We are forever in his debt.
We finally managed to get the Escape looking a little more presentable, and we blew out of Dodge one last time. That is, until noticing that the gas light was on some ten miles down the road! Knowing we'd never make it to Detroit (Oregon) on fumes we turned around, yet again, for Sweet Home.
At this point we were starting to feel like the universe, or at least the black hole that is Sweet Home, was conspiring against us. Sucking us in. Fortunately the fill up was uneventful and we put Sweet Home in the rear view mirror faster than you can say "Deliverance."
We were even later stirring in Astoria than we had been at Kalaloch. The sky was gray, ominous for the first time since Portland, and the overcast made it a little tough to motivate. We'd been going pretty hard for a week and we were starting to feel it.
We had a quick brunch at the restaurant next to the Holiday Inn before hitting the 101 southbound. The overcast was starting to burn off a little, and the sun started poking holes through the clouds as we drove.
We had a quick brunch at the restaurant next to the Holiday Inn before hitting the 101 southbound. The overcast was starting to burn off a little, and the sun started poking holes through the clouds as we drove.
Tired of driving, we only got about 20 miles down the coast before deciding we'd had enough of the car. We pulled into a beach town called Seaside, parked the rental, and checked into the Rip Tide Hotel right on the sand.
We spent the remainder of the morning wandering through eclectic little shops on Seaside's main drag, and the afternoon beachcombing near the hotel. Finally, we watched the sunset over the Pacific, and then the fog roll up the beach from the shore. Not an altogether terrible way to spend a day.
Sunset at Seaside beach...
We got a much earlier start from Seaside than we had gotten at either Kalaloch or Astoria, and we headed South for Cannon Beach while it was still early. From Cannon, we drove up to a view point inside Ecola State Park (note: there's a small fee to enter the park). Apparently, much of The Goonies was filmed there, most notably the sequence where Mike discovers that the shoreline terrain matches the holes in the medallion they stole from the attic.
"Guys...I think I have a match...I'M SURE OF IT!"
From the parking lot we followed a steep trail through some fantastic old growth, down to Crescent beach. The place was beautiful, deserted, and littered with completely intact sand dollars and sea urchins. I guess the short hike is enough to deter most would be beachcombers, and the oceans bounty was everywhere.
Eventually, we hiked back up to the view point, and drove to Indian Beach, scarcely a mile further into the park. Indian was significantly more crowded than Crescent had been (and needless to say, completely picked over), but just as beautiful. We had a good time scrambling over the basalt boulders at the southern end of the beach, and the tide pools between the rocks harbored some pretty interesting sea life (not quite as cool as Sekiu, or Ruby Beach, but cool nonetheless).
Indian Beach...
A light house just off Indian Beach...
From Indian Beach, we found our way back to the 101, and followed it down the coast to Tillamook. The drive was beautiful, amazing, and we took our time. Savoring every bend in the road, and each new scene as it unfolded.
From Tillamook, we took the Cape Mears loop road through Netarts, stopping in Oceanside for lunch. As you might have guessed from previous entries, I'm not typically a big fan of cities or towns. I prefer countryside and wilderness to streets and shops. Oceanside, however, is the rare exception. Perched delicately on a hillside above a pristine little cove, Oceanside's houses gleam like a hundred multicolored gemstones against the gray sky. If we could live in any of the little towns that we saw along Oregon's coast, we agreed it would be Oceanside.
Oceanside...
After lunch we continued on the loop road, visiting the Cape Mears lighthouse and the famous Octopus Tree (a Sitka Spruce with six huge skyward pointing reiterations instead of one main trunk) along the way.
The Cape Mears Lighthouse...
The Octopus Tree...
We also made a quick diversion to another very big Sitka Spruce, the Cape Mears Giant, before completing the loop in Tillamook.
Shauna and The Cape Mears Giant...
We left the Cape very impressed. There are a lot of cool things concentrated in a very small geographical area. Many of which we had to skip (we still had a long way to go, and only three more days to get there). This is another place we shall visit again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
