Tag Archives: Pacific Northwest

Junior Ranger at Mt Rainier

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My niece kept forgetting where we were and saying how excited she was to be at Mt Everest, and she asked me once every seven minutes about s’mores — “Can we make s’mores now? Can I make a s’more to take back to my mom? How many s’mores can I eat tonight? Can we have s’mores for breakfast tomorrow?” This, my friends, is what it’s like to camp with a seven-year-old. This, in fact, is one of the best parts of being an aunt.

our campsite at Ohanapecosh

My sister has this ridiculously awesome job that sends her to cities around the U.S. to meet with research partners, including twice yearly trips to Seattle. Last September and this September, she’s also brought along my niece on her business trips, and I’ve driven over to the west side of the Cascades and hung out with Patience in the glorious fall sunshine of Seattle while her mother works. Last year we went to the Pike Place Market at least twice a day (my niece is such a hoot — she doesn’t ask for candy or toys, she begs for fresh fruit and flowers), hung out in various coffee shops (this kid really loves coffee shops, I think because she loves talking to new people and coffee shops are full of people), visited the children’s museum, stood at the bottom of the Space Needle and stared up (because this aunt is afraid of heights and wasn’t about to get on that elevator), took the ferry to Bainbridge Island (twice!), and walked the streets of downtown Seattle hand in hand while Patience sang at the top of her lungs and garnered applause from delighted strangers (no tips, people? come on!).

flowers from Pike Place Market, outside the original Starbucks

On this year’s visit I decided we should venture outside of the city and see Mt Rainier National Park as part of Patience’s trip. Her parents and I took her camping last Easter in North Carolina, the grandest adventure of her young life, and I figured she shouldn’t miss an opportunity to see the tallest mountain in the Cascades. The weather was fine, so in addition to driving out to play at the park, we also decided to camp for a night on the Ohanapecosh River. We pitched a tent, built a fire, cooked “the best mac and cheese ever in the world” (according to Patience, and who am I to argue?), and read library books by flashlight. It was wonderful.

hiking at Grove of the Patriarchs

The visitor centers at the park are open for a couple more weeks, until they close for the season at the first of October, so we also spent a little time talking to a park ranger and finding out what Patience would need to do to earn her Junior Ranger badge from the national park. The ranger gave her an activity book and instructions for which pages to complete for her age level in order to earn the badge. Over the next afternoon and morning, Patience completed a scavenger hunt, worked on sentence scrambles about wilderness safety, logged details about our hike through Grove of the Patriarchs, and told the story of our camping trip through her own artistic interpretation in colored pencil. She learned about the “10 essentials” to take along on a trip into the wilderness and insisted that I carry a bag of nuts and bottles of water on our 20 minute walk to a hot spring the second morning, just in case, because the book said you should always have extra food and water. I decided it would be easier to fill my pockets with nuts than to explain that if something happened to us that morning we were still close enough to the campsite that I could holler for help — better to reinforce the rules of the “10 essentials” at this stage.

junior ranger swearing-in ceremony

Thank you, Suzie, for bringing along Patience and allowing us to have a fantastic adventure at Mt Rainier.

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Crater Lake

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A couple of weeks ago I went with friends to camp at Crater Lake in Oregon — well, we actually camped at nearby Diamond Lake, but our purpose in driving down there was to see Crater Lake. I’ve wanted to post a blog with a few photos since I got back, but time gets away from me these days. I miss blogging regularly, but I also have enjoyed all the other things going on in my life (both creative and personal) that have been taking up my time and kept me from posting.

So here they are, a few photos from the beautiful, stunning, gorgeous, amazing, jaw-dropping, breath-taking corner of God’s creation known as Crater Lake.

Our first view of Crater Lake after entering the park from the north entrance

So much BLUE!

My favorite photo from a day of driving around the rim

View of the Phantom Ship volcanic rock formation

Laura, after our hike down to the lake’s surface that was supposed to be comparable to 65 flights of stairs — we decided it’s not nearly as bad as 65 flights of stairs sounds.

The water is warm after your feet have gone numb from the cold.

 

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Mt. St. Helens

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May 18, 1980. I don’t remember the eruption of Mt. St. Helens on that actual day, but I do remember hearing about the volcano as a small child. (Side note: I do have a very distinct memory of January 1, 1980 and being super excited that a new decade was starting — weird thought for a four-year-old.) When my parents came to visit me in Washington a couple of weeks ago, we made a two-day trip to the Cascades and spent most of the second day driving and exploring in the area around Mt. St. Helens.

We approached the mountain from the west and got amazing views of the crater, which is not just a hole in the top of the mountain, but a hole plus half the side of the peak missing. It’s incredibly difficult to wrap my mind around 1,300 feet of a mountain top just exploding, but when you watch the video at the visitor center at the Johnston Ridge Observatory, you see that’s just what happened. Earthquake, massive eruption and landslide, blast of steam, tons of ash, mudslide. Catastrophic.

driving towards Mt St Helens on Hwy 504, view of volcanic sediment along the Toutle River

 

view of Mt St Helens from the blast zone

 

another view from the blast zone

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Lava Butte

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After I checked out of my yurt at Tumalo, I headed south again to the Lava Lands Visitor Center in the Deschutes National Forest to see the lava fields up close and to go up to the fire lookout station on Lava Butte. The ranger at the entrance booth gave me a 30 minute pass to drive up the road to the parking lot on top of Lava Butte — there are only 10 parking spots at the top, so they limit your time to give everyone a chance to drive up. But I opted to park at the bottom and walk up the 1 3/4 mile road instead. How did I know I only wanted to spend 30 minutes up there? And why drive when you can walk? I was feeling a bit Edward Abbey-ish at this point. Get out of your car and walk for a change, people.

fire lookout station in the Deschutes National Forest,
Lava Butte

I talked to some ladies in the parking lot who assured me it would only take 35 or 40 minutes to walk up to the top, so I rearranged some stuff in my car, filled up my water bottle, and set off. As I was leaving the parking lot to get onto the road up the hill, a guy in a beat up hatchback came down the hill and swung into the parking lot past me.

“You’ve got water and a good pair of shoes, what more do you need on a day like today?” he called to me out his open car window.

“True. It’s a good day for a walk.”

He drove slowly past me, blond hair and sunglasses. I kept walking, thinking he had just called out as a greeting. But he continued talking to me through the window. “Your shoes are better than mine — you wanna see my shoes?”

Is this guy for real?

Yes. Yes, he was for real. He stopped the car and contorted to stick his right foot out the driver’s side window to show me a flapping sole.

“You may be about ready for a new pair of shoes,” I said.

“Well, Johnny Cash says to walk hard.”

Actually, Johnny Cash walked the line, but who am I to point that out?

“You wanna see my tattoos?” He held out his wrists. “This one says ‘patience,’ but you have to come read the other one.” He held out his left wrist for me to read. This is the point, I was thinking, where he’s either going to pull a knife on me or his other wrist is going to say “faith” and he’s going to witness to me. I wasn’t getting a knife-pulling vibe at all (and I’m usually pretty paranoid about strangers), so I walked back over to the car to read his wrist. “Serendipity.”

“It’s why I stopped to talk to you,” he said and looked at me sincerely.

I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help myself. Nice line, friend. The fact that you have the word written permanently on your skin leads me to believe I’m not the first girl you’ve used that line on. Probably not the first today even.

“You wanna go walk on those trails with me?” He indicated the trails through the lava fields by the visitor center on the other side of the parking lot.

“Nah, I haven’t been up here yet.” I pointed to the butte. “I wanna go there first.” Please, please, don’t want to go back up the hill, Mr. Serendipity.

“I’ve already been there, so I’m gonna go this way. But you’re gonna love it.” Pause. “Man, I haven’t had a smoke in five hours.”

“Sorry about that,” I said, waved over my shoulder, and walked on. I looked back once to make sure he wasn’t following me, and he gave me the peace sign as he drove towards the visitor center. Peace, bro.

Back to Lava Butte…

Walking instead of driving was the right choice. The whole way up the hill you have the chance to savor the view, winding around the cinder cone that once “exuded lava” (so much less violent than erupting, so mellow, so Oregon) through the surrounding countryside. You alternate between views of the lava field, forest, and the Blue Mountains to the east, and amazing views of the Cascades to the west: Broken Top, the Three Sisters, Mt Washington, Mt Jefferson, Mt Hood, and Mt Adams across in Washington. Be sure to go on a clear day, without a cloud in the sky, only the contrails of jets going from Seattle to Los Angeles.

view of the Cascades from the road up Lava Butte

At the top of the butte is a fire lookout station, one of several active stations monitoring the Deschutes National Forest. You can also walk a 3/4 mile trail around the rim of the butte and peer into the center of the cinder cone. I took my time wandering around, admiring the mountain vista one last time on my Central Oregon trip, rejoicing that I’d had the opportunity to be here this week, reflecting on the Majestic Creator who displays His majesty through snow-covered peaks. For reasons I don’t understand, He is good to me.

outside the Lava Lands Visitor Center

I headed back down the butte to check out the visitor center and lava field trails before making my way back to Washington. The sun was high overhead and the temperature near 80, warm enough to make me wish for a moment that I could hitch a ride back down the hill with Patience-and-Serendipity. (I’m just kidding, everyone — I promise I never, ever hitchhike. Not in America, at least.)

Goodbye, Central Oregon. It’s been real.

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North of Bend

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On the third evening of my stay at the yurt in Tumalo State Park, I was joined by a dear friend from the Tri-Cities, Marilyn. It turned out that she needed to pick up her grandson in Central Oregon the same week that I would be there camping, so she called and asked if she could come see me there and check out the yurt. Of course I welcomed the company and told her to bring a sleeping bag along and stay the night — the yurt sleeps five, so there was plenty of room.

Marilyn is originally from Portland but knows all of Oregon very well, and since the day I arrived in the Northwest, she has been my travel consultant — but this was the first chance we had to actually do some touring together. I was more than happy to let her take the driver’s seat and show me around. It’s easier to crane your neck and look at all the glory of Creation surrounding you if you don’t have to worry that you might run your car off the road over a cliff.

Our first stop was the Lava Lands Visitor Center in the Deschutes National Forest 15 miles south of Bend, but we learned upon arrival that they were closed until the next day. After my drive on the Cascade Lakes Byway the day before, I really wanted to stop and see a lava field up close, so I decided it would be worth it to drive out of my way to come back to Lava Lands when they opened again (look for that blog post tomorrow) — how on earth could I drive all the way back to Washington without seeing the lava fields and the fire lookout tower on Lava Butte up close and personal?

From there, Marilyn drove us back north of Bend to the Crooked River Gorge, 9 miles north of Redmond, not far from Smith Rock State Park outside Terrebonne. I happened to be looking down at something in the car when she pulled onto the bridge on Highway 97 that crosses the gorge, and when I looked up I saw we were 300 feet over the river at the bottom of the gorge. I gasped out loud — some of you may know that I’m afraid of heights and of bridges in particular (remember my Capilano Suspension Bridge story?), and I wasn’t quite prepared to find myself in that spot. Truly breath-taking. We stopped for a while to walk around on the old two-lane bridge. This photo is of the nearby railroad bridge over the gorge, and you can’t see it because of the angle of the sun and the color of the sky at that time of day, but the Three Sisters of the Cascade Range are sticking their heads up over the bridge.

the Crooked River Gorge

Next, we headed further north towards the town of Madras and the Cove Palisades State Park, where the Crooked River flows into Lake Billy Chinook, and you can stand on the edge of the cliffs and look down into the water hundreds of feet below, or miles and miles into the distance at Mt Hood, Mt Jefferson, Three Fingered Jack, the Three Sisters, and Broken Top.

Broken Top and the Three Sisters from the Cove Palisades

By this time I was feeling like old friends with the peaks of the Cascades. Each time I saw them from a different vantage point was a reunion of sorts.

view of Mt Hood from the Cove Palisades

Thank you, Marilyn, for making my day.

another view of Mt Hood

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Cascade Lakes Byway

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On my recent writing retreat in Bend, Oregon, I spent part of one afternoon driving the Cascade Lakes Byway, proclaimed (by whom?) to be one of the top ten scenic byways in the U.S. I would have to agree that it’s in my own personal top ten — but have I even been on more than ten scenic byways? It’s hard to say.

The drive starts out with Mount Bachelor, majestic and spectacular in all its snow-covered glory. I don’t know why it is that snow-covered peaks are majestic, whereas rocky ones are rugged and jungle-covered ones are lush, but that’s just the way it is — there is no other word for the Cascades but majestic.

Now, I read before going on the drive that just around the bend from Mount Bachelor I would pass a lake with a perfect reflection of Mount Bachelor that rivals that first glimpse of the mountain in its majesty. I cannot attest to the veracity of this claim, however, having made my drive in the middle of June, when many of the lakes on the north end of the byway are still covered in snow.

Sparks Lake

I’m sure the drive would be all the more breath-taking later in summer when these lakes are no longer frozen, but this Texas girl is still impressed with vast expanses of snow that locals to this area might not find all that interesting. It was such a treat to me to drive along a road with plowed snow packed to within a couple feet of my lane.

near Mt Bachelor, on the Cascade Lakes Byway
- snow in June!

Elk Lake was the first of the lakes I came to that wasn’t covered in snow or frozen. The views of the mountains weren’t as stunning as I would have hoped, with a layer of clouds settling in over the peaks, but I took what I could get.

Elk Lake

Several miles on, I came to what I think might have been part of Crane Prairie Reservoir. This is the best I could get on my phone’s camera without distorting the picture — the white birds in this photo are cranes (or pelicans or storks, I honestly don’t know, I’m sort of making this up) hanging out with some Canadian geese.

waterfowl

After I took this picture, I noticed a huge dark bird circling directly over my head. It perched in a tree right above me and didn’t take off again until I began to drive away. I got a good look at its white throat and belly and consulted the North American bird app on my phone (don’t laugh — it’s come in handy several times, except as far as cranes go, but that’s a topic for another blog post) to decide that it was an osprey. I swear it winked at me as I headed on down the byway.

Somewhere along in that stretch of road, you begin to see miles and miles of lava fields — lava flow frozen in time. Miles and miles of black lava. It’s fascinating to think of the volcanos that produced this rock, once burning hot, now solidified in a 100-foot tall river of rock.

There you have it. Go drive the Cascade Lakes Byway the next chance you get.

(Still to come: North of Bend, Lava Butte, and the Painted Hills)

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Oregon Trail and a Change of Plans

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After my friend Jen and I stayed in a yurt at Ft Stevens State Park in Oregon in April, I had the idea to try out another couple of state parks with yurts as a writing retreat while working on West Texas Interlude. Yurts are a perfect way to camp and write — they have locks on the door, so I feel safe camping by myself and being all solitary and writerly, and they have electricity, so I can plug in my laptop. Perfect.

They’re so perfect, they’re extremely popular and booked out months in advance. So, when I got around to looking for places to stay and write this summer, my options were limited. Very limited. I had two dates available in June at two parks, or I could wait until October. I quickly booked the June dates.

And so, on Tuesday morning I set out for Wallowa Lake in northeastern Oregon — Oregon’s “dry side,” the half of the state that, unlike Portland and the coast, gets lots of sun and little precipitation. Except when I set off, it was pouring rain in Kennewick — and it poured on me all the way to the Blue Mountains, where the rain changed to snow. Snow on June 5.

No worries, I thought, I’ll just make my first stop of the trip, and surely it will clear up and I’ll be able to enjoy the Wallowa Mountains and Wallowa Lake this afternoon and tomorrow in a less rainy/snowy/cloudy haze.

That first stop was the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center outside Baker City, a fantastic little visitor center that I highly recommend if you’re ever in northeastern Oregon. They accept the National Parks Annual Pass, which was the main reason I went out of my way to see it on this trip — why not drive a little further if you don’t have to pay the $8 entrance fee?

at the top of Flagstaff Hill

I do, however, recommend not going on a day with high winds and rain, so that you can walk the 2 mile path from the interpretive center on Flagstaff Hill down to the ruts from the Oregon Trail. Just standing at the top of the hill to take a couple of photos of covered wagons was miserable for me — the hood of my rain jacket alternately flew over my eyes and threatened to strangle me, or it violently jerked me backwards. As much as I wanted to make the walk, I was too chicken/lazy/reasonable to do it.

view of the location of old Oregon Trail ruts, from the top of Flagstaff Hill

A few facts I learned at the interpretive center: One out of every ten people who started the trail died along the way. That adds up to one grave for every 80 yards of the 2,000 mile trail. The “prairie schooner” style wagons had a wagon bed 4 feet by 10 feet in size — that’s the same size as one of the raised garden beds at Quinault Community Garden (pretty big for a garden bed, small for a vehicle that holds all your earthly possessions). Some single men skipped the wagon and oxen all together and just walked the trail to Oregon, pushing their belongings in a wheel barrow. For 2,000 miles. That is a heart bent on emigrating.

By the time I finished up at the Oregon Trail and made my way back to La Grande and the turn-off to Wallowa Lake, the forecast hadn’t cleared up like I’d so optimistically assumed it would. Thick clouds still surrounded the mountains, and the online reports still called for a flood watch on the Grande Ronde River until late that afternoon. Snow and rain showers would continue through the night — the snow would be at levels above 4,500 feet, and the campground where I’d booked my yurt was at 4,600 feet. So much for the dry side of Oregon.

As much as I would love to say I’d camped in the snow in June, I’d already had enough driving on slick roads with busily flip-flopping windshield wipers for one day, and I didn’t relish giving up the interstate for a 2-lane mountain road for the next hour and a half in those conditions. Not for an overnight trip where I wouldn’t even see the mountains because of all the clouds and fog surrounding me. I headed for home (back through the snow in the Blues) and will try again next week for a writing retreat at a yurt in Bend, Oregon.

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2,060 miles

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2,060 miles is how far I drove on my road trip through the Northwest U.S. and two Canadian provinces this past couple of weeks. My mom and I pulled into the driveway here in Kennewick late this afternoon, and might I just say it — I’m tired.

First, we went to Kootenay National Park in Beautiful British Columbia (as the province is called on their license plates). The Canadian Rockies are stunning — they seem more majestic and jaw-dropping than the Colorado Rockies, why is that?

We also saw a grizzly munching on some flowers on the side of the road — equally as stunning. We didn’t get out of the car, but man, my heart started racing while my mom quickly took the picture. Thirty yards is still too close for me and a grizzly.

You just keep munching those flowers where you are...

Next was a quick trip to a few spots in the northern part of Banff National Park in Alberta. Herbert Lake was my favorite area in all of Banff, including the two more popular lakes we visited later in the week. Herbert Lake is a bit neglected by tourists, requires walking a short distance through a mosquito-infested forest section, but the view is so very, very worth it. As I was trying to take this shot, my mom pointed out that the tree I was standing next to had scratch marks on it and a large bear-shaped footprint in the mud underneath it. I snapped the photo quickly and went back to lock myself in the car.

Herbert Lake in Banff National Park, Alberta

We spent our week in Calgary working with kids in the community and with the children whose parents were attending the Canadian National Baptist Convention. I’ll save the space here and write more about that in a later post.

After the convention, our group went to Banff for the day and saw some of the more popular spots: Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Johnston Canyon. It snowed on us a bit at Moraine Lake, and we were pelted with freezing rain (on July 9!), but the colors of the water and expanse of the mountains and glaciers were so very worth the cold and wet.

windy, cold, and wet at Moraine Lake in Banff National Park

On the drive up to Alberta, I studied the atlas a bit and realized that driving home to the Tri-Cities through Montana wouldn’t be that much further than our original route. So we ended up heading south on the return trip and spent a long, long day driving through Glacier National Park. Words cannot describe the beauty of the eastern part of this park. I’ll post a separate entry on this day of our journey, as well.

When my mom and I got back to Kennewick, we discussed what to do with her last two days before flying back to Texas. Since we had enjoyed all our driving so much, we decided to keep at it. A quick visit with a few friends in town and we were off again, this time west to Portland. We spent the first day stopping at waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge and trying to get as close as we could to a good view of Mt. Hood.

Mt. Hood, the highest point in Oregon

And then we spent a cold, rainy morning walking around the arboretum and rose garden in Portland, before checking out Powell’s City of Books and making the drive back to Kennewick.

Excuse me, I need to go sleep for 15 hours and recover from this trip.

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Caffeinated in the Northwest

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Some stereotypes become stereotypes because they are, in actuality, true. This can annoy the people who fall in the category being stereotyped, like Texans who don’t like being lumped in with cowboys and get irritated when people ask “Does everyone in Texas ride horses to school?” (an actual question I’ve been asked by a sincere yet naive questioner). And then my dad (or uncle or grandfather or any number of relatives on that side of the family) walks in the room wearing his boots and big old belt buckle and hat, and the stereotypes are confirmed. (For the record, I’m proud of my cowboy heritage, so no emails or comments knocking me knocking cowboys — I’m just trying to make a point here.)

Before coming to the Northwest, I assumed that the whole coffee-shop-on-every-corner thing was just a stereotype. When I visited Seattle and Vancouver with friends in 2008, one girl in our group pledged to make our trip as “caffeinated” as possible. We were successful in that endeavor, only because the stereotype is well-founded.

Seattle coffee shop, 2008

Since moving to Washington earlier this year, I’ve expanded my awe at the number of coffee shops (the sit-down-and-enjoy-the-wi-fi-and-conversation variety) to also include the proliferation of espresso drive-thrus, like Dutch Bros. This one is pretty fancy, but most of them remind me of sno-cone stands in Texas.

Dutch Bros drive-thru

This kind of drive-thru is found in pretty much every parking lot in the Tri-Cities. I really like coffee, but I honestly don’t understand how the population of this area can support that much espresso-related commerce. Somehow it does, though.

Over this past weekend, I drove to Vancouver with friends, and we visited Tim Hortons, the most famous Canadian coffee chain. You can see in the background of this photo that we passed up another popular chain to get here.

at Tim Hortons in Vancouver

We made up for it on a stop in Seattle on our way back to the Tri-Cities. The stop was more for wi-fi than coffee, but we did find a Starbucks within 90 seconds of pulling off the freeway.

 

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