Category Archives: Oregon

Wallowa Mountains road trip

Z and I just enjoyed a six-day road trip to the northeastern corner of our state. We spent most of our time in and around one of its coolest mountain ranges, the Wallowas, or “Oregon’s Little Switzerland.” We took the West’s longest tramway to the top of Mt. Howard to walk the viewpoint trails. There we saw a lot of ground squirrels busy eating up for the coming colder weather.

We hiked along the West Fork of the Wallowa River, an entrance to the Eagle Cap Wilderness. Two other excellent events in the area were a 20-mile pedal-powered ride in little rail carts on a railway next to the river and a sighting of a black bear casually (and safely, happy to say) crossing Hwy 82 about 150 feet ahead of us.

Having taken the most direct route to the Wallowas, we decided to return home by way of back roads, small towns, and a few more adventures. We visited the ghost town of Richmond (less ghostly than some) and finished up with a visit to a place we last saw years ago: the Painted Hills, part of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The visit was a too-timely reminder of the need to protect our monuments and other public lands.

Eighteen days by the sea

I had the great good fortune to spend much of October 2023 in a solo retreat at the beach house of some generous friends. Located on the Oregon coast south of Newport, the house is a five-minute walk up the cliff from this glorious beach.

I wasn’t entirely alone.

Xanthe the Speckled Menace was excellent company. Here she shows her arboreal nature on one of the beach house’s many ledges and windowsills, which she immediately saw as a jumping and perching paradise. She did not care for the beach–perhaps because of the big loud wet thing adjacent to it–but she enjoyed leash walks in the yard around the house, grumbling at the gulls and jays.

The beach house has neither cell coverage nor wifi. The former was available on the beach or a few hundred yards down the street, the latter at the library in Newport, a ten-minute drive away. It was both liberating and frustrating to be out of the instant communication (and diversion) to which many of us are accustomed. I did some writing, some outlining, and some reading. The latter mostly consisted of books that had lingered too long in the “Unread” category on my Kindle, among which were a number of pretty good books, only one real dud, and one darkly Shining Trapezohedron of a gem, Scott R. Jones’s Stonefish.

I’ve always wanted to have a quiet, extended time next to the ocean. For eighteen days and seventeen nights I had the sound of it in my ears. I saw it every time I looked out the front windows, and I walked along it for an hour or so at least once each day. What a gift.

Petrichor and puddles

People think that it rains all the time in Portland, Oregon. I moved here years ago hoping it was true. But summers here are sunny and dry, often hot–and getting more so. The summer of 2023 was positively arid, which is why I am thrilled to celebrate the last day of August with a cozy gray sky, the patter of steadily falling drops, and the scents of wet leaves and petrichor coming in through all the open windows. Xanthe the cat won’t get her daily walk up this sodden path behind the house just yet.