Day 53: Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area

We wake up pretty early again this morning, and leave the campground right after breakfast. There is no time to loose, for a good reason: the sun is shining in the blue sky! It is the first day like this on our Oregon Coast journey. We drive south to the John Dellenback trailhead, the most adventurous and challenging of all the trails in Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. We read that the formation of these massive dunes is related to the gigantic explosion of the volcano that created the caldera that would later become Crater Lake.

Anyway, our walk begins on an easy trail in a conifer forest. Then suddenly, the forest opens up to the impressive Umpqua Dunes. Some of them topping 500 ft, the dunes occupy a space 2 miles wide by 4 miles long. And we have to cross that area to reach the beach. There doesn’t seem to be a trail anymore, so we just follow the foot prints in the sand to get to the highest sand dune. The day is beautiful and nobody is around. Once we’re in the middle of the dunes, it really feels like you’re in a gigantic sand desert.

 

 

We follow foot paths on the sand, but those paths sometimes disappear because of the wind. Really fast, we realize that some portions are on hard sand, pretty easy to walk on, while some other portions are this loose sand that makes the hike a lot more strenuous. We walk up and down the dunes until we reach the coastal forest, with the beach right behind it. But that coastal forest is thick, and there is no trail crossing it where we are. We are a bit lost, so we decide to walk north after looking at the simple map we have with us.

 

And after walking a little while, we end up finding the trail and crossing the coastal forest, that is even thicker than it looked from the dunes. We encounter a couple of snakes along the way and then we arrive to the beach. Miles and miles of seemingly untouched beach, with not a human being around. The sun is high now in the blue sky, the tide is at its lowest. It’s like we're explorers that, after crossing a gigantic desert for days, found a pristine beach. We hike along the beach for a while, finding some interesting shells and a couple of sand dollars. Yellow finds a good walking stick and a weird flag caught in the bushes.

 

Well, the explorers have to get back to the RV to eat their lunch. So we are back on the dunes after crossing that thick coastal forest again. And it seems that there is actually a trail crossing the dunes, consisting of wood sticks sticking up inconsistently from the sand. Mostly, we are following footsteps when they are around, and try to head east when we don’t have anything to follow. It is another 2 mile walk on the sand, and it gets difficult, but fortunately, we can continue directly on the trail when we reach the conifer forest.

Back to the RV, we drive back to the campsite to have lunch and spend the afternoon studying and planning. Yellow cooks an Ethiopian-style dinner: white rice, collard greens and red lentils. Yummy!

Thor's Well at Cape Perpetua, OR

Day 52: From Newport to Florence, OR on US-101

We wake up pretty early this morning, and leave an hour later after eating breakfast and packing for the day. We stop of course at the Fred Meyer store in Newport, to buy groceries and take advantage of their free Wifi – yes, we discover that – and Red goes to Chase Bank to change her family name.

After running all those errands, we get back on the road and reach Seal Rock SP. The park has large off-shore rock formations, probably inhabited by seals, but we don’t see any. It’s very cloudy and foggy, so it doesn’t help. It is low tide time though, and we wander around the tide pools filled with sea anemones.

 

Back in the RV, we drive to Cape Perpetua. We first look for camping, but we are so confused and the price ends up not being cheap enough, so we just extend our stay at Lake Woahink RV Park by coming one day earlier than planned. To do that, we have to drive back to Yachats to get some cell phone signal. Once it’s done, we go back to Cape Perpetua and start exploring the area. We hike at Devil’s Churn, a very narrow inlet carved into the basalt shoreline, where we can still look at some tide pools. But more impressive is the beautiful spectacle of the waves crashing on the rocks, and sometimes exploding as incoming and outgoing waves collide.

 

 

After lunch, we continue our exploration on the rocky shoreline. We stand for a long time, looking at the crashing waves, and at the Spouting Horn – a sea geyser – and Thor’s Well – a sea fountain – both driven by the power of the ocean.

 

 

 

We follow our journey south on US-101 by stopping at Washburne SP, a large beach surrounded by rocky capes, before a dramatic transition to the dunes area that we are going to explore tomorrow.

Day 50 and 51: Around Beverly Beach State Park, Oregon Coast

After a good breakfast, we leave Marvin and Grace, and drive toward Lincoln City, on the Oregon Coast. The sun was bright and the sky was clear when we leave McMinnville, but as soon as we are on the other side of the Coastal Range, it gets cloudy, even very cloudy, and the temperature drops down. But we are on the Oregon Coast! And the whole coast is part of the public domain, as some farsighted people decided a long time ago. A great decision!

 

Our first stop is at Cape Foulweather, under a thick crowd of clouds. This cape was the first sight to be seen and named by Captain James Cook in the Northwest. We then go down the Cape to Agate Beach, covered with tiny dunes. Unfortunately, no agate is to be found. On the way out of the beach, we meet this couple searching for the dock from Japan. And we learn that on June 5^th of 2012, a large dock section washed up on Agate Beach, a large piece of debris from the Japanese Tsunami. Well, it’s gone.

 

Another stop at Lost Creep SP. While Red studies, Yellow walks along the shore on the rocky beach, looking for precious rocks. It doesn’t seem to be that easy to find those agates and other stones. But it’s great to be looking at the Pacific Ocean.

 

We stop at MacDonald’s in Newport, OR, to take advantage of their free wifi again, from inside the RV. And we settle in at Beverly Beach SP campground. Red continues her studies while Yellow cooks a Greek-style quinoa salad for the next lunches, and some sautéed potatoes and chicken, that we eat for dinner with a green salad and a Pyramid Hefeweizen beer.

The next day, despite the mist and the chill, we ride our bikes, first to Devil’s Punch Bowl SP. We get on our bike pretty early, as we have to be visiting the area while the tide is at its lowest point. The Punch Bowl is a huge bowl, with an opening through which the oceanic waves come crashing inside.

 

Then we bike to Yaquina Head Outstanding Area, still through the mist.

 

 

 

We first stop at Cobble Beach, which is a magnificent cobble stone beach, surrounded by awesome tide pools. Starfish, sea anemones and purple urchins are populating those pools.

 

 

Seals and pelicans are hanging out on the rocks a little bit farther from the shore, and on the horizon, we can see the whales breathing and barely getting out of the water.

 

 

We visit the lighthouse, which doesn’t look that high from outside, but walking to the top is not the easiest thing to do for somebody that has fear of heights.

 

 

This lighthouse was built in the 1870’s, and still uses its original 1868 French-made fixed Fresnel lens. Walking around the lighthouse, we can see again a lot of whales around.

 

And it’s in the chill that we bike back to our campsite, after a 12 mile ride. We eat lunch with a hot tea to warm ourselves, and Red returns to her books and online studies. Yellow plans the next days and takes a walk on Beverly Beach, still looking for some interesting stones under the chilly mist. He finally finds some shell fossils, but no agate. May be tomorrow…

Day 49: Portland, OR (day 2)

In the morning, Jeanne leaves the house as we get up to have breakfast. We spend some time talking to Marie, sharing her personal story and taking about travels.

 

We then take the Blue Line. We miss the first train because Yellow canceled the transaction for some obscure reasons while buying our tickets. A reason not good enough to justify missing the train at least. We finally take the train, then the bus to Hawthorne District. The neighborhood has some good vintage clothes and antique furniture stores. The Bagdad theatre is right here too. It’s a theatre in bad shape that got bought and transformed into a cluster of shops, bars, theater projecting old movies and so on. Interesting!

 

We slowly move toward downtown, eating our peanut butter & jelly sandwich, decided to get some good food at one of the food carts. We take the bus and search for those carts. Yellow tricks Red into visiting the world’s smallest public garden, so he could take a picture of it. We end up at El Cubo de Cuba for some Cuban pork plate with black beans, rice and sweet potato tots. Delicious again.

 

We check out the free section of the Museum of Contemporary Craft, before messing up our beer plan. There is a Tuesday pint for $ 2.5 at Roots Organic Brewery. Unfortunately, it is way further than we thought, so we go back to our hosts’ place. After packing and saying good-bye, we leave in the middle of the afternoon and we drive in the direction of the Oregon Coast.

We stop at Winco, a store not as interesting as Fred Meyer, but with a gigantic section of bulk dry fruits and seeds. We make our way to Fred Meyer for our grocery shopping as we escape the suburbs, and we end up at the host’s place for tonight in McMinnville, OR, at the beginning of the evening. It is not the Oregon Coast yet, but a beautiful and large valley with some nice hills, especially once the sun is going down. And it’s in the middle of these hills that we meet Marvin and Grace.

We have a delicious feast outside before eating the apple crisp dinner inside. They grow their own grapes to eat, and they are delicious, the best grapes we ever had. Of course, the evening is filled with some great discussions and we end up in bed right before midnight.

Day 48: Portland, OR (day 1)

We’ve never been to Portland before, not even to Oregon. But it’s like we already knew so much about it. Everybody knows Portland is cool, has lots of breweries and a vibrant alternative scene. Plus we have watched a couple of episodes of the show Portlandia before. Of course, there is so much more than that in Portland, but at the same time, what we discovered about the city went right along the lines of what we knew about it.

But first, we need to reach downtown. And Jeanne’s place is pretty close to the Max Station “122^nd St” on the Blue Line. So we take the light rail right into the city center. We don’t really have a map, but we end up at the center of the center: Pioneer Square. The people of Portland fought to have this square be what it is today, a meeting place surrounded by tall buildings. And this morning, there is a farmer’s market full of locally grown organic produce. So Portland!

 

While Red is getting her cup of coffee so she can make it through the day, Yellow goes to the Visitor Center, where he meets this guy that does free tours of the city center. Well, he works for tips, but it seems to be a pretty cool way to discover the area. So at 11am, we meet our guide and start the exploration.

Soon enough, we get to know some secrets about Downtown, Oldtown, Chinatown and the Pearl District. We learn about the food carts that are all over the city, 700 of them serving food as good as or better than restaurants. We learn about Portland’s obsession with beer and bikes, and the habit of the people from the city to go on strike. We hear the creepy stories related to the Shanghai tunnel and we visit the world’s smallest public park.

 

Portland is like a magnet attracting lots of people. People from California come there because it’s cheaper, and people from all over the US come there because it’s cool! But there are no jobs here. In fact, the city has a pretty high unemployment rate. And there is a large homeless population – enjoying drink water at all the distinct water fountains that were installed one day by a man annoyed at all the Portlanders drinking beer all the time.

A mayor said in the 80’s something along those lines: “Come visit Portland, but then go back home.” On the other side, it seems that Portland has a lot of resource and imagination to reinvent itself all the time. “Keep Portland weird” says a mural. And we agree with it.

 

We eat our lunch on the waterfront – in front of one of the city’s eight bridges – and meet Yellow’s friend, Noelle, at Voodoo Donuts. This is a punk rock donut shop, serving the weirdest donuts in the world. And they are good! Yellow gets a Voodoo donut while Red goes for a Bacon Maple one. And we savor them while having a great discussion with Noelle.

 

After saying bye to her, we wander in Pearl District. It’s sunny and really hot. We stop at Powell’s City of Books, may be the largest independent bookstore in the world. We get a beer at Deschutes Brewery and make our way to Union Station.

We then take the Yellow Line to reach N. Mississippi Ave, a street with some nice vintage shops and second-hand clothing stores. And here is the food cart we decided for: Wolf & Bear. They are serving falafel pita sandwiches. And they are the most delicious falafel pita sandwiches we ever had. So good!

We make our way back to our place, with difficulty. Back home, we realize that Jeanne prepared a whole dinner, so we eat dinner #2. Then Red goes study while Yellow talks with Jeanne for the rest of the evening.

Day 47: from Washington to Oregon through the Columbia River Valley

 We take our time this morning. After breakfast, we walk to the Columbia River, finding ourselves on a little beach, with a long heavy bridge connecting Washington and Oregon. This is the same Columbia River that we first discovered on our way to Radium Hot Springs, BC. We slept right on its left bank in Golden, BC and saw it blocked by a huge dam in Revelstoke, BC. And today, we’re gonna explore that massive river, that has been carving a massive gorge – the only East-West valley in the Cascade Range – in order to get to the Pacific Ocean, so we can get to Portland, OR.

We leave at 11am, and drive east on road WA-14. East? But Portland is west! Yes, it is. But today we want to explore the whole Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, so we start by going east. We leave White Salmon, WA, surrounded by thick forests, and stop at Lake Chamberlain rest area. Somehow, that river gorge looks more like a succession of lakes, as the whole gorge has been dammed. We’re apparently at the middle point between the dry side and the humid side of the gorge. But the haziness of the air doesn’t help us to see too much of a difference. On both sidse of the river, railroad tracks have been built right on the shore, and on the Oregon side, they have I-84 as a neighbor. We wait for awhile for a train to pass, but it’s not very busy at Sunday lunch time. Too bad.

 

We continue our drive east to US-97. And the change of landscape is dramatic. We find ourselves surrounded by arid lands, very rocky with some dry bushes. Some basaltic cliffs make their appearance. The only way to make the land greener is irrigation, and that area is very rich in wineries and fruit orchards, especially close to Maryhill, WA. We stop there at a fruit stand for some juicy peaches and local vegetables. Then we cross the Columbia River, and drive west, finally.

We drive across The Dalles, OR, which has a nice vintage atmosphere. The visitor center is closed, but we can still take advantage of the free wifi. From there, we take US-30, the Columbia River Valley Historic Highway, to drive west. The route is very pleasant, going through the cute Oregon countryside. We stop at Rowena Crest for the best views on the gorge, and for eating some of those ripe peaches that we just got. Delicious.

 

 

We slowly get back to the more humid side of the gorge. Before being altered by the construction of dams, the Columbia River was one of the world’s most important salmon runs. Some Native Americans are still fishing salmon as they used to do it centuries ago, but it’s just not the same anymore.

 

Multnomah Falls is another stop on our way to the west. One of the most famous spots of the gorge, it features the second highest year-long waterfall of the country. We’re definitely not alone on this one, but it is worth it.

 

Finally, in the beginning of the evening, we reach Portland and the house our host Jeanne and her roommate Marie. Jeanne has lived several years in Africa and in Asia. Marie is from Kinshasa, RDC, so we can speak some French with her. We get settled while they go to a choir concert for the evening. Red studies while Yellow prepares some dinner. And when Jeanne comes back, we spend the rest of the evening talking with her.