We spent six days in Oregon with no baseball and no national parks. We thought we might go into withdrawal, but we ended up having a great time.
On Wednesday, August 2, we left California behind and drove into Oregon. Gas prices immediately dropped by 70 centers per gallon. Our plan for this day was to drive up the Oregon coast as far as Florence, Oregon. Once we got into Oregon we went to 8 different viewpoints on the coast in the Samuel Broadman State Scenic Corridor - a 12 mile stretch of the coast Each was beautiful and Melinda in particular loved the dramatic scenery. The picture to the left is of Natural Bridges - these arches were formed by the waves.
We stopped for lunch at a viewpoint next to Kissing Rock - that's Kissing Rock behind us in the picture to the right. We decided not to share the other make-out selfies. After lunch, we continued to stop at additional viewpoints along the coast. We were having a great time but not making much progress towards Florence. So, we picked up the pace on Highway 101 and continued north including passing through Coos Bay.
Between Coos Bay and Florence, we stopped at the Oregon Sand Dunes day use area. All along the Oregon coast north of Coos Bay are 40 miles of naturally occurring sand dunes between the highway and the actual beach. We briefly hiked on these way back in 2010. When we got to the day use area, we had great views from above, and we briefly hiked down into the the dunes. As you can see in the picture on the left, you have the dunes, vegetation and then the beach itself - amazing.
We rolled into Florence a little after 5:00 after a great day of enjoying the natural beauty.
On Thursday, August 3 we planned to drive from Florence to Rainbow (yes, Rainbow) Oregon via Eugene. Since this was only a 2.5 hour drive, we planned to spend some time in Eugene including brunch, getting supplies and filling up. After a great brunch, we decided to stop by Hayward Field on the University of Oregon campus. For you track and field fans, you know this as the premier track and field venue in the country - due to its long history of hosting great races and its stunning renovation/expansion completed in 2021. We've been here before, but not since the renovation was completed. We spent more than hour in the great museum in the stadium devoted to the UO track/cross country program and the history of the venue.
The museum included a lot about Steve Prefontaine, the great Oregon distance runner from Coos Bay who died in a car accident in 1975. I got to see Pre run the mile at an indoor meet when I was a senior in high school, a few months before he died (he barely lost that race to the great Marty Liquori).
The picture on the left shows the signature tower at the stadium. Our sons, Brian and Michael, attended the 2022 World Athletics (track and field) championships held here and got to see Sydney McLaughlin break the world record in the women's 400 meter hurdles.
After we left Eugene we drove to Rainbow to a cabin we rented for two nights. The picture on the right is the view from our deck. This is our fourth time visiting Rainbow and the McKenzie River. We stumbled on this place in 2010 when visiting Michael in Portland and loved it so much we keep coming back.
Our last visit was in 2020 when we stayed here with Michael and Kat and rafted the McKenzie and had a great time. A few weeks after our stay, the Holiday Farm Fire started on Labor Day. One person was killed and 173,000 acres were burned. We stayed this time in a cabin east of where the fire started so nothing was burned here. But we were saddened to see all the destruction (even 3 years later) as we drove up the valley. On Friday, August 4, we spent the day enjoying the river and watching the rafters go by.
On Saturday, August 5, we drove from Rainbow to Portland to see our son Michael. We took the roundabout way by taking the McKenzie highway over the McKenzie pass at 5,300 feet. At the McKenzie pass is one of the more bizarre things we've found in our travels - the Dee Wright Observatory (picture on left). This was built by the CCC on the edge of a large lava field - to me it looks like the Wicked Witch's castle in the "Wizard of Oz" In the "observatory" are holes which give you a view of various surrounding mountains including the Sisters, Mt. Washington and Mt. Jefferson. From there we drove on to Portland.
Our son Michael (our oldest), moved to Portland in 2009 and we've been to visit him many times. One thing we almost always do when we come to Portland is visit Powell's Books. This is the largest independent bookstore in the country. As you can see in the picture at the right, it's filled with room after room of books (new and used) flavored with some of the typical Portland craziness. On Sunday, August 6, Michael, Melinda and I made a visit which was great as always and resulted in some new books. As we drove through downtown Portland, we were disappointed to see how much the character of downtown has changed over the past years - primarily due to homelessness and the fentanyl surge. We felt safe on a sunny Sunday afternoon, but downtown Portland has lost some it's charm.
One highlight of our visit was to see the lovely house Michael and and his long-time girlfriend Kat have (new since our last visit) and the wonderful way Kat has furnished and decorated it. We didn't get to see as much of Kat as we would have liked on this visit, but we'll be meeting up with them again in Montana in about a week so stay tuned. Here's a picture of the four of us right before we left on Monday, August 7.
Now, we're off to the state of Washington and back to a National Park and a baseball game.
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