The Oregon and Northern California Coast--What a Journey!--Part 1

This was my fourth or fifth solo journey, depending on how you count it. (I went solo that week in 2000 on the Colorado River of the Grand Canyon but met a group from Adventure Women there to float down with.) New England was my first totally solo trip, but since going to the East Coast, on my other trips, I've traveled to the West--Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, Zion and Arches and Capitol Reef and Bryce, and this latest to the Oregon and Northern California Coast!

This trip, like the one to Southern Utah, was indeed a 10-day journey. I flew into Portland, Oregon, where I stayed for two days, rented an SUV, and drove down the coastal highway 101, stopping for the night in four small towns along the way--Depoe Bay, Bandon-on-the-Beach, Trinidad, and Mendocino--until I got to San Francisco, where I stayed for two nights.

My main goal was to be on that coastal highway and view the Pacific Ocean--to hike the trails along the ocean and into the redwoods in California. That was accomplished, but I also was in some really cool towns along the way.

If I had it to do over again, I would stay for two nights in each small town. As it was, I only had the mornings to explore the small towns and their environments on the coast, and that was not enough time to really see them and to relax into their atmosphere.

Each afternoon I would travel along the coastal highway 101, stopping where I wanted and had planned to stop. Oregon called the overlooks "view points" and California called them "vista points," and I believe that I stopped at most of them! On an average, I would take two hikes a day, but sometimes three. Each night, filled with the fresh Pacific Ocean air, I slept extremely well.

This was my first view of the Oregon coast at Ecola State Park, but there will be other, even more dramatic views to come!

Thanks to the gods that be, except for one cloudy rainy day, the weather was perfectly blue skies and sunshine! Just what was needed to see the gorgeous view and vista points and to hike along the way.

In Portland--the city of many bridges (nine, I think)--I stayed near Nob Hill and was able to walk to restaurants (My favorite was Elephant Deli!) and shop as I wanted to. In that city, I took two tours--one of the city--and another of the Columbia Gorge and waterfalls along the way. Ten or so diverse people in a Mercedes van and me, and on both tours, I was the first to be picked up at my hotel, so I got to see even more of the city as we picked up the others.

Brunch at Elephant Deli!

I learned so much on both tours. Like that Porland, Oregon, was named after Portland, Maine, because the two settlers were from Portland and Boston and they flipped a coin to name the city! Though Voodoo doughnuts was a good stop, my favorite stop on the city tour was to the Chinese garden. Right in the middle of the bustling city was this most peaceful and lovely place, with crystal clear ponds filled with colorful swimming koi and with the tinkling sounds of waterfalls and the autunm colors of nature in all her splender. (The Lan Su Chinese Garden opened in the year 2000 to shed light on Chinese culture and history after the city developed a relationship with its sister city of Suzhou, China. This tranquil environment blends rocks, plants, trees, gardens, and a lake on about 40,000 square feet, roughly a city block, of land in central Portland.)

Another favorite stop of mine was the world-famous international rose test garden in Portland's Washington Park, an intensely fragant rose garden of 600 varieties of roses that bloom into late autumn in Portland's mild climate.

The next day on the Columbia gorge tour I saw a river that separates two states--Oregon from Washington--and that flows into the Pacific Ocean. Surrounded by the Cascade Mountain range--the Cascades, with Mount Hood being the highest mountain and the mountain that Portland claims for her own. Luckily, it was a clear day, and we could see Mount Hood, which sometimes disappears into the clouds, from several places along the way.

The Columbia River gorge.

The wild maple trees; the leaves were huge.

Mount Hood above the city of Portland.

Mount Hood viewed through a city garden.

I discovered something interesting in both of the big cities--Portland and San Francisco--the homeless, the street people are so prevalent in contrast to in Nashville, for example. Asking the tour guide about this, she responded that it's not illegal to be homeless in Portland. She also did not think that their percentge of homeless was any more than in other large US cities. As I thought about it, I guess that in Nashville that if you are not in a shelter by nightfall, you get picked up and put in jail. As if the city owned the streets, but if we think about it, it's really us, the people, who pay for and own the streets. An interesting difference in how cities view the street people.

Also an interesting tidbit about Oregon is that I had read it was a state that was a "whites only" state in its beginning, and my other tour guide confirmed this fact. "No blacks" was the motto at one time, and he said that it was still mostly whites though Portland has become a liberal city, as I saw signs like this in many shop windows.

Stay tuned for more text and pictures to come  . . .