Tuesday, August 29, 2023: I am on vacation!
Info:
The state of Oregon is located on the Pacific Coast, south of Washington and north of California. 4.2 million people live on 255,000 km2. Here you can find everything: the sea, mountains, volcanoes, desert, forests, big cities, small villages, whales, bears and squirrels. And no, it doesn’t always rain in Oregon. “She flies with her own wings” is the motto of the Beaver State, and Oregonians make a point of being different. For example, you do not take umbrellas, but raincoats.
The capital is Salem, and the largest city is Portland. Approximately 650,000 people live in the “Rose City” and over 2.5 million in the metropolitan region. That doesn’t leave much for the rest of the country. Portland is located at the confluence of the Columbia River and the Willamette River, giving it easy access to the ocean despite being inland.
Before the area at the end of the Oregon Trail was overrun by white settlers in the 1840s, it was one of the most densely populated areas on the Pacific Coast. Lewis and Clark documented in 1805 that the Chinook lived here.
Portland has had an eventful fate from the “most filthy city in the U.S.” (no sewers in the 1880s) to one of the most dangerous port cities in the world (after the gold rush at the turn of the century) and a stronghold of organized crime (in the 1940s) to what it is now: a very green city, progressive, open, tolerant and with a high quality of life. After the death of George Floyd by police brutality in 2020, there were daily protests in Portland for nearly a year.
Oh yes, Mount Hood is wonderful to see from Portland. A volcano, like Mount St. Helens used to be, symmetrical and snow-covered!
Cannon Beach is located on the Pacific Ocean and is a typical tourist town. The special features are the rock formations in the sea, especially Haystack Rock, all remnants of former volcanic activity. (I could start now 17 million years ago when the area was under water … but I won’t. And I don’t say anything about basalt lava flows and uplifting of the land, either. I won’t.)
The Pacific Ocean off the harbor town of Depoe Bay is home to several gray whales that live there as “residents” rather than constantly swimming between Alaska and Baja like their collegs, a total of 3,000 miles (4,800 km). That makes the distance from the earth to the moon and back for an entire whale’s life. But, as I said, not all of them do that.
My opinion:
I like Oregon. It is relaxed, pleasant. I went there on vacation.
Diary:
In case anyone thinks I’m on vacation all the time anyway – no, not at all. I’m traveling, and that can be pretty exhausting at times. I am often exhausted on “driving days.” Life in Annie Way is also nowhere near as comfortable as it is at home. Plus the constant changeover, the planning and organizing, oh, …
That’s why I needed a vacation.
Driving to the campground just east of Portland, I enjoyed the view of Mount Hood.
I have criminally neglected Portland. Sorry about that. But I was only there for one day, and I didn’t feel like strolling through the city center because the traffic jam somehow was not very motivating. So I just drove up to Washington Park to see the International Rose Garden and the Japanese Garden. Incredibly beautiful and huuuuuge!
Since there is a Sky Tram that goes up the hill to the hospital and university campus, I wanted to get a convenient overview from there. It runs every five minutes and is used by students as well as hospital staff and visitors to the hospital, saving them the long journey up the hill. In front of the valley station of the Aerial Tram, as it is also called, there are bike racks where hundreds of bikes are parked, also the streetcar and buses leave from there.
Apart from that: The view from up there is really great! Unfortunately, Mount Hood could not be seen, it was too hazy.
Back down, I strolled around a bit in the area of the valley station and came to a Farmers’ Market with a wide variety of offerings, including ready-to-eat meals. A feast for the senses, which was attended by many people.
And that’s it from Portland. I feel guilty, but I felt more like the sea. And vacation.
So off to Cannon Beach. I walked up and down the beach for hours, it being a very long beach. Too cold for swimming, but really nice! Just sea air. Pelicans, ducks, gulls, puffins – thousands. They use the basalt rocks that stand around in the Pacific Ocean as nesting sites.
Building sand castles seems to be a popular sport. And at low tide, you walk over to Haystack Rock.
But there are also areas where you are all alone. And lo and behold, at the end of the bay is indeed a maze!
Cannon Beach itself is focusing on tourism – as are all the beach towns. Fantastic ice cream! That I absolutely had to buy a sun hat again, I regretted ten minutes later, because as always immediately afterwards the weather changed. But only briefly, fortunately.
Highway 101, which runs along the coast, is an experience in itself. Actually, one would have to stop in every bay – breathtaking!
I still didn’t have enough of whales after Alaska, plus I had never seen gray whales, so I went to a campground in Waldport, not far from Depoe Bay. Checking in at the nicest KOA I had yet stayed at, with the friendliest staff I had yet stayed with, I was told how to get to the beach on the Nature Trail, which was just below, and that I should definitely go to the bridge that was next to the campground.
The beach was nice, but not overwhelming. The bridge, however … harbor seals!
I stood there for quite a long time and watched the pack, which was obviously playing Mikado: Whoever moves first, loses! But every now and then one of the animals stretched a fin in the air or crawled through the sand.
The whale watching thing was not complicated at all. As soon as we left the harbor of Depoe Bay, the first whale was there. It showed up next to a small boat, but the fisherman, who had just cast his line, didn’t even seem surprised. Gray whales are known to like to hang around boats and ships, which makes them an ideal attraction for tourists.
We also passed by a buoy where some sea lions were fighting.
When four gray whales swim around the ship at the same time, you don’t know where to look first. They are twelve to fifteen meters long and would actually be gray if they weren’t covered in all kinds of shells, making them look spotty. Since they only dive for four to six minutes, there is a lot to see. “There she blows!” is the exclamation, in German, “Dort bläst er!” Why it is called “she” in English and “he” in German is not clear to me, but that’s how it is. A whale dove under our boat. That was a strange feeling, because the vehicle was not particularly large.
On the drive back to Waldport, I stopped at several bays and there were whales everywhere. In total I saw ten gray whales that day.
From Waldport, I continued down Highway 101, enjoying the beaches and dunescapes – there are a lot of dunes in Oregon – and all of a sudden I was at a barrier, asked if I had any fresh fruit with me (“Only bananas.” – “Bananas are okay.”) and I was in California.
But still on vacation.