Blogs from Oregon, United States, North America - page 96

While stopped at a lovely McDonald’s, offering free internet, we booked a room for Portland. We decided to shower up and get a good night sleep before heading back across the country. We got a great last minute deal at one of Travel & Leisure’s top 500 hotels in the world - Hotel Vintage Plaza. It was really nice. We got a free hour of wine and they even had a wii set up for people to play on. We had a very short time in Portland, but liked it a lot! Everything in the city is adorable - cute names for everything, and very friendly people. It’s also more condensed then Seattle, and it was easier for us to feel comfortable there. We went to this bar that overlooks the view of Portland called Portland ... read more

Crater Lake National Park is a fascinating place. The whole area is part of the Pacific circle if fire, there are loads of volcanoes around, all inactive at least for the moment. Crater lake lies inside a volcanic basin (caldera) and was created when Mount Mazama collapsed 7 700 years ago following an eruption. There is a lake in the crater, very deep with beautiful blue water. As you will see on the pictures, a second smaller volcano showed up inside the 'old' crater and has itself a crater. The region is beautiful and we manged to do some nice hikes; very much enjoyed hiking up Crater Peak which is another dormant volcano. For more information, please see www.nps.gov/crla ... read more

The Combia River gorge is a must, it is beautiful and a scenic road follows the gorge and brings you to all the nice spots. The gorge started being formed millions of years ago, but at the end of the last Ice Age quick erosion due to floods, cut deep through the volcanic rock so that most affuents ended up as waterfall. After visiting the gorge we went to Dufur where we had booked a room at the Balch hotel. This historic hotel is situated in a small country village surrounded by wheat fields. We very much enjoyed our stay there as the place with its antique furniture was somehow surrealistic in such a rural place. In the morning it was a pleasure to discover that we got a 3 course gastronomic breakfast! Sometimes, you just ... read more

Craig and I began our long, dusty drive east. Our final destination was to be the Steens Mountain Wilderness in Harney County, where we hoped to camp for several days. We drove through Bend and entered into the flat brown landscape stretching towards Burns, a far cry from the lush Willamette Valley. There wasn’t much around besides sage brush, and the “towns” marked on the map were only comprised of tiny gas stations/convenience stores. In total, the drive took us nearly seven hours, culminating in a 17 mile gravel stretch to reach our campsite at Fish Lake. Along the way the countryside had changed drastically, the flat, sage-brush spotted landscape giving way to lush pockets of green grass, naturally irrigated by shallow streams. These small oases were punctuated by impressive flat-topped buttes that formed vast ... read more

We drove down I-5 from Seattle, Washington to Portland, Oregon where we stopped for lunch. It was July 28, 2009 and we were on a three-day trip to the Oregon Coast. We were in the midst of a heat wave. Our temperature is usually in the mid-80's at the most; today it was 108 degrees in Portland. Our Alki Tours motor coach was filled with 54 excited passengers, plus Tyson, our tour manager, and Michael, our driver. After a three-hour drive from Seattle to Portland, it was time for a lunch stop. Tyson chose a neighborhood where the streets are filled with restaurants. It's known as the Northwest District and the intersection is NW Hoyt and NW 23rd Avenue. Most of us headed for the air-conditioning in the Ram's Head or Noah's Bagels. Fortunately, Portland has ... read more