The Eclipse

 Portland is a beautiful city which we had a great time exploring, but our primary purpose was to experience 99% totality in the eclipse. We were clearly not the only people with that idea but the spot we found was less crowded than we had feared (though we were in place by 6am just in case) It's also hard for anyone to get their head in your way when you're all looking at the sun, so personal viewing space was not a problem.

 The eclipse itself was incredible but in many ways different than I had expected. I had NOT thought the quality of the light would get so strange and diffused, or that you would feel a change in temperature so quickly. Somewhat naively I HAD expected a large shadow to move across the ground when in reality there is just a gradual darkening, because even 1% of the sun is pretty bright. My personal highlight was during near-totality when everyone was cheering and Kathryn shouted "WOOOOO!! UNIVERSE!!"

 I had also (somewhat foolishly) opted against getting a fancy (and expensive) solar filter. While we had no camera damage of any sort, all my photos were just giant flares. Fortunately, Kathryn captured some pretty cool blooms and edge glows like the picture above. As luck would have it, the fellow next to us that we'd spent the morning chatting with had a sheet of filter in a piece of cardboard you could drop over the end of your lens, and Kathryn used that to take a more classic eclipse photo as shown below.

Apologies for being so late getting these pictures up, the fall has been kicking both our butts, and finding the time and energy to even share a few pictures is tricky to do.

Travelling to Portland by Rail

 Getting from Vancouver to Portland by train is surprisingly easy provided you are willing to get started VERY early in the morning. The train leaves town at 6:30am and since it is an international trip, you are encouraged to arrive at least an hour early for ticketing and customs while some websites suggest an earlier arrival to ensure a good seat. Since we did not expect to be the only people going down for the eclipse, we were at the station by 5:15am and even that left us fairly late in the line. Protip: if you leave early for this trip, make sure you remember the delicious lunch you packed or it becomes the delicious dinner you return to.

 Once we were seated and the train was underway it was a very soothing chance to sit back and enjoy the scenery as it goes by. The trip is about 8.5 hours all in, but since you can get up for coffee and to stretch your legs anytime (except briefly at the border) you never end up cramped or uncomfortable. We had heard that the best view is from the right side (going south) and would certainly agree that its worth trying to get a seat on the seaward side for the journey.

 The train station in Portland is right downtown and we were easily able to start exploring the city as soon as we got off. In comparison, the airport is further out to the east and would have required a little more time tinkering with transit and collecting baggage before starting the adventure. All in all this is a very enjoyable and highly recommended means of getting from BC to Oregon.

Wandering Washington Park

 Somewhat confusingly, Washington park is neither in the city of state of Washington, but rather on the west side of the city of Portland in Oregon. Regardless of the unexpected given the location, it is a large and beautiful bit of land close the the heart of a sizeable city, much like our own Stanley Park. Near the train station, is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which does a great job of commemorating the people who served while also being a pleasant place AND including some lighthearted moments of Oregon history during those years to remind us all that real life continues during times of war.

 Next up, the International Test Rose Garden is apparently the oldest rose test garden in the USA, boasting over 7,000 plants from more than 500 variations. However you count them, the flowers in the garden were stunning and a delight to walk through, covering a large space to help diffuse the large number of people visiting at any given day.

 Also close to the main entrance was this neat old locomotive which I was unable to pass up the chance to have my picture taken in the cab of. Despite being decommissioned years ago and severely burned in an accident not that long ago, it has been very nicely restored and creates a great photo op.

West Coast Adventures

Its not 100% finalized, but here's the 'best of' footage from our adventures in BC, Washington and Oregon this October. There will be minor tweaks for the DVD, but with all the Africa footage we have coming up in March this has to be put up now or it will be forgotten until 2011 ;)

Many of the places shown here have been featured in earlier posts so there's lots more information in the archive for anyone inclined to poke around a bit.

The Lava Cast Forest

While we were in the Newberry Volcanic Monument this fall we also took a rough gravel road through 11 miles of forest to see the Lava Cast Forest.
While the other area of the monument we had a look at had been one of eruption and subsequent destruction, the lava cast forest was a spot where an ancient forest had been standing in the path of a lava flow.
As the lava had flowed through the forest, it built up at the bases of many of the larger trees. Although they were killed and burned away in the process, they survived long enough to leave their imprints in the lava as it cooled, creating a sort of arboreal Pompeii

Oregon Dunes

Rewinding time slightly to our adventures on the east coast earlier this summer, we spent an afternoon in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area which runs along perhaps a quarter of the coast of Oregon and is entirely a State Park.Besides people such as ourselves that were out for a walk there were a ridiculous number of people with ATVs or tricked out pickups that were driving around as fast as they could on parts of these dunes. Fortunately the areas for driving like a crazy and walking were separated but I still don't get the appeal of going very fast through something that you could be walking through and enjoying instead.

There were also a great number of little blobby shapes washed up on the beach. We asked around and were told they were a kind of jellyfish, but poking them with sticks we were unable to see any resemblance between them and the other jellyfish we've seen. Very neat.

Misty Morning in Bandon

By the time we arrived in Bandon, Kathryn was already in a tizzy. It was the furthest south we were going in our adventures and also the town with the petting zoo (you can recap on that HERE). We were so determined to be there right for opening that we ended up being well over an hour too early.
Since waiting at the door would just be taunting her and take forever, we went back into town to explore the coast and kill some time and we were very lucky for it. There was a heavy blanket of mist that morning and the tide was coming in along some gorgeous rock formations which loomed out at us.
As the morning arrived we found a way to scamper down to the beach and shoot some nice video of waves and get lots of nice pictures of rocks and nesting seabirds. It turned into a well lit morning as well which worked nicely for an obligatory arm-out-holding-the-camera-duo-shot.
And below is a panorama of the whole beach as the sun rose. You can click on it to make it quite a bit bigger since its very small here.

Multnomah Falls

The Columbia River snakes along the border between southern Washington and northern Oregon all the way to the sea. We ended up following along this stretch for quite a ways on our adventures this summer to visit a number of spots before heading further south.

One of these places was Multnomah Falls which is a gorgeous spot with a rather steep hike to the top of the falls consisting of a dozen or so switchbacks.
The hike is pretty reasonable except I was perhaps overfussing about the potential cold at the top and as such we were both bundled up in too many layers so the climb was more arduous because of the heat than any lack of physical fitness.

The view from the top was equally impressive, offering a commanding view of the Columbia River and both states.

The top of the falls was also populous enough that we were able to get someone else to take a picture of the pair of us, helping to prove that two people did go on this trip since most of the pictures only have one or the other of us.

Newberry Volcanic Monument

This fall as part of our west coast excursion, we just crossed the border between Oregon and Mordor at the Newberry Volcanic Monument. Its a huge lava field created by a group of still-active volcanoes in the area.

This particular flow is thousands of years old and was once inhabited by dwarf black bears until hunters decided they were too cute to live.
Kathryn looks around for a likely place to destroy the One Ring.Panoramic view of the field from the base of the volcano (click to enlarge)

Closed and Accidental Railway Museums of the West

On our journey through the west coast states and BC we happened across a couple of railway museums, one on purpose and one quite by mistake.
The intentional one was also the closed one unfortunately. The Kettle Valley Railway was listed in our tour book of the Okanagan but didn't happen to mention its seasonal nature and though I followed in my fathers footsteps and poked around the engine shed, someone had callously locked it.
And then as we were passing through Garibaldi, Oregon we came along this one sitting in the middle of the town and quite open to our pokings. Although this locomotive is no longer used (and has a boiler full of garbage tossed in by ungrateful passers by) they do let you poke about and there is another engine that does rides in the summer as well.

Big Cats of Bandon

On our recent holiday through BC, Washington and Oregon our southernmost destination was the town of Bandon whose claim to fame is a walk-through safari with extensive petting zoo. They work very actively with big cat preservation with zoos and the like and as a result frequently have young cats that are too young to be moved and to cute not to be patted.

There'll be more pictures from this place later, but for now we'll just leave it at the 'big' cats.
Kathryn is patting a baby leopard named Bently who weighs a little less than our cat and is still small enough for lap sitting. If you ask her nicely about it she may tell you more about this leopard :PNext was a lion cub named Bella who is a little too big for laps but still quite a charmer.And last but not least was a Siberian Lynx named Kesa who is almost big enough to move to her next home but was still present for our attention.