Cybersecurity Newsbites: Be Careful Out There

Cruising the Coast of Oregon, Only to Be Disappointed in Washington

To recap, the first phase of our vacation trip took us from Portland south through the mountains to Crater Lake, a beautiful blue lake surrounded by hot redheads. I managed to pry Carole away from the manly forest fire fighters and we headed west towards the Oregon Coast.

We headed north and then west on scenic Rt. 138 and after about an hour stopped to take a short hike to view Toketee Falls - amazing. After a few days in Oregon, waterfalls become ho-hum - sort of like seeing yet another big Cadillac in Florida with the turn signal permanently on. But, Toketee was like being transported into The Lord of the Rings.

From there we followed the scenic Umpqua River as it made its way to the Pacific Ocean at Reedsport. We then headed north on 101 along the coast, stopping for a sandy hike in Oregon Dunes Park. No offense, Oregon, but Long Island has dunes, Cape Cod has dunes. Dunes are dunes.

A hour more of driving we came to Florence, and stayed at the Edwin K. Bed and Breakfast, a fantastic place with many positives, like large rooms, friendly owner guy, amazing breakfast, great view from the porch rocking chairs across the Siuslaw River to the dunes, hot tub/spa in the room, easy walk into town, etc, and just one, teeny tiny negative: the toilet was just sort of in the corner of the bed room behind a folding screen. That was a head scratcher, but once again Carole and I proved to be very compatible - we took turns leaving the room when the other had to avail themselves of the facilities.

The next day we left Florence but I brought home some Siuslaw Blend coffee from Siuslaw Coffee Roasters - I can taste hints of rainbow, and notes of unicorn tears of joy, marionberries and pheromones.

We had about 200 miles to go to get to our stop for the night. However, along the way there was much scenic stuff.

Like the Heceta Head Lighthouse.

 

And Cape Perpetua, with an great view of the Oregon Coast.

After fighting our way through a few traffic jams at seaside towns, and a brief stop for free cheese at the Tillamook factory, we reached The Inn At Harbour Village in Ilwaco,WA - just north of the Columbia River. 

The town of Ilwaco was nothing much, but the Inn was a great place to stay - friendly innkeeper lady, interesting history, good breakfast, cookies out all the time, etc. 

There were two reasons for staying in Ilawco: (1) It was a short ride from there to Seattle for our flight home; and (2) I always wanted to see where Lewis and Clark ended up. I'd read several books about their expedition and was really excited - after about 600 miles of driving, thousands of waterfalls dozens of lighthouses, finally getting to see this historic site!!!

Meh - they picked an appropriate name for it.

So, we headed a bit north to the North Head Light - much more impressive. Now, if Ilwaco could grow a waterfall or two, they'd be all set.

We drove the next day through the mountains to Olympia, WA - and then a boring slog up I5 to a SeaTac airport hotel. Surprisingly, we actually had a great dinner at a restaurant near the airport - Sharps Roasters.

The next morning a 3am wake up call and a short shuttle flight to the airport, and we were on our way home. The coffee shop in the central terminal  was name proudly for its clientele:

Cavorting on the Catoctin Trail, Gamboling into Gambrills

The Catoctin Trail runs about 28 miles from Gambrill State Park through Cunningham Falls State Park and almost to the Pennsylvania border. After a detailed planning session over coffee at Frederick Coffee Company and Cafe, Carl and I decided to do the southern-most 5.7 miles from the Frederick Watershed trailhead down to Gambrills Park. 

We did this stretch in the opposite direction years ago, but Carl's law definitely applies: everything looks different when you walk in the other direction. Which may have been derived from "walk a mile in the other guy's moccasins" or it just may be that we've reached that age where we just don't remember the previous hike, anyway.

This route has a bit of up and down to it, but the first six miles don't feel as strenuous as it looks in the topo profile above. We've had a very wet summer this year, so the streams were gurgling and the vegetation was pretty lush.

After a few crossings of "serenity-now" kind of creeks, we reached the junction of the Gambrill's Yellow trail and followed that back to where we had left my car, probably shortening the overall length from 5.7 miles down to 5.5 or so. 

Over the years we have now done various hikes that cover the southern 21 miles of the Catoctin Trail, probably time to do the northern 7-mile section.

Perusing (Another) Portland, Climbing Crater Lake

We are in a vacation rut - for the second year in a row we started our vacation in Portland. Although Portland, OR this year was quite a bit different from Portland, ME last year. A much more hipster vibe, which is either captured very well by the show Portlandia, or was caused by it. Much less lobstery, too.

The Major League Soccer All Star game was being held in Portland when we arrived, and Carole got to drool over hot soccer players every time we got on the elevator in the hotel. She managed to pry herself away the first night and we had dinner with our freind's daughter (and boyfriend) who had just moved out to Portland to take a job there. We ate at a restaurant called Veritable Quandary near the river - great place, pretty good food.

To work off all that healthy fresh food, the next morning we walked over to Voodoo Doughnut, a Portland institution. For some odd reason, Carole said I needed to order the Old Dirty Bastard donut - chocolate frosted glazed, topped with Oreo cookie pieces and peanut butter. I hope to recover from the sugar shock by Labor Day. To wash that down, we walked over to Stumptown Coffee Roasters and had some authentic Portland coffee. Portland lags slightly behind Seattle for most coffee shops per square foot, but if you count only non-Starbucks sites, i think Portland wins.

We then jumped in the rental car and headed south, with the first 110 miles on boring I5, followed by a beautiful drive on Rt. 58. We made a brief stop to walk out to the Salt Creek Falls (above) viewpoint and pulled into Crater Lake National Park an hour later.

The first view of Crater Lake is always breathtaking - there is really nothing else like it anywhere. We later met a woman who captured it - "I'm here because Crater Lake is on my bucket list." Thousands of years of snow melt and rainfall filled the caldera of the Mt. Mazama volcano  with amazingly blue, clear water.

We did a lot of hiking at Crater Lake - mostly vertically. We first climbed 400 feet in 1 mile to reach the Watchman Peak Fire Lookout. We then hiked down 700 feet to the lake to take a boat out to Wizard Island, where we hiked back up 400 feet to the top of the caldera there. After the boat ride back, we had to hike back up 700 feet in 1.1 miles to get back to our car. Carole's competitive instinct kicked in and she beat a teenaged kid to the top, while I slogged slowly along.

We followed that up with dinner at the Crater Lake Lodge, a beautiful place that we did not get to stay at since it appears to be booked up completely years in advance. Just minutes before I took this picture, that giant plate was piled a foot high with smoked salmon and various vegetables. The waiter would not let us leave until we polished off a creme brulee and some huckleberry ice cream.

Since the Lodge was booked, we stayed for two nights at the Prospect Hotel, about 30 miles south of Crater Lake. Nothing fancy, but a really nice place to stay - great food, friendly service and nice trails we walked to from the hotel and saw more waterfalls - Oregon is to waterfalls as New York City is to panhandlers.

There were big forest fires another 50 miles south, but the prevailing winds kept the smoke away from where we were. There were 18 small forest fires burning closer to the hotel, and Carole got to ogle dozens of manly smoke jumpers - I think the traffic on the roads in Oregon is 48% tourists, 48% forest fire fighters and 2% locals.