Au Revoir, Oregon! See you soon, Sis! A hui hou, Hoh!

Aloha all,

the mystical Hoh Rain Forest, meeting our hanai sister at Lake Quinault, the colors of fall in Oregon, spending more time with our Maui friends in their new Oregon home…we enjoyed our time in the Pacific Northwest so much that we already know we want to come back here next year. So we say ‘Au Revoir, Oregon! See you soon, Sis! A hui hou, Hoh!'. Until next year when it’s time again to say 'Ahoy, Joy!’

Another road trip in the books,
but there is still so much left to discover...

When we woke up in Oregon this morning, it was 24 degrees Fahrenheit. As much as we enjoyed ourselves here, we are ready to trade that for 24 degrees Celsius, which is the current low of the day on Maui. It’s always bitter-sweet to leave Joy behind, but we found a nice winter home for her and we are looking forward to our own warm winter home on Maui. But first, here is the last blog post for this year:

This is a board of a wood fence,
you can imagine how pretty the actual rain forest is.

We visited three of the four temperate rain forests on the Olympic Peninsula. They were three very different experiences for us: First, we went to the Bogachiel Rain Forest. It’s pretty remote and the road was a bit of an adventure for Joy. We actually parked a mile before the trailhead to spare Joy the last bumpy incline. We went on a hike and had all the trees, all the moss and all the mushrooms pretty much to ourselves; we only met two other humans on the whole trail. 

The Hoh Rain Forest is so pretty,
Sandra and I could not shut up
about how speechless we are.

The next day we went to the Hoh Rain Forest. The trees are even more terrific and the moss is even more mystical, especially on the popular “Hall of Mosses” trail. We had been there 15 years ago and loved it then, but this time it was a little later in the season and in addition to the trees, mosses and mushrooms, it also boasted some beautiful fall colors. But it’s no secret how beautiful the Hoh Rain Forest is, so this time we shared the trail with lots of other humans, most of them equally in awe.

Just 5 of my 500 mushroom pictures

The third day rain forest experience was around Lake Quinault. More towering trees, more magnificent moss and more marvelous mushrooms…and most of all: More Kelly & Paul! They were there for a wedding and we timed our trip to spend a couple of days with them. This time we went on a guided rain forest tour with an excellent tour guide. He told us everything about what we had seen the past few days. I am afraid we already forgot most of it, but I hope we will never forget how pretty the rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula is…and that’s the most important part!

With Kelly & Paul at Lake Quinault, 
the Rest comes Easy.

I can hear some people saying: “Oh, Chris, you like everything!”, but that’s not true: I very much dislike some of the ugly stuff that is currently happening. And over 7 million people seem to agree with me. Ocean Shores was the closest “No Kings” protest for us to join. For a small town, they had a really good turnout and it was very peaceful and respectful, with lots of American flags. Nothing un-American about it in my view. I have no illusions that our attendance makes a big difference. But I am pretty sure a lot of people of our grandparents generation would have been proud if they had a picture of themselves at a “No Führer” rally. Judging by the infantile reaction from you-know-who, not just democracy, but also just regular human decency is under attack. 

No Kings protest in Ocean Shores, WA

We made it to the Mount Saint Helens visitor center, but no further. One of the roads is closed due to a landslide, an observatory is closed due to the government shutdown and the view was closed due to low clouds…three good reasons to go to Mount Saint Helens…next year.

We almost went to Boston. But the two guys who founded that city at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers flipped a coin in 1845; the guy from Boston, Massachusetts lost and the guy from Portland, Maine won and therefore got to name what was to become the biggest city in Oregon. And that’s why we went to Portland instead of Boston.  

Portland,
aka 'Almost Boston, OR'

We almost stayed away from Portland, because not just in the news, but even some reasonable sounding people said, how terrible that city has become. But there was an old house we wanted to see and a Japanese Garden we wanted to visit again, so we went to Portland after all and learned one more time that you just can’t believe all the doom and gloom.

Our impression of war ravaged Portland

Portland is most definitely not “war ravaged”, it is not “burning down” , neither is it in a state of “anarchy”, like some orange guy claims. Apparently, there was a time after the pandemic when Portland had some serious issues, even the locals we talked to agreed. But now, they are just shaking their heads at how their city is portrayed. From what we saw in two days in Portland, it’s a very nice city with less homeless people on the streets than many other cities that size. It felt perfectly safe and offers so many beautiful things: There is lots of public art in downtown, the Portland Japanese Garden is called the most renown and most authentic Japanese garden outside of Japan and their history museum was delightful. And offered way more than just the coin that kept us from going to Boston.

Immigrants must have eaten all the cats & dogs,
locals resort to using donkeys as pets in Portland

Looking through the calendar of events in the city, we saw that “Lorde” was playing at the Moda Center. I have to admit that I barely knew who she was, but the first song that popped up on YouTube was “Royals” and that was enough to convince us to go. Lately, we have seen so many bands from the 80’s and even before, it was nice to see a more current artist. Of course that meant that we were amongst the oldest people in a crowd of 20,000 young people and the ones with the least knowledge of any of the lyrics to sing along…but we loved it. Even in a big arena, it felt very intimate and Lorde comes across as a very down to earth human being, just with an above average musical talent. 

Lorde concert in Portland

The “Gorden House” is the only Frank Lloyd Wright building in all of Oregon. It is one of his more modest “Usonian Homes”, meant to usher in a new style of building beautiful homes for the middle class. We love Frank Lloyd Wright’s timeless and unique architectural style. And apparently, we are not the only ones, there were other “pilgrims” on the tour who try to see as many of his buildings as possible (…or at least find one that never leaked: We have seen over a dozen of them now and they all did!). But not everybody loves Frank Lloyd Wright: The Gorden House had to be ‘rescued’ and moved because the people who bought it wanted to tear it down to build a MacMansion. What’s wrong with people? Why not just fix the roof and have the first non-leaking Frank Lloyd Wright house?

Frank Lloyd Wright's Gorden House

I want a bookshelf like that!

Do you like waterfalls? Not in your house, but in nature. If so, do you like walking behind waterfalls? Of course you do, who doesn’t? So if you have not been to Silver Falls State Park in Oregon, we highly recommend going there, they have some of the most spectacular waterfalls that you can marvel at from above, below and behind. Even if you have been there, but not during the fall, we recommend going there again. The water falls might seem silver anytime, but it looks even better with the golden yellow of the Bigleaf Maple trees. We only had time to do the “Loop of Ten Falls”, but it was truly spectacular.

Golden colors at Silver Falls State Park

Most waterfalls are even prettier from behind

Then it was time to get Joy ready for her winter hibernation. We did that in the cute town of ‘Sisters’, which has a very nice campground, great restaurants and a very convenient laundromat. The last three nights we stayed with Mindy in Redmond. Such a nice family, we were glad to spend a little more time with them, get one of the grandkids hooked on one of our games, go bowling together, get to know Mindy’s dog and reminiscent about the good old days on Maui. And by storing Joy close to Mindy in Oregon, we guarantee that we see that beautiful state and that beautiful family again next year.

Oregon is getting cold,
that's why we are leaving.
Oregon is pretty,
that's why we will come back.

For the past five months, we never spent more than a few nights in the same place. So we are excited to be back home; very excited to see our Maui friends again and also excited to do it all over again next year.

And that’s the news from ‘Lake End of the Road’, where all our memories are strong, all the photos are good looking and this, like any road trip, was well above average.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra