A slice of paradise: Central Oregon

Deschutes River

A few weeks ago, we visited Central Oregon for the first time in about a decade when we stayed with some friends in Bend. I wrote then about the mind-bending transformation of what used to be a mill town into a nearly unrecognizable community of upscale shops, trendy restaurants, brand-new townhouses and luxury homes. ("Central Oregon rewind")

This past weekend, we returned to the area as tourists for 48 hours, spending two nights at Eagle Crest Resort, a sprawling getaway with a hotel, year-round residences, three golf courses, three swimming pools, a couple of restaurants and all the amenities you'd ever imagine.

The place is just off Highway 126, between Redmond and Sisters, and it was our first time staying there. We were able to break away from work on Friday afternoon, so having two nights there instead of one made it feel like a mini-vacation. Most other guests who planned to attend our friends' wedding the next day also were staying there.

A burst of color

We drove in to Bend for dinner and drinks Friday night. Slept in Saturday, took a two-hour hike along the Deschutes River, and went for a quick dip in an outdoor pool before heading to Melanie and Bret's wedding in Sisters. Slept in again Sunday morning, went for a solo run along the Deschutes, had a tasty breakfast at a delightful cafe in Redmond and hit the road by 11 a.m.

The weekend critter count: 1 doe, 1 crawfish, 1 lizard, 1 jackrabbit, 2 mockingbirds (or it might have been same one, actually), and too many robins, sparrows, starlings and blackbirds to count. We also spotted three varieties of butterflies and some vibrant flowers on our hike, with our dog Otto in tow.

Walking along the Deschutes was great. The dirt trail looped around the perimeter of one of the golf courses and brought you back to a subdivision of single-family homes (a combination of timeshare rentals and year-round residences behind an electronic gate) featuring grassy lawns, two- and three-car garages and smooth streets that looked like they'd been paved just yesterday.

Feast for the senses

The Deschutes is one of Oregon's great treasures, with clear, cool water that eventually empties into the Columbia River. Where we stayed it cuts through rugged red rimrock canyons and supports miles upon miles of greenery. Just hearing it splash over the rocks made for a soothing soundtrack as we walked along its banks.

On Sunday, we drove back over the Santiam Pass, with majestic views of Mt. Washington, Three-Fingered Jack and Mt. Jefferson, plus Suttle Lake, Detroit Reservoir and the north fork of the Santiam River. All of it was gorgeous scenery fit for a set of postcards. Hope to return again to the area soon.

Taking my own advice

Three days ago I posted "Slow Dance," a poetic admonition to slow down and appreciate life's little blessings.

Today I did just that.

At mid-morning on my day off, I drove out West Burnside to where the Wildwood Trail takes you uphill and into the maze of trails that criss-cross Hoyt Arboretum. I hadn't been up there for weeks and at first I dreaded my choice because I could see a big knot of schoolkids and their chaperones scattered along the trail and on a footbridge.

I weaved my way through them with little problem, however, and quickly found myself alone on the trail. As I approached the crest of the hill, I noticed a little brown field mouse scurrying from left to right across my path.

I got to the top, stopped running, turned off my iPod and ventured onto a side trail, appreciating the quiet and the fact it wasn't raining for a change. I leaned in to see the tree identification markers as I passed by the jack pine and lodgepole pine, appreciating the staff's thoughtfulness. A few yards down the path, I paused to see if a bird I had noticed would alight on a branch. It was a hummingbird -- and it did. Normally a beautiful sight as it hovers like a mini-helicopter, this one took a moment to rest and laid its wings flat against its body, letting me come within six feet before taking off.

Another few yards down the path, I heard a rustling on the ground. I peered to my right into the undergrowth and, after a moment of concentration, spotted a brown furball -- a young rabbit.

Wow. In less than 10 minutes of leaving the city behind for the forest, I'd spotted three critters.

I turned around, headed back to the main trail and ran for another 20 minutes before coming to the Oregon Vietnam Veterans Living Memorial (above). I stopped for a few minutes to pay my respects and walk silently around the curving granite wall. As I was about to exit, I came upon a panel of names I'd never noticed before: a list of servicemen believed to be Missing in Action. A few asterisks had been added to those whose remains were subsequently found. Pretty sobering.

All of this -- the encounters with wild creatures, the thoughts that come from witnessing a list of Oregon service members who've made the ultimate sacrifice, the pleasure of running on a soft surface while dodging the puddles -- wouldn't have happened if I'd run my regular route with the usual mindset. I think I would do well to remember to "Slow Dance" more often.

Photograph: Sam Grover

A weekend in Southern Oregon

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It's been years since we spent any time south of Eugene. So it was a treat to drive Jordan down to visit his girlfriend Jamie and her parents, Linda and Jeff Taylor. A nicer couple, you could not find.

We reserved a hotel room in Medford, but we barely saw it because we met the Taylors for dinner Friday night in Shady Cove and then returned the next day for an afternoon of hiking and sightseeing, and came back yet again the following morning for a fabulous breakfast, featuring blueberry-huckleberry pancakes and fresh deer meat that Linda had shot and killed just days earlier.

The Taylors live on Butte Falls Road, about 25 miles northeast of Medford, just off Oregon Highway 62. (If you follow Hwy. 62, it takes you to Crater Lake, which is truly one of the seven wonders of the world.)

For us city folk, it was a treat to experience a taste of what Jamie and her two sisters have grown up with. Imagine a vast and unspoiled sky of pure blue with wispy clouds drifting over 102 acres of rugged, rocky soil, with lots of trees and several outbuildings, including a century-old barn, to house various animals and vehicles.

As best as I can recall, the Taylors have three dogs, nine cats, three goats, six horses, five chickens and a rabbit. Jeff and Linda are both multi-talented -- for starters, they are both licensed electricians. They hunt, they grow their own produce, and can various veggies and berries. Jeff is a licensed pilot and is building his own small plane. He hopes to also restore two 1952 Chevy pickups but admittedly doesn't see that happening anytime soon.

Just a short distance from the main house, they've got a shed that also has a second-floor bedroom and bathroom; it's where Jordan stays when he visits. In addition, they're building a huge two-story home with lots of windows, the better to gaze upon different pieces of the property.

Oh, and did I mention the two all-terrain vehicles? Following approximately 30 seconds of instruction from Linda, Lori hopped on behind me and we followed Jamie and Jordan up the hillside to where their property comes to an end, adjacent to U.S. Bureau of Land Management acreage. From there, we had a spectacular view of horse ranches, grazing animals and green hillsides. We could only imagine the storybook quality it must have with a winter blanket of snow.

It was a revelation to see Jamie in her element -- kick-starting one of the ATVs, standing up as she backed it out onto the gravel driveway and then roaring across the property, blonde hair flying out from beneath her cowboy hat. Of their three girls, the Taylors told us, only Jamie totally embraced the lifestyle, feeding and caring for the animals as she grew up and, later, becoming a licensed veterinary technician specializing in the care of horses. It's easy now to imagine her riding her horse six miles each way to school.

On Saturday afternoon, after Jeff returned from a job, we all piled into their six-seater pickup and headed north to the Rogue-Umpqua Divide Wilderness for what we thought was going to be a two-hour roundtrip hike, but which took twice as long. Linda had forgotten she was on horseback last time she did the trail, so she was apologetic for making us walk twice as long.

The hike up the south slope of Anderson Mountain, along Sandstone Trail #1436, was totally worth it. We saw bear tracks, took in amazing vistas of endless Douglas fir and hemlock trees and, lastly, came upon a subalpine meadow that rolled out like carpet toward the distant horizon as the mountain air cooled and the wind made its presence known. Jordan and Jamie went ahead to a second, larger meadow but the four of us turned back lest we get too chilled.

We scarfed down sandwiches and chips and sucked down Pepsis and water to get our strength back, then promptly headed for a can't miss tourist spot -- the Rogue River Gorge. Even at night, it was spectacular, seeing the frothing, frigid white water pound the rocks with unimaginable force.

We tumbled into bed and slept soundly, then hit the road to visit them once more for a delicious country breakfast, complemented by farm-fresh eggs, coffee and bacon.

I know this isn't the most introspective of posts, but, hey, it was just a lot of fun. I have enormous respect for Jeff and Linda and how they are absolutely living their values. They are self-sufficient, generous, unpretentious and humble. They are respectful caretakers of the land and animal lovers of the first rank.

They made us feel completely at home and left us wanting to return soon. Maybe we'll get that chance before the end of the year.

Quick Takes

So...I've been at this now for six months. Yesterday's post was No. 150. And, as has become my custom, it's time to start or finish a month with some random tidbits lumped under the umbrella of Quick Takes. Before I begin, thanks to everyone for reading this blog, even if sporadically, and especially so to anyone who's taken time to post a comment.

-- A shout-out for National Geographic. Some people may make fun of N.G. as boring and old school. Not me. Every month that it arrives, it offers spectacular photography and superb writing, which together illuminate issues and cultures around the world and transport me to unfamilar, unreachable places.

In this month's issue alone, for instance, there's a great feature about king penguins on Possession Island, north of Antarctica ("Every Bird a King"), and a gripping a story about the failed state of Somalia ("Shattered Somalia"). See if these excerpts pull you in:

First comes the Noise, the turbulent din of king penguins calling, fighting, courting, like the ultimate schoolyard uproar. Then the smell hits, a choking reek of fish and ammonia from the birds' guano. But the assault on ear and nose is only a teaser for what awaits the eye. When photographer Stefano Unterthiner climbed a volcanic ridge on Possession Island—a wet, wind-blasted speck in the Crozet archipelago some 1,400 miles north of Antarctica—he found himself staring into a valley filled wall-to-wall with king penguins, tens of thousands of them, all standing as if gathered for a mass rally. The occasion was summer in the Southern Hemisphere—egg-laying season, the time when penguins, so agile and quick in the water, clumsily come ashore to molt, find a partner, and with luck produce a new crop of chicks.

And this...

This land is bred for trouble. Its nearly 250,000 square miles are, for the most part, deadly dry. Somalia's inhabitants have engaged in a constant competition for its scarce resources—water and pasturage—since antiquity. According to the great Somali ethnographer, I. M. Lewis, Somalia's occupants "form one of the largest single ethnic blocks in Africa." By tradition they are herders of goats and camels and cattle who share the same Islamic faith and the Somali language, and until the colonial era in the late 19th century they continuously occupied much of the Horn of Africa—including what is today Djibouti, northeastern Kenya, and the eastern portion of Ethiopia. In the Somali psyche, fierce nationalism coexists with equally fierce pastoral individualism. It is not their way to look to government for solutions. What held Somalia together—and sometimes drove it apart—was its elaborate clan system.

-- Putting a face on the president's critics. A thoughtful piece in the Aug. 30 New York Times Magazine by Matt Bai ("The New Old Guard") reminds us of the difficulty Barack Obama had connecting with older voters in last year's Democratic primaries and suggests what lies behind the "generational unrest.

For all the shouting that has dominated these town hall meetings on health care lately, they have yielded a few important insights. The first is that the town hall itself has probably reached the end of its usefulness in the Internet age; if you’re looking for thoughtful dialogue, you might as well hold your next meeting on the stern of a Somali pirate ship. The second is that we now have a visual sense of the kind of voter who is militantly opposed to Obama’s health care agenda and, more broadly, to the president himself.

The typical anti-Obama activist tends to be white, male and — perhaps most significant — advanced in age. A poll conducted earlier this month by CNN and Opinion Research showed a rather stark age divide when it came to health care: 57 percent of voters under 50 said they favored the outlines of a Democratic plan, but that number was a full 20 points lower among voters over 65. In three Pew Research Center polls going back to April, senior citizens consistently gave Obama’s job performance lower approval ratings than did than any other age group.

Photograph of Mogadishu, Somalia by Pascal Maitre

The secrets of Sand Lake

Little over a month ago, my wife and I spent Valentine's Day weekend at the coast with our dear friends from college.

On Sunday morning they suggested a short hike at Whalen Island, near Pacific City. Within the hour, there we were, walking peacefully on a trail framed by Sitka spruce, Douglas fir and which led to a pristine estuary populated by no one by the four of us and a few shorebirds. As I took in the view -- imagine a flat expanse of sand remembling salt flats -- I could hardly believe that I was soaking up the sun in a T-shirt and shorts on the Oregon Coast in the middle of February, a place and time when you'd normally be pelted by windblown rain.

It was magical.

So imagine my surprise and pleasure when I saw that very same place splashed across the front page of this morning's newspaper. Reporter Abby Haight and photographer Torsten Kjellstrand did justice to the place, as you can tell from this excerpt, the photo above and a video you can see at www.oregonlive.com/environment.

SAND LAKE -- Sleet pelts the mud flats at Whalen Island as dawn gives way to gray morning.

A great egret, shimmering white, hunts the tidal channel at low tide. Goldeneyes in striking black and white paddle nearby. A belted kingfisher scouts for breakfast from a spruce branch.

Wild things rule Whalen Island in winter. But the small hump of sand south of Tillamook is an emblem to human intervention and governmental cooperation. It remains one of the most pristine tidelands in Oregon -- thanks to the human conviction that luck will pay out.

Thirty years of living in Oregon and I'd never even heard of Whalen Island and the Clay Myers State Natural Area (although, as a reporter, I did know Clay Myers as the state treasurer). Thanks to a voter-approved referendum 10 years ago, the state now uses lottery money for purchase and preserve parks.

Along with legalizing medical marijuana and physician-assisted suicide, I'd say this is one of the smarter things Oregonians have done with their votes in the past decade. Go visit. You'll love it.

Majesty: Our national parks

America's best known and probably most accomplished maker of documentary films -- Ken Burns -- popped in to The Oregonian yesterday for a short visit that made me realize how long it's been since I camped or even hiked in a national park or forest.

Sure, I do some long weekend runs in a local state or city park. But running on a heavily used trail is far different than the totality of experience in a grander, larger setting -- the sweet smell of trees, the panorama of a meadow, the chirping of invisible songbirds, the utter silence and black darkness of a night sleeping beneath the stars.

Even speaking off the cuff, Burns displayed an intriguing mix of intelligence, eloquence and wit during his half-hour chat. Accompanied by his longtime colleague, Dayton Duncan, he spoke with great affection about the history of our country's 58 parks and "the emotional archaeology" they unearthed in making their film, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea." The six-part series will air this fall on PBS.

"Nearly everyone in our film, including historians explaining this stuff, had connections with a park that woke them up, that set them on the path where they're going," Burns said. For him, it was recalling the memory of being a first-grader when his dad woke him up at 4 a.m. -- the first time he'd ever awoken in the middle of the night -- to take him camping at Shenandoah National Park outside Baltimore. Filming at California's Yosemite National Park reminded him "I'd had this treasure, focused on being with my dad."

Duncan said the appeal of the national parks is that "they belong to everyone and that they are a legacy that gets built up over time to get passed down, to be used and enjoyed now but also preserved, unimpaired, for people who aren't yet here."

It's inspiring to realize there was no top-down master plan in Washington, D.C., that led to creation of the national park system. Instead, it was bottom-up; the parks came into being one by one, as locals became passionate about saving the places they loved so much so others could love them too.

"That's a repetitive theme (in the film)," Duncan said, "but with different characters."

The film begins in 1851, but the first national park -- Yellowstone -- wasn't created until 1872. The Grand Canyon would have become the second in 1882 but, amazingly, strong local resistance squelched that effort (and again in 1886 and 1887) on grounds that grazing, mining and logging activities should be maintained. Not even President Theodore Roosevelt -- our best-known environmental president -- could make it happen. It wasn't until 1919 that the Grand Canyon finally became a national park. The irony? Arizona now calls itself the Grand Canyon State.

Tensions remain today over conflicting uses, ranging from wilderness to snowmobiling, something that Burns traces to "those American impulses that are extractive and acquisitive."

For all the majestic scenery that the parks conjure up today, you wouldn't think they have played an important role in our economy. Yet, in the midst of our contemporary economic crisis, Burns reminded us that one of first successes of FDR'S New Deal was in the national parks with the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

"Within three months, a thousand camps were up and running and young men were sending money to their families," Burns said. "They were making $30 a month and sending $25 to their families." The dignity on the faces of these workers was palpable, he said, and a reminder that these men, while building all sorts of projects in our parks, were also building human happiness.

As a creature of the city who spends way too little time communing with nature, I can't wait to see the documentary.

Check out The Oregonian's Q&A with Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan here.