Recreation

OK, I admit it: I'm addicted to central Oregon's Metolius River basin. Can't get enough of this beautiful slice of Mother Earth. Have to share photos of my lovely every chance I can. Some headless horses in the "Johnson meadow" near the head of the Metolius.Looking upstream at Black Butte and toward the headwaters of the Metolius.Stump carved into a double-sided "chair" on the bank across from the Riverside campground. Laurel and Serena enjoying a quiet rest moment after going up and down a knoll near the Metolius. In late afternoon the sun filters through tall Ponderosas along the banks,…

It got up to 103 degrees here in rural south Salem today, so this is a good time to dig out some photos I took recently at what was a much cooler spot in Oregon -- the Metolius River.I'm still learning how to make my new Sony DSC-HX1 do its camera tricks. I hadn't played around much with the Sweep Panorama mode, so decided to give it more of a try. Here's a description:World's first digital camera with Sweep Panorama. Equipped with Sweep Panorama mode, the HX1 reaches beyond the limits of wide angle lenses and makes it easy to…

Is it possible to get in touch with life's meaning, or the lack thereof, while getting some riding instruction in an outdoor arena? Absolutely. I've been re-reading Albert Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus." Here's some existential pondering that applies to a couple of hours of horse riding lessons Laurel and I experienced a few days ago.I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living. It is not up to me to wonder if this is vulgar or revolting, elegant or deplorable. Once and for all, value judgments are discarded here in favor of factual…

[Update: I've gotten a quick, and much appreciated, email response from the President/CEO of Black Butte Ranch, Scott Huntsman. Great name for a guy who runs an outdoorsy outfit, by the way. I shared Scott's vegetarian-friendly message in the comments to the post. It's great to hear about plans to put some veggie options on the dinner menu. It'll be even greater to eat them.]Long-time vegetarian that I am (forty of my sixty years), I clearly recognize the danger signs of ordering in a upper-scale restaurant that, for some inexplicable reason, has precisely zero dinner entrées that haven't walked or…

Here's some photos that I took during a recent visit to our cabin on the beautiful Metolius River in Camp Sherman (central Oregon). I usually use an Olympus Stylus, which can do all kinds of stuff: zoom, adjust for different photographic conditions, and whatnot. All of these shots were taken with my iPhone's camera, which can do exactly one thing: take a photo. When I first got my iPhone, I was frustrated with the lack of photo options. Now, I'm appreciating the Zen'ish simplicity of pulling it out, choosing the camera icon, pressing the "take photo" button, and seeing what…

Sure, we've been on Maui for ten days, enjoying the great mid- 80's weather on Napili Bay while Portland, Oregon is 54 degrees and rainy today -- according to the Honolulu paper. We check the mainland weather report daily, because our friends always lie about how nice it was back home while we were gone. "Oh, you missed some great weather. Sunny every day, didn't rain a bit." Yeah, right, I think to myself, not wanting to let them know that I'm on to their Hawaii vacation envy.But things are definitely not totally paradisaical here. We've accumulated some pretty serious…

I can't believe that I called a post from three years ago, "Meaningless Maui musings." I'm rectifying this error now with a change from "less" to "ful" in the title.Because sitting on Napili Beach -- the lovely crescent in the middle of the photo -- for several hours each day offers plenty of time for deeply important ponderings about life.Some of which, I'm pleased to see, are the same as my 2006 musings. I say "pleased" because doing the same things is a big part of what I love about returning to Napili Bay almost every year.I call this an…

My wife and I enjoyed an October walk around central Oregon's Suttle Lake, reveling in the red-yellow vine maples, which, marvelously, had nothing to say about the financial meltdown that's been front page news. Our dog, however, didn't look pleased when I asked her opinion about the "Dog Free Zone" sign prominently displayed at the Suttle Lake Resort. You can see it for yourself in the You Tube video below, which I took with my new Flip Video Mino – a replacement for my Flip Video Ultra (trying to keep the economy moving). Snap review: the Mino's stop/start record button…

Only in Oregon … Aunt Mary's is a terrific vegan/vegetarian restaurant where you can also shop for porn and browse a vibrator museum. We hadn't been to the coast for quite a while, so when some healthy-eating Indiana relatives came to visit last week I fired up Google. It didn't take long for me to realize that there was only one place we should eat in Lincoln City. Some Happy Cow reviews sealed the deal. Such as: This place is best described as eclectic with no boundaries. Kind of a cross between Grandma's house, and the creepy guy next door.…

If you've never hiked along the Metolius River in central Oregon, you've missed out on a marvelous scenic experience. My six minute You Tube'd movie of the walk we took upstream from the Wizard Falls fish hatchery will give you a feel for what this 2.5 mile section of the Metolius is like. In short, beautiful. (This description of the hike starts from the campground, not the hatchery, but covers the same stretch of the river.) I mangle the name of the hatchery at the start of the video. For some reason I kept throwing in "creek." After that, my…

Here's photographic proof – why the Metolius River dazzles the eye (and soul) in what passes for spring in central Oregon. Namely, the middling part of June. Just before Lake Creek the family dog explored a grassy island. Away from the river, on top of a butte, old tree and new tree showed off against (almost) clear sky. A bit farther along, some yin and yang: bright flowers and gray rocks. Moving back to the Metolius, natural flower arrangements dot the river. It's constant spring-fed flow encourages growth that wouldn't be possible on up and down rivers. [Appreciate these shots:…

This is our sort of hiking adventure: one that begins and ends at a charming country store that serves expresso. Namely, the Camp Sherman store in central Oregon's beautiful Metolius River recreation area. We've hiked most of the easily accessible stretches of the Metolius many times. They're all marvelous. The two mile path downstream of the store (west side of the river) is enjoyable because it's level, passes by interesting cabins on forest service land, and is on a particularly attractive section of the Metolius (not that there's an unattractive section). Plus, there's the latte thing. And public restrooms at…

Proving that a man on a Maui vacation armed with a Flip Video and a You Tube account is an formidable cinemagraphic force, here are the final four videos in my 2008 Hawaiian Island oeuvre. These follow my preceding works of tourist art: "Maui beach people: beautiful or not?", "Video tour of Kapalua zipline course" and "Having a whale of a good time on a Maui cruise." Serious students of Flip Videography (assuming there are any) may notice an evolution in my style during our ten days on Maui. Myself, I can't. But often an artist can't recognize his own…

What is it about whales? And screaming people. I had plenty of time to ponder this question on the sunset dinner cruise that left yesterday from Maui's Lahaina harbor. As memorialized in my You Tube video, you can hear our fellow passengers (and me) getting super-excited when some whales appeared close to the Pacific Whale Foundation boat. Elvis and the Beatles probably didn't get more "oohs" and "ahs" when they came on stage. Yes, there's something about whales. My philosophical self likes this notion: whales are like God. Mysterious, powerful, unseen. Usually hidden beneath the surface, once in a while…

Any mildly-extreme sport that starts and ends at an expresso bar is right up our alley. That's one reason we enjoyed yesterday's outing at the Kapalua Resort's zipline adventure on Maui so much. But naturally zipping was the main attraction. We'd never zipped before. If you don't know what it is, my four minute video will show you. It's a kick. You hang on harnesses attached to what we were assured is a super-strong cable. Then you let yourself go from a platform and zip – the longest of the four courses being over 2000 feet. In the video I…

Ah, the World Wide Web is wonderful. It lets me communicate, potentially at least, with some people on Maui that I have messages for. --To the couple in the room next door: It was so nice to get to know you early this morning – through the loud cell phone conversations on your deck. I hope your mother is able to join you on Maui. Paying for her lodging if she springs for the airline ticket sounds fair. And good luck with finding a babysitter through the nanny hotline. Hopefully she'll keep your child quieter than you've been able to.…

Wanting to make our Maui vacation intellectually productive (to a minimal degree), this morning I dedicated myself to a study of people passing by us on Napili Beach. I say at the beginning that I'm going to film ten consecutive beach walkers, but my study was so interesting, I kept on going. Hypothesis: Maui beachgoers are beautiful people. Reality: watch my You Tube video (embedded below). Now, I hasten to add a politically correct statement: We are all beautiful people in our own way. That said, some are more beautiful than others. A careful viewer of the video will note…

Rock climbers, in my opinion, are certifiably crazy. Which is why I admire them so much. And a big part of what made today's hike around a 4-mile loop in central Oregon's Smith Rock State Park so enjoyable. Here's three climbers on the aptly named Monkey Face formation, which looks most monkeyish from this perspective on the Mesa Verde Trail. One climber (with red pants) is standing in the mouth. To get there we hiked a couple of mostly flat miles on the River Trail. A short ways from the parking lot you already feel like you're on a Western…

First bit of Oregon hiking advice: buy the 2007 edition of William Sullivan's "100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades." We had the first edition. The $16.95 I forked over last Sunday for the third edition at the Paulina Springs Book Company was money well spent. Because it has a dozen new hikes and other fresh features. Which gets me to my second bit of advice: turn to page 82 and follow the directions to the start of the Alder Springs trail. If you don't yet have the book, here's Sullivan's instructions. To find the trailhead from downtown Sisters, take…

After the B and B Complex fire ravaged the area, we avoided central Oregon's Canyon Creek Meadows trail. We figured it'd be too depressing to walk through burnt trees. Today we were proven wrong, Even back in 2005, just two years after the summer of 2003 fire, William (Bill) Sullivan and other lovers of this area said that that it still had "corners of wonder." Well, I'm about to show you that this is an understatement in 2007. There are whole boulevards of wonder – including the burned areas. Directions to the trail head are online and in various hiking…