On the northern Oregon coast, a lovely spit about three miles long juts south along the Nehalem River. The south end of the spit is protected as Nehalem Bay State Park. Driftwood piles high at the mouth of the Nehalem River, next to the stone jetty. It is a really nice spot.
It is not a great ski year for the Pacific Northwest. Snowpack is seriously below seasonal averages. Skate skiing this season is mostly a bust in western Oregon. So I thought about past trips, including one I took to the Methow Valley in December 2010, and that turned out to be a great trip because I reconnected with someone who I had not seen in years who showed me the trails. This weekend, the Methow Valley is predicting warmish weather for their annual Tour of the Methow, a great race with many distances, including 80 km.! This is a lovely place, and I always tell my good friends who have not been there, try and go once during ski season.
It was a hot August day when I snapped this picture as the sun was setting on wheat country in Lincoln County, Washington. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful place indeed.
I cross over the Ross Island Bridge every day going to work. Here is an angle from below, taken from the Springwater Corridor. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
My explorations of the industrial lands in north Portland uncovered some haunting images as the mist lingered for hours. I could photograph rail yards and shipping facilities forever, and the Port of Portland had some tasty visual morsels. I love the forms, the functionality, and total commercial nature of these places. They have one purpose, and that is to ship goods from one place to another. They represent commerce in its least packaged and purest form. You can see other photos I have taken of industrial forms on my web site. I also have documented a number of industrial sites in Portland on my blog.
This particular image is of the port’s Rivergate Industrial Park. The port’s web site reports Portland is the largest wheat export gateway for the country. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
I paid a visit today to Portland’s Kelley Point Park, a great fishing spot at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers near the industrial warehouse district that covers the old floodplains of northeast Portland. Sturgeon fishermen were casting lines, and a few drinking brews (hey, this is fishing). Best catch I saw was less than a foot, and it was all catch and release.
Portland’s riverfront, north of the Fremont Bridge (that big one seen in these photos), is utterly about work. Trains. Factories. Shipping and receiving facilities. Grain depots. Cement kilns. Factories. Fuel depots. The best perch to soak all that up is from Overlook Park. I took the photos from here, and also from another spot a block away at Overlook House. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
I love watching sunsets here. They are pretty darn good as sunsets go. (Click on the photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
The Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge is about one-half mile from my house. At any given time one might see egrets and blue herons, ducks, geese, and maybe the urban coyotes who have found refuge here in between nocturnal prowls eating cats, rats, coons, trash, ducks, and other critters. Here are a couple of scenes from my walk last Sunday. Lovely place. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
This is the underside to one of the Interstate 5 off-ramps on the eastside of Portland. Many homeless residents stake out spaces here to escape the rain and camp, like you see in the distance here. Warehouse businesses are found here, along with produce distributors and other enterprises that need cheap land for rent. This is also known as the Central Eastside Industrial District. I have known this place for decades. Today many services for the homeless and mentally ill can be found just of Highway 99 and Martin Luther King Drive. There is now talk about how this section of town may be redeveloped. Change is inevitable, and Portland is seeing this all along its riverfront. (Click on the photo to see a larger photograph on a separate picture page.)
What Beautiful Light 