Roadtrip to the Land of Giants

June 10, 2024 by Nicole Harrison in United States

In the first half of 2024, we took a break from international travel and took a road trip closer to home. I had been wanting to drive down to the southern Oregon coast and visit the California redwoods. The trip ended up being about 1400 miles over seven days, and we stopped at eight state parks, two national parks, a national monument, and a state scenic area.

Our first stop was a campsite in Sunset Bay State Park, where we set up camp and then spent some time hiking along the beach.

Sunset Bay beach at low tide (photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole standing in front of a culvert to walk under a road. — A giant culvert to the beach (photo/Jason Rafal)

A wooden sign with an image of a route over the northern United States and a hot air balloon that says "From this point on October 4, 1973 Malcom Forbes of New York began the first transcontinental crossing of the United States in a hot air balloon." — There are a lot of interesting transcontinental journeys that began or ended in Oregon (photo/Jason Rafal)

A large, green, shiny leaf. — Giant leaves on the edge of the forest (photo/Jason Rafal)

Action shot of Nicole jumping over part of a muddle trail. — Mud obstacle course (photo/Jason Rafal)

A lighthouse perched on a rocky stretch of land, with ocean and rocks in the foreground. — Cape Arago Lighthouse (photo/Jason Rafal)

In the morning, we hiked down toward Cape Arago, where I had heard we could find some sea lions. The hike started with plants, birds, and a surprise deer on the beach.

An orange flower. — A pretty coastal flower (photo/Jason Rafal)

A deer trotting over a beach. — A deer ran across the beach on our morning hike (photo/Jason Rafal)

A small bird perched on a branch. — A cute Swainson’s Thrush (photo/Jason Rafal)

We heard them before we saw them, and once we got to the Simpson Reef lookout, we could see dozens of sea lions lounging on the beach. We could also see a lot of them swimming around the area.

Dozens of sea lions laying on a beach, surrounded by rocks. — Sea lions lounging on the beach at Simpson Reef (photo/Jason Rafal)

A rocky outcropping in the ocean, with some sea lions on the rocks and some swimming. — Lots of sea lions playing and lounging (photo/Jason Rafal)

We were looking for sea lions, but we also had a great view of lots of birds (we saw a crazy number of bald eagles during this trip) and some very sleepy harbor seals.

A bald eagle flying over the ocean and rocks, with seals asleep below it. — A bald eagle flies over sleeping harbor seals (photo/Jason Rafal)

After our morning hike, we packed up and headed down the coast to a room we rented for the night in Brookings, Oregon. On the way, we made a few stops for short hikes and pretty coastal views.

Looking down at two arches under the cliffs on the coastline. — Afternoon sun at Natural Bridges - you can see a person on top of the left one if you squint (photo/Jason Rafal)

Our VRBO was very close to Harris Beach State Park, which has a beautiful rocky beach.

Nicole on the beach, with a sunstar behind her. — On Harris Beach (photo/Jason Rafal)

The house we were staying at had amazing views of the ocean, and we spent a lot of time that evening watching the orange sunset over the rocks and water.

Jason and Nicole in front of a rocky beach. — Sunset views at our place (photo/Jason Rafal)

The sun setting beyond the ocean, with large rocks in the water in the foreground. — Sunset from our VRBO (photo/Jason Rafal)

Eight pelicans flying over the water. — Watching pelicans from our deck (photo/Jason Rafal)

We spent a beautiful morning at the beach before driving to California. The plants and animals that live among the rocks are so fun to watch.

The lovely Secret Beach (photo/Jason Rafal)

Small plants growing on top of a coastal rock, lit up by the morning sun. — Morning light on a very vegetation-covered rock (photo/Jason Rafal)

A dark rock face with black and white birds nesting. — Pigeon guillemots perched on a rock face (photo/Jason Rafal)

By the afternoon, we were hiking among giants in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. I love hanging out with these trees; their sheer size and the amount that has happened during their lifetimes is both amazing and comforting to me. They’re very difficult to photograph, but looking up is a good way to convey the feeling of being so very small.

Looking up at the top of a grove of redwood trees. — Looking up at the giant redwoods (photo/Jason Rafal)

A sunstar shining through the leaves of a giant tree. — A very large tree (photo/Jason Rafal)

The view through the tunnel created next to a redwood that fell over. — A very cool plant tunnel next to a fallen redwood (photo/Jason Rafal)

We spent the next couple of nights camping in Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, with very little service and lots of big trees.

Nicole standing between two large redwood trees. — Very large trees (photo/Jason Rafal)

A small, white, striped flower amidst leaves and a cobweb. — A delicate flower in the forest (photo/Jason Rafal)

A squirrel on a fallen tree. — A cute little squirrel (photo/Jason Rafal)

Ferns and other plants growing out of a fallen redwood tree stump. — I love how many plants a fallen tree in the forest can support (photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole hugging a huge redwood tree. — In my happy place (photo/Jason Rafal)

A bright yellow slug. — A banana slug with a leaf hat (photo/Jason Rafal)

When we were driving to the beach to have lunch on the second day, we saw a sign for a skunk cabbage trail. I love skunk cabbage; there’s a ton of it where I grew up in Crested Butte during the summer, and I’ve never seen a large quantity outside of that. We didn’t see as much as we’d hoped for, but it was still a beautiful trail covered with ferns.

Nicole smiling at ferns and skunk cabbage. — Looking at the ferns and skunk cabbage (photo/Jason Rafal)

Plant stalks growing through the leaves of another plant. — A plant growing through the leaves of another plant (photo/Jason Rafal)

The next day, we drove to central Oregon, stopping at Crater Lake on the way. There was still quite a bit of snow, and the Rim Road isn’t open until July, but we drove to Discovery Point and walked around a bit to take some pictures. I didn’t have a lot of expectations, but the lake was really cool, with its absurdly deep blue water and snowy ridges on all sides.

Crater Lake, with snow in the foreground. — A sunny day at a snowy Crater Lake (photo/Jason Rafal)

We kept an eye out for the Clark’s Nutcracker, which lives at Crater Lake, and we saw them pretty quickly. They’re very loud, fluffy birds with big black beaks.

A gray and black bird perched on the edge of a dead branch. — A Clark's nutcracker perched on a dead tree (photo/Jason Rafal)

A gray bird with a large beak perched on an evergreen branch. — The nutcrackers, while larger than I expected, were adorable and fluffy (photo/Jason Rafal)

Our next couple of days were spent in Bend, where Jason worked some and we did some small afternoon hikes at Smith Rock and Newberry National Volcanic Monument.

Looking down at the Crooked River winding through large rock faces. — Dramatic views at Smith Rock State Park (photo/Jason Rafal)

A river and green plants running between tall rock towers. — More beautiful views (photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking up at a steep rock face, with lots of chalk spots from climbers on the rock. — We liked seeing the chalk from climbers on the sides of the rock face (photo/Jason Rafal)

Our last day in central Oregon was also very clear, and we had great views of the snow-capped peaks of the Sisters, Broken Top, and Bachelor. We went out to the Lava Butte lookout, where we hiked around the very apocalyptic-looking lava flow area.

A firetower on the edge of a caldera, with snow-capped mountain peaks in the background. — The view from the trail at the Lava Butte lookout, with the Sisters in the background (photo/Jason Rafal)

The apocalyptic scene from the caldera (photo/Jason Rafal)

A small plant with a flower made of tiny bulbs in the volcanic rock. — Little lava plants (photo/Jason Rafal)

A black lizard sitting on dark lava rock. — A little black lava lizard (photo/Jason Rafal)

Overall it was a great trip, with a variety of beautiful landscapes and a lot of lovely hikes. It was fun to get to explore more of the Pacific Northwest, and to hang out with some very old, very large trees.

2019 in Review

January 26, 2020 by Nicole Harrison in United States

2019 was a crazy year for us. We sold our house, moved across the country, got new jobs, missed a vacation due to some awful travel luck, explored a new state, took a surprise trip to Paris a week before our planned Asia vacation, managed to make it back to Colorado for the grand opening of our friends’ distillery, spent Thanksgiving with Jason’s family on the East Coast, and ended the year with a family trip to Morocco and Lisbon. Eight states, eight countries, four continents. An absurd number of travel issues and wonderful new experiences.

We blogged our trips to Canada, Paris, Asia, and Morocco separately, but we also did a ton of exploring in Oregon and Washington, and we wanted to share some of what we experienced outside of our big international trips.

There are a lot of pictures in this blog, so I decided to really push the limit of our new CMS and just create more carousels than should ever be on one page. Please enjoy a snapshot of our first year in the Pacific Northwest.

I’ll start with some photos from our apartment. We love our apartment view, which looks out over Capitol Hill and First Hill. It’s beautiful at all times of day and all times of year. I’ve also included a few pictures from our apartment building’s 41st story rooftop, which has a lovely view of the Space Needle and sound.

The Center for Wooden Boats is a very cool society that gives free boat rides on Lake Union on Sunday mornings. If you’re willing to wait in line to sign up, it’s a great way to get out on the water. We got to hang out on a sailboat with a volunteer who told us about the radioactive tomatoes that grew in Gas Works Park when he was a kid.

In April, we decided to go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, which is north of Seattle. In order to avoid the rather intense crowds and traffic, we got up absurdly early and got there for sunrise, where we hung out in the fields and took pictures with a handful of other photographers.

In early June, we started out a month of family visits by heading to Astoria to see Nicole’s family. We hung out with friendly cats, hiked through the woods, and took in the views from the Astoria Column.

A few days after we got back from Astoria, Jason’s parents came to visit us in Seattle. While they were here, we did a day trip out on the water to look for whales. We learned a lot about Orcas, transient and resident, and saw a lot of other birds and wildlife as well.

For Pride weekend, our friend Sage came to visit us. Along with partying way too hard, we also went to Whidbey Island and visited some of Sage’s favorite places from when his grandparents lived there.

Seattle has some wonderful parks. These pictures are from Gas Works Park and the Japanese Garden.

At one point during the summer, we spent a weekend on Whidbey Island. We stayed in a cabin in the woods, hiked along the shore, and hung out with some very old trees. It was a good weekend.

I know this may be hard to believe, but I am running out of categorizations. So, here we have A Brief Study in Seattle Architecture.

Emilie and Ally came to visit us in August, and we went to Olympic National Park for a couple of days. It was incredibly stunning - it was a gorgeous weekend, and we had a pretty crazy cloud inversion when we were on Hurricane Ridge. We also did a short but exceptionally difficult hike overlooking Lake Crescent. On our way home, we stopped at a beach to enjoy the sun. The Olympic Peninsula is a pretty incredible place.

We went on quite a few hikes over the summer. They ranged from incredibly rainy to sunny and clear, but they were all incredibly green and beautiful. Goat Lake was one of my favorites.

In October, we met a few friends out by Levenworth, WA for a weekend. Levenworth is a very odd place - it’s a Bavarian themed village, a concept thought up by the University of Washington as a response to the town’s concern about staying financially afloat. Oktoberfest in Levenworth is, of course, a huge thing, and the weekended ended up being a fun combination of outdoor adventuring and tipsy people watching.

We spent a lot of time walking around Seattle with friends, going to parades, drinking coffee, reviewing local art, and everything in between. This collection is an assortment of photos from those random outings.

In November, we went to Astoria to see Nicole’s sister and dad, and our friend Megan met us out there as well. We went to Youngs River Falls, which still had some beautiful fall colors.

In December, we visited Cannon Beach for the first time with Megan and her incredibly fluffy dog, Albus. The Oregon coast is amazingly beautiful, and we had a lovely sunny, misty day on the beach. We also hung out in Astoria again, where we visited the Maritime Museum (this attraction comes highly recommended, and we agree completely).

To finish the 2019 set, here are some of the adorable dogs around Seattle that we were able to see and spend time with. Seattle has some great dog parks and dog events, and we were able to be brief, vicarious dog owners with friends and strangers.

At the Mouth of the Columbia River

June 10, 2018 by Nicole Harrison in United States

For Memorial Day weekend, we went to the riverside town of Astoria, Oregon, which is famous for being where Lewis and Clark spent a miserable winter after finally reaching the Pacific. It’s an old town that is not so slowly becoming a favorite of Portland dwellers and hipsters, and it’s quickly gentrifying as the old houses and shops are remodeled and repurposed. Nicole’s grandparents bought an old house and are slowly doing some restoration.

The grand Liberty Theatre (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The riverfront is very scenic, with Washington visible across the Columbia River and massive container ships frequently passing below the bridge on their way to and from the ocean. Wooden supports, remnants of a long-ago burned pier that are now covered in algae, line much of the Astoria Riverwalk.

A very large, very orange cargo ship heading out to sea (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The remains of something that might be a boiler (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After arriving in town and getting some food, Jason and I headed to the Astoria Column, which I saw from outside the restaurant and set my heart on visiting. The Astoria Column is a significant tower on top of a hill that overlooks the town of Astoria, the Colombia and Youngs Rivers, and the dense green forest to the east. It’s an incredible 360-degree view. We hiked up through the dense, green forest from the community college to climb the tower, and then made our way back to the house along the top of the ridgeline.

Nicole is confused by some sticks at the start of the trail (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view of Astoria and the Columbia River from the Column (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The forest beyond the city (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Astoria-Megler Bridge at sunset (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A large private garden that has welcomed the community to spend time there (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Although Astoria is not actually on the ocean, it’s very close, and we had to go to the beach while we were there. We went to Fort Stevens, which had a lot of civil war memorabilia and education in honor of Memorial Day. We greeted the horses and the educators before walking through the forest to the beach.

A typical Civil War-era scene. With a stroller behind it. (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Martha discusses the horses with one of the educators (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Portrait of a mustang (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Surveying the landscape (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

Walking out onto the beach (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from the jetty (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Sunday night, after a delicious seafood dinner, Jason, Nicole, and Eric went to the Fort George Brewery to see live music and eat dessert. The band, All Our Exes Live in Texas, was composed of four women from Australia who turned out to be great folk artists who were, for some reason, stopping at a brewery to play at the start of their U.S. tour. The brewery was packed, the music was lively, and the musicians even sang happy birthday to one of the children dancing in front of the stage. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

A sign from above (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A jumble of reflections (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The band (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After the music was over and the dessert consumed, we walked back to the house through the city streets and the hillside passageways that allowed pedestrians to walk up and down between the houses. We took about 6 of these passageways while we were in town, but we definitely got the feeling that there were more of these secret paths than we could find in a week.

The Garden of Surging Waves, a tribute to early Chinese immigrants (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Bizarre window decorations (Photo/Jason Rafal)

More bizarre window decorations (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Flavel House Museum, which is a bit creepy at night (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Astoria is intriguing both for its history and its current state of transition, and we will definitely be back to explore further.

There were deer everywhere (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Soaking up the plentiful summer sun (Photo/Jason Rafal)

An impressive item at the fantastic Vintage Hardware (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

A vehicle for the Cannery Pier Hotel (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A piece of a 620-year old Douglas Fir, which is protected by some presumably younger wood (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Spring in Portland

May 25, 2016 by Nicole Harrison in United States

Story by Nicole

I decided to take some of my free time between jobs to go to Portland, Oregon, to visit my grandparents and an old friend. I adore Portalnd, and I wanted to share some of the visual highlights. Jason didn’t come with me this time, which means I took all the photos with an iPhone camera, so they may not be quite up to usual quality.

For me, every trip to Portland includes a trip to the International Rose Test Garden. We went the first evening around sunset. It wasn’t quite as crowded as earlier in the day, but there were still dozens of people wandering around taking photos and strolling through the roses. The majority of the bushes were blooming, so there were many layers of color variation.

Roses with Portland in the background (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

Multicolored roses (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

On Wednesday, I went with my grandfather to hike Dog Mountain in Washington. It’s a fairly long and rather steep hike to the top of the mountain, but the views are well worth it. Unlike the forested hillsides in the area, Dog Mountain has a large area of hillside that has few trees and supports the growth of countless wildflowers. We were there slightly after the peak of the wildflower season, but the flowers were everywhere. There was an amazing view of the Columbia River Gorge and the surrounding area. It was beautiful.Light through the trees near the bottom of the trail (Photo/Nicole Harrison)The view near the top of Dog Mountain (Photo/Nicole Harrison)Rock penstemon alongside the trail (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

We stopped for lunch in Hood River before heading back to Portland. While there, we stood for a while and watched the people windsurfing on the river. It looked a fun activity, but I’m not sure I’d have the coordination. It also looked a little cold, with all the water and the wind.

Windsurfers (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

Thursday was periodically rainy. After some delicious ramen, we took the Portland Aerial Tram, which some locals call the Twinkie, up to OHSU and back down to the city. It’s a pretty unique way to get to the hospital.