Coast – RDZ Photography

Virtual Travel – Oregon

Architecture, Art, Festival, History, Museum, Nature, Sciences, Sports, Transportation, Water Features

We have reached the end of the trail – the Oregon Trail. Welcome to Oregon.

State Capital & History

1958 1975 1976 1992

The Oregon State Capitol is in the city of Salem. This building was completed in the 1930s, replacing a more traditional looking building that dated from the 1870s. This building was destroyed in a major fire in 1935.

Symbols of the Day

State Crustacean – Dungeness Crab (photos from statesymbols.org)

State Mother – Tabitha Moffatt Brown. Tabitha was 66 years old in 1946 when she traveled the Oregon Trail from Missouri. Once there she built a home and school for orphans, as well as provided writings that gave a female view of the times she lived.

The traditional end of the Oregon Trail was in the town of Oregon City, now a Portland suburb.

Portland is the largest city in Oregon, and the center of business and industry. While Portland borrowed the expression ‘Keep … weird’ from Austin, Texas, it is well deserved, as the city has it’s own unique vibe in the arts, culture and entertainment.

It is a beautiful city, one of my favorites.

Portland is known as the Rose City – and it is appropriate. They even have an evening Rose Parade in May, but in true fashion it is not a bunch of floats of flowers like Pasadena, it is a colorful event that is billed as ‘The Cleanest Parade in the Country’, as the last few things to pass are street cleaners, and all the attendees put their trash away!

2016 06 04 137 Portland Illuminated Rose Parade

2016 06 04 100 Portland Illuminated Rose Parade

2016 06 04 131 Portland Illuminated Rose Parade

2016 06 04 96 Portland Illuminated Rose Parade

2016 06 04 92 Portland Illuminated Rose Parade

2016 06 04 126 Portland Illuminated Rose Parade

2016 06 04 115 Portland Illuminated Rose Parade

2016 06 04 104 Portland Illuminated Rose Parade

2016 06 04 101 Portland Illuminated Rose Parade

Eugene is home to the University of Oregon. Along with nearby Cottage Grove it was also the filming location for Animal House.

Grants Pass has a number of fiberglass, decorated bears around town. Many are made and sold to raise money for local non profits.

Jacksonville is a picturesque small southern Oregon town. In the 1850s it was a gold rush town, today it thrives on tourism.

The Oregon Coast

1967 1969 1998

Florence, Oregon is a town of 9000 along the Oregon Coast, where it meets the Siuslaw River. It is also home to Sea Lion Caves, This massive cave is at the bottom of a 300′ high cliff.

Heceta Head Lighthouse is one of the postcard views of the coast.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse is another picturesque lighthouse just up the coast. Nearby coastal areas are teeming with life.

Tillamook once had a naval air station with blimps. As a result they have a massive World War II era hangar.

Lincoln City has a motel with a great collection of giant Tiki Men.

As we moved north we arrived in Seaside, which has a statue of Lewis and Clark at the Ocean, but they actually arrived further north at Astoria (next).

Astoria, Oregon is where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. As noted it is where Lewis and Clark founded Fort Clatsop. It has a long fishing industry history.

Volcanoes and Mountains

1970 1972 1983 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013

Oregon is filled with volcanoes.

Crater Lakes is one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. It is situated high in the mountains, and gets pounded by snow all winter. We arrived in early June when the roads had just opened.

Crater Lake is a result of a collapse of a volcano. As a result it is the deepest lake in the country, with a depth of almost 2000′.

It is home to a National Park.

Waterfalls

1974 20000 2015

Oregon has numerous beautiful waterfalls, most are along the Columbia River Gorge east of Portland.

Multnomah Falls is the tallest at 611′, but there are many beautiful waterfalls in this area and beyond,

The Rouge Gorge downhill from Crater Lake has a number of smaller ones, but still a beautiful setting.

Virtual Travel – California

Architecture, History, Nature, Sports, Transportation

Today we make our way to the Golden State – California. As most people know California is known for, among other things, their car culture. That culture apparently never translated to CalTrans, who never seem to have published maps.

Instead most Californians have relied on the auto club for their travel tools. The state has two major auto clubs – The Auto Club of Southern California and the California State Automobile Association, which covers Northern California.

The auto club maps rarely featured photos, mostly just graphically interesting maps.

For this posting we will mix together vintage Auto Club maps with photos from various years of the highlights of the state.

The map below dates from the 1950s and covers the entire state.

A view of the map itself shows the famed freeways of the state still a few years away. This view has the area from the coast around San Francisco to the mountains and Yosemite National Park, going south as far as Santa Barbara.

Our tour will start in San Francisco….

The view back toward downtown from Twin Peaks on a cloudy day.

While most of San Francisco streets are in a grid system, the area directly around Twin Peaks have streets with curves resulting in a haphazard look to the houses.

The Golden Gate bridge with the tops of the towers obscured by the low clouds.

The cool, weirdness of Haight Asbury.

Isotope Comic Book Shop and their artistic toilet lids.

San Francisco from Angel Island.

An evening at the Santa Cruz Beach.

San Luis Reservoir as we head towards the central valley.

Yosemite! One of the best National Parks.

The Central Valley is the produce capital of the country.

Sequoia National Park.

Kings Canyon National Park.

Let’s move on to Northeastern California.

Lassen National Park

Lava Tubes

Hieroglyphs in far northern California

Northwestern California is home to some amazing coastlines and forests.

Our tour of Northwest California starts out with the Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Geysersville.

Lake Sonoma.

The Mendocino County coast.

Fort Bragg, California (not to be confused with the actual U.S. Army Fort Bragg in North Carolina).

One of the ultimate tourist traps – the Drive Thru Tree in Leggett, California.

Redwood Forest.

Eureka, California

We were lucky enough to be in Arcata, California for one of the coolest festivals we ever saw – the Kinetics Festival.

Trinity Lake

Shasta Dam and lake with Mount Shasta in the background.

This 1927 map is the Circle Tour of Southern California. Leaving downtown Los Angeles it takes you east past San Bernardino to Palm Springs, before heading south through the desert, finally returning to the coast at San Diego.

We will recreate the highlights of this tour 90 years later…

The Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles was there when this map was published.

Driving through the desert to Palm Springs.

Palm Springs from high up on Mount San Jacinto.

San Diego – This late 1940s map shows a San Diego that was just becoming a major city.

By 2012 it was a beautiful city by the bay.

Petco Park – Home of the San Diego Padres (trivia time – the Padres are the only major league sports team whose name is entirely in non English)

And finally back in Los Angeles – although this 1920s map is missing LAX (among other things).

Montevideo, Uruguay – November 2019 – A Variety of Architectural Styles

Architecture, History, Nature

Montevideo, Uruguay is a city of approximately 1.3 million people, making up 1/3 of the entire population of the country. As the capital and economic center of Uruguay the city has a eclectic collection of architecture.

Since we arrived by the ‘fast ferry’ from Buenos Aires, the first building that greeted us was the Port Terminal Building.

The Municipal Theater and Museum of Art History is an impressive structure in the Cordon neighborhood.

Along the Avenida 18 July there are a number of impressive buildings leading you to Plaza Indepencia.

The most impressive is Palacio Salvo (also the feature photo). It was designed by Mario Palanti, who designed the Palacio Barolo in Buenos Aires. As a result their looks are very similar.

The Ciudadela Building is on the opposite end of Plaza Independencia from the Palacio Salvo. Designed by Raul Sichero and Ernesto Calvo and completed in 1958, it stands 90 meters high.

The Pablo Ferrando Building dates from 1917, serving as a library and coffee shop

The new Presidential Building is also along the Plaza Independencia.

The remains of Miguelete Prison. But fear not – it’s wings now host a contemporary art museum as well as a museum of natural history.

Scenes in Ciudad Vieja (the old city).

A few miles out of the old town you come to the World Trade Center of Montevideo.

This unique building is the Damaso Antonio Larranaga Zoological Museum.

As you reach Punta Gorda the mid rise apartments give way to single and duplex family homes.

We end our tour with the 1876 Punta Brava Lighthouse. It continues to serves it’s original use to this day.

Hawaii – November 2018 – Day 16 From Maui to the Moon

Architecture, History, Nature, Sciences, Transportation

Early on a Sunday morning we took off and headed up the tallest mountain on Maui.

Up we went until we were at the same level as the clouds.

And the road kept going – we could see Molokai in the distance, and we kept going.

we were looking down on the 5000′ high West Maui Mountains and the clouds now. Where could we be going?

The moon!

No not really, it is Haleakala Mountain (and National Park). The buildings are an observatory.

But if you could visit the moon in shorts this is the place (to be fair it was in the upper 50s but it is Hawaii so I am wearing shorts).

Haleakala is a volcano, and the top is the crater with numerous cauldrons. They like to point out that while it is officially 10,023′ above sea level, there is another 19, 680′ below sea level, so it is taller than Everest (but shorter overall than nearby Mauna Kea).

There are numerous cauldrons in the crater, which is a deceptive 2600′ deep.

While barren of vegetation, the crater floor is full of color, as this series of photos will show. These are some of my favorite photos of all time, all from the same place!

We went down the path into the cauldron for about 45 minutes – resulting in a 2 hour hike back up. For me this was one of the tougher hikes, it is 10,000′ in elevation, it is continuous, without shade (and I likely only went down 700-800 vertical feet)

It is an incredible place, and we were fortunate that it was a very sunny day the day we visited, as the clouds often obscure the mountain (at least parts), and later in the day and for the rest of our time in Maui, it was at least partially obscured.

We returned to Maui (aka sea level) and went for a drive to Kahakuloa. While most people drive the famed road to Hana (we did – later), this road was far more impressive and challenging. It was mostly a lane and a half, often clinging to the cliffs to the ocean, with minimal guard rails.

It was great!