The Best Of: The Pacific Northwest

Tomorrow (Sept 18) marks exactly one month since I returned from the Pacific NW. I have had enough time to decompress and reflect on my Pacific Northwest Trip. Love that part of the country. The scenery is great, people are wonderful, food is excellent. Here are some of the superlatives:

Best Town (less than 100,000): Bend, OR – What’s not to love? Great city with everything I love: scenery, neat people, trails, mountains, clean, funky. Bend is sort of summarized in this blog post.
Honorable Mention: Eugene, OR and its cool university; Poulsbo, WA with its Norwegian flair; Florence, OR and its dunes and Old Town.


Best City (over 100,000): Vancouver, BC – the hosts of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver is cosmopolitan and diverse, trendy and funky. Downtown Vancouver is compact has neat neighborhoods like Yaletown, Chinatown and Gastown. How can you not like a city that has a huge park downtown, skiing and beaches within the metropolitan limits and Whistler with its world-class slopes and mountain bike trails less than two hours away?
Honorable Mention: Victoria, BC – walkable, quaint with great history and architecture; Portland, OR – bike friendly, lots of parks and home of Powell’s.

Best Drive: Rim Drive, Crater Lake National Park – every overlook reveals another perspective of Crater Lake and makes you just want to stop. The drive is scenic and spectacular.
Runner-up: Pacific Coast Highway between Brookings and Bandon, Oregon
Best Drive I didn’t drive: Pacific Rim Highway (Hwy 4) between Port Alberni and Tofino on Vancouver Island


Best View: Newberry Crater (with Pauline and East Lakes) from Paulina Peak, Newberry Volcano National Monument
Honorable Mention: Crater Lake from Wizard Island Summit; Bend from Pilot Butte (see photo above "Best Town"); looking up at the Redwoods.


Best Beach: Cox Beach, Tofino, BC
Runner-up: Secret beach near Brookings, OR

Favorite Mountain: Three Sisters, Oregon- Actually three mountains: South Sister, 10,363 ft; Middle Sister, 10,047 and North Sister, 10,085 are not the highest in the central Oregon Cascades, but together are awful pretty to look at when driving or from Bend. (note: Mt Ranier is still my favorite, I just didn't go there on this trip)
Honorable Mention: Mt Hood

Favorite Island: Vancouver Island- it has it all, a great city in Victoria, awesome National Parks, skiing and then best surfing in Canada.
Honorable Mention: Wizard Island, Crater Lake National Park

Best Coffee: Human Bean Coffee, Bend, Oregon

Best Coffee Shop: Townsends Tea House, Bend, OR – okay, they don’t serve coffee, but it’s a great shop that hangs great art on the walls and is a nice place to work or relax. Plus, the Kashmiri Chai almost makes me never want coffee ever again...
Honorable Mention: Dragonfly Coffee, Portland NW

Best Bookstore: Powell’s City of Books, Portland, OR – go get lost in Powell’s, it’s very easy to do and some time well spent.

Best Breakfast: Victorian Cafe, Bend, OR – the Warsaw was amazing!
Honorable Mention: Willie’s Bakery, Victoria, BC
Coolest Restaurant: Cornucopia, Eugene, OR - wonderful lunch specials
Best Norwegian Themed Restaurant: The Crazy Norwegian, Port Orford, OR- the best fish and chips!
Favorite Brewery: Deschutes Brewery, Bend, OR- hooray Black Butte Porter

Best Single Place for a variety of food: Richmond Night Market, Richmond, BC

Best Hostel: Hostelling International Vancouver Downtown- Large, but comfy, clean and safe.
Honorable Mention: Olympic Hostel, Port Townsend, WA - Great location


Favorite Hike: Dutton Creek, Crater Lake National Park
Runner-up: Mirror Lake, near Mt Hood, Oregon; Wizard Island Summit, Crater Lake


Favorite bike trail: Tumalo Falls Trail, Bend, OR- the climb is made easy by all the waterfalls you pass; the downhill fast, twisty and fun.
Runner-up: Voodoo Trail, part of Phil’s trail system, Bend, OR

Best Boat Ride: Wizard Island drop-off, Crater Lake National Park
Runner-up: ferry between Nanaimo and Vancouver


Favorite City Park: Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC- with its beaches, aquarium, marina, views, hikes, Stanley Park has everything all within walking distance of downtown Vancouver.
Honorable Mention: Wallace Park, Portland, OR; River Park, Bend, OR; English Beach, Vancouver, BC


Favorite State Park: Cape Blanco State Park, Oregon coast
Runners-up: Tumalo State Park, near Bend, OR; Honeyman State Park, Florence, OR
(note: Oregon's State Park system is first class. North Carolina could take some notes).


Favorite Bridge: Lion’s Gate Bridge connecting North Vancouver with downtown Vancouver
Runner-up: St. John's Bridge, Portland/St. Johns, OR

I miss...

…the train.
I am riding the Amtrak Cascades from Seattle to Portland is it sure is a lot of fun. I can walk around, get food and drink and the scenery out the windows is spectacular. It’s very comfortable and I would do it again. It makes me miss the train. I miss the Elon train (photo below, from wikicommons) and its late night whistles through campus. I miss the Ecusta train that used to run behind my property in the afternoons. With the closing of the Ecusta plant in Brevard, the train no longer makes its daily runs. I miss taking the train places like I did in the UK and through Europe and in Alaska (photo above, my own, on Denali Star Train) last summer.
The big downside to my journey today was Amtrak’s connecting coach from Vancouver. We were delayed at the border for 4 hours as Immigration and Customs could not quick enough process all the cars, trucks and buses that were heading into the United States. My previous experience with border crossing was much more expedient,… like 10 minutes. Note to self, next time entering or leaving USA, do so in the middle of the night or at a smaller crossing like Sault St. Marie, Michigan or Calais, Maine. I am all for homeland security and keeping Mad Cow out of the country, but there’s got to be a more efficient way of processing travelers than what I witnessed today. I missed the 2:20 departure from Seattle by two hours and had to instead get bumped to the 5:30 train.

In Bend

Sitting at Townshend's Teahouse. Drinking Kashmiri Chai... yum. This is my fourth day in the Pacific Northwest. Arrived three days ago, where Kate picked me up at the Portland airport. The flight from Seattle to Portland was short, but very cool. The pilot made a fly around of Mt St Helens. Not just a flyby, "Hey look out the window", but he actually circled the caldera and you could look down into the volcano from several different angles.

Kate lives in Northwest Portland in a great neighborhood. Her apartment is less than a block from a great park where we read and napped. On the recommendations of my friends, Lindsay and James, I am reading Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven". The book is really enlightening me to a lot of things I never considered regarding not just Mormonism, but faith in general. No matter what religion you are, fanaticism has a lot of the same characteristics.

I have had some good grub. I love food when I travel. We ate at Sushiville, near Kate's place where the sushi comes around on conveyers. I haven't been to one of those in years. Someone needs to open one in Asheville. Breakfast Tuesday was also near Kate's where Kate was being imparted Vulcan wisdom by a dangling Mr. Spock. This teahouse rocks. Another thing I need in Asheville. Breakfast at the Victorian in west Bend was delicious. Get the Warsaw, it has eggs, potatoes, sauerkraut, Polish sausage and is loads of yummy. Had an elk burger at the Deschutes Brewery last night. Parilla's across the street from Victorian's has funky burritos. It's like the Lucky Otter with more tatoos and one dollar PBRs.
Bend is a very good town. Mountain biking is first class and close to town. I rode Tumelo Falls Trail yesterday, about 16 miles round trip. The uphill took me pass no fewer than seven waterfalls and the downhill was fast and fun. The city is very bike friendly and has good restaurants and shopping. You are close to all sorts of things: volcanic stuff (Newberry National Volcanic Monument), skiing and snowboarding at Mt Bachelor, rafting on the Deschutes River, hiking and camping and, of course, endless miles of mountain and road biking. Portland is only 3 hours away and Eugene is about 2. And there are great towns nearby like Sisters, Redmond and Sunriver.
Last night, I was walking downtown looking for dinner and a girl walks by and says "Hi." I say "Hi" back and then we both turn and look at each other. It was obvious that we both knew each other. Turns out Kathy and I played Ultimate together in the Asheville League and she had moved to Bend last winter. It's funny how 2,500 miles away, in a city of nearly 80,000 people, I can randomly run into someone I know. We ended up going to meet some of her friends for dinner. Small world...