kaolin fire presents :: photo gallery

This was amy's summer vacation, between summer school and grad school. It was timed well with me losing my job; less well with other projects I'm working on, but I pulled a serious all nighter and then a bit of a day run plugging holes and whatnot before we pulled out.

We headed up the 101 to ye olde car camp place on the 101, somewhere south of Oregon. Not much to say about that.

From there we jumped over to Oregon and took a tour at the Oregon Caves. Very Pretty. Especially impressive considering they're marble (as opposed to the more colorful but more typical and much softer limestone). I took a gripload of pictures there until the battery (and the roll) ran out. (so after that, I went and bought a larger memory stick and another battery, just in case...) But the cave was cool. We followed a tour guide for about an hour through a mile and a bit of caves, ducking through many narrow passageways. She went on about the history of the caves; how they'd first been found, how two further sections had been found, and so on.

Also the current history of the caves: they're worried that because they have been killing any fires that started above the caves that now there's too much vegetation such that water's not getting into the caves so much any more. Which means the caves are "dying" (going into stasis, not falling apart). So they have a "controlled burn" planned... (and they're doing wind and water measurements throughout)... but they haven't been able to do the controlled burn for about five years due to unusually dry summers... there were fires all over Oregon, especially in areas near the cave. (don't want a controlled burn to uncontrol itself...)

After the cave there was a beautiful trail up and over it, but amy was a bit tired. So I ran it (a bit longer and much more uphill than I realized... but good exercise). Still very pretty. :)

Then we drove on up into portland, stayed at a Comfort Suite. Dinner... drove around portland looking for the downtown and had a relatively fun time going back and forth over various bridges. (that place has a serious number of bridges!) Amy doing all the driving, she was getting tired and irritable and we headed back to the area with the Comfort Suite, grabbed dessert, and passed out.

The next day we went into Eugene (where I lived for two years... when I was 6 and 7, roughly...?). Amy had a really spiffy "bed and breakfast" lined up, and we stayed there (and dined... oh my god that food was good!) We spent the day hunting down my memories... Solstice Bakery (which went under three years ago or so) and this one cobblestone area. Eventually made it to "fifth street market", which seemed oddly familiar. Talking to one of the proprietors, she mentioned that about ten years ago (before some major modernizing/remodeling) the bottom floor had been cobblestone and mud... So that was cool.

We met up with one of my parents' friends from that time, and hung out with him for coffee. Quite an interesting and pleasant individual. :) Then we went for a walk down to the river, though we didn't make it MUCH past the rose garden. (nice rose garden...)

We'd been planning on heading to Crater Lake the next day, but it didn't look like we'd have time for it and there was worry that the fires might make it inaccessible. So we took the leisurely way out and just went on down the five to a KOA (Kampgrounds of America) -- very posh car camping site. In the late morning, we set out to Lassen, drove through there (they were doing major road renovation, which was a bit annoying... essentially large chunks of the two lane roads were down to one lane where you had to wait for a train of folks to go through, maybe 15-20 minutes... and then go through in your own train...) ... ... ... we took one break to walk down to Bumpass Hell (where a guy named something Bumpass had to have a leg amputated because he fell into a boiling put).

And then we got home and I put this up. Basically. :)