Cover

I changed my cover picture from a view of Crater Lake (OR) in 2012 to one of the highway bridge over the New River (WV) in 2013.

Portland

Two months before the half marathon, I went to Portland to attend the wedding of my niece.  I turned a planned four miler into a wonderful seven mile run through the heart of that wonderful town by getting lost, but that was also where I fell for the second time in two weeks by tripping over an unexpected little curb in the middle of a cross street.  My first fall was ten days earlier when I tripped over a protruding piece of grout between two steel sections of a bridge I was traversing in DC but I only wound up with scrapes on my elbow and hand.  Before that I hadn't fallen in several years.  (My two friends who were going to run the half-marathon with me.)

I thought I escaped injury from the fall in Portland beyond more road rash, but I think I did something to my leg which struck the curb, forcing me down.  The next weekend I ran an eight-miler on the W&OD Trail in Virginia but my knee swelled up with a lump the size of a golf ball afterwards.  That was a setback that caused me to miss a week of running, just when I was starting to go "up the scale" in mileage in my half marathon training plan.  (One of the half-dozen runner-friendly bridges that cross the river in Portland.)

A week after I returned to running I developed enduring pain in my knee on a five-mile weekday run which caused me to take another week off before I went to the doctor due to it and was diagnosed with bursitis in the knee which robbed me of yet more time away from training.  Now my training plan was a shambles and I wondered if I would run the race at all.  Aside from a few six-milers, I had run a seven-miler and an eight-miler once, the race was less than two months away and my knee was hurting during and after every run.  (In Portland, I posed with my nephew before Patience's wedding.)

What to do?  Go back to basics.  I stretched before runs, slowed my pace, wore a knee brace, listened to my body and suspended runs when noticeable pain came on, iced my knee afterwards and made extravagant use of all the expired Advil I had lying around.  Now although I didn't feel combat ready as race day approached I didn't feel like I was going to embarrass myself.  (It was a great sky in Portland both mornings that I was there.)

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Getting Pea Married

My niece got married in Portland over the Fourth of July weekend.  It was nice to be able to spend time in the city, I only made the acquaintance of the great Northwest recently when I spent a week in the summer of 2012 touring Oregon, Washington and Idaho.  (The happy moment at the West End Ballroom, as taken through a mirror in the corner.)

I remember thinking then that this would be a great area to retire to.  Fit, liberal people, beautiful landscape, lots of interesting history and great cities in Portland and Seattle.  (Mount Hood in 2012.)

I was taken aback by the beauty of Crater Lake.  A must see for anyone.  (A stunning vista at Crater Lake.)

But aside from seeing a baseball game in Seattle and ascending the space needle, I didn't spend any time in any of the cities that week, which was pretty much one long car trip.  But last month I got to see Portland the best way possible, by running through it on two early morning runs.  (From the Burnside Bridge.)

  

Crater Lake

Without a doubt the most stunning place I visted last year was Crater Lake in Oregon.  This magical place should be on everyone's Must-See list.

The Pacific

On the seventh day of my vacation to the great northwest, I thought I'd wander the neighborhoods of Portland before I took my red eye flight back east.  But that morning I decided to drive to the Pacific Ocean and see a WW2 battlefield.

Huh?  Yes, one night in 1942 a Japanese sub surfaced offshore and shelled a U.S. coastal fort at the juncture of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean.  No one was hurt, no damage was done and no fire was returned, but it is the only instance of the mainland United States being attacked by a naval ship of a foreign power since the War of 1812.

I drove out there, and back, along the Columbia River which Lewis and Clark used as a highway to the Pacific even before the War of 1812.  I was staggered by the beauty of the great northwest on this vacation.

Vacation over, I returned home and resumed running at noontime with my coworker L.  On the day this photo was snapped, we ran to the two Occupy sites from last year in DC on the first anniversary of this grassroots effort to wrest control of our country back from the plutocrats.

 

Mount St. Helens

On the sixth day of my trip to the northwest last month, after seeing Crater Lake on the fifth day, I decided to return to Washington and visit Mount St. Helens.  That mountain blew its top (actually its north lateral side) in 1980 with devastating results (over 50 deaths).

It was quite a sight, a mountain with a huge piece missing.  The area around its base, the lava field, looked like a moonscape, even though it had been thirty-two years since the event and a lot of growing had been going on over that time.

I hiked a 2-mile trail on the next ridge over (to the north).  There were blast-sheared tree stumps littered all around on the hillside, and although the area had been harvested for the downed pine trees, there were stands of downed trees around, all pointing the same way, away from the blast.

When the volcano blew its top, after a few months of local earthquakes or tremors, bulging sides and venting gases, the forces boiled out of the mountain at 300 mph and instantly changed the entire landscape for miles.  The actual lava flow was slower but inexorable, and speedy enough. 

A Special Place

On the back of the Oregon state quarter is Crater Lake.  Its placement there is well deserved.

Crater Lake is a caldera, a bowl formed when a volcano collapses in upon itself.  The basin formed filled up with rainwater and snow melt, the lake's only sources of water. 

Oregon and Washington are volcanic areas.  The explosion six millennium ago that triggered the formation of the lake was fifty times the force of the devastating explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980.

It is a sacred place to Native Americans.  One legend has it that an Indian walked about the jagged wreckage of the open depression while it was still hot and before it started filling with water.  How cool would that have been? 

One of the Most Beautiful Spots in the World

Crater Lake in Oregon.  Go there!

Idaho

The third day of my vacation to the Great Northwest, after seeing a Mariners game on day one and Mt. Rainier on the second day, I drove across Washington to Idaho.  I had never been in Idaho before.

I stopped at a turnout on the border on a little highway from Washington into Idaho and exulted.  As soon as I walked up to the sign saying "Idaho" I had traversed all 48 lower states (excluding Alaska and Hawaii). 

Then I drove a few miles south on the main north/south highway in the Idaho panhandle to Lewiston, where I would pass back into Washington and possibly never return to Idaho, ever.  But I found a funky old historic auto trail windy road off the main highway down the steep bluffs leading to Lewiston, an Idaho "deep water port" (up the Snake River, which feeds into the Columbia River, which is the largest river in North America which flows into the Pacific Ocean).

I drove down it at about 20 mph, winding round and round.  Here's a picture I snapped showing all the switchbacks, with the town nestled in the valley below, along the river.

Mt. Rainier

I recently read a travel article where the columnist described the difference between how he and his wife approach planning a trip.  He plans how to get there and then decides what to do when he arrives, whereas his wife meticulously plans each hour of every day.

The writer's approach is more my style, because when I went to the northwest for a week last month, after I had seen a baseball game in Seattle on the first day as planned, I didn't have no further plans other than driving into Idaho at some point because I'd never been in Idaho before, the only state in the lower 48 which I had never visited.  I woke up the second morning and started planning my trip.

The paper revealed the recovery that week of the remains of four climbers lost the winter before on Mt. Rainier, apparently a very deadly mountain.  So I went to see it.

It was spectacular all right. even though the road up to the base of it was closed for the season, since I wasn't a climber.  Here's a picture of me at Mt. Rainier Park on the second day of my vacation.