Wandering West Day 23 - It's a Big Country

DES MOINES, IA - Today my mapquest.com generated driving directions can be paraphrased as so:

1. Take a right onto the highway


2. Drive 887 miles east on I-80


3. Take a right off the highway

951 miles in 13.5 hours

Wandering West Day 22 - Leaving the West

GREEN RIVER, WY - (Ok, not quite leaving, but almost.) As of this trip I have been in every state west of the Mississippi except North Dakota, Hawaii and Alaska. I have been continually amazed at how much different the landscape is out there. There is incredible diversity, from the rich forests of the Pacific northwest to the rocky coastlines to the stark deserts of Death valley or the rich deserts (to me anyway) of southern Utah. But I'm also amazed at how much is the same. The terrain I crossed in eastern Oregon reminded me of California, Montana, Wyoming or eastern Washington (now that I know what that is like). All in all, though, there is nothing east of the Mississippi is anything like it.

Eastern Oregon

801 miles in 13 hours

Wandering West Day 21 - Silver Blue Jewel

BEND, OR - I have always wanted to see Crater Lake so I worked it into my route home along with the Oregon Coast. It did not disappoint and was one of the highlights of my trip. Fascinating in a number of ways, I'll just list the highlights. Crater Lake:

• Is 6 mile wide at its widest point


• Sits in a caldera which was created by the eruption and collapse of Mt. Mazama almost 7,000 years ago


• Is 1,932 ft deep, deepest in the US and second deepest in North America (first is Great Slave Lake in Canada)


• Is 20 miles around


• Contains Wizard Island which is also a volcano formed after the collapse


• Has no inlets or tributaries and is filled exclusively by rain and snow melt


• Has an elevation of 6,178 at its surface making the entire lake (to the bottom) above sea level


• Gets and average of 533 inches of snow per year

Crater Lake

Indian Paintbrush

About 190 miles

Wandering West Day 20 - D U N E

On the Oregon coast there is a large area of sand dunes in what is called Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. No small piece of real estate, it is 40 miles long and a few miles wide with dunes up to 500 ft. You can enjoy the dunes by foot or dune buggy. I thought it would be different to hike through the dunes to the beach. Ok, so think about any desert movie you have ever seen, Lawrence of Arabia, The English Patient, Dune, whatever, and its definitely like that. No real trail, just a series of posts in the sand. On the way to the beach I walked from post to post, sometimes struggling to find the next one. One the way back I walked along a high dune ridge, keeping the posts in sight. Sometimes the sand is hard and sometimes its soft and you sink. I must have emptied my shoes out four times. On the way back I finally gave up and walked barefoot.

Along with most of the Oregon coast, it's very, very, very windy all the time. On the beaches it was funny to see a group having their family vacation on the beach, blanket spread out, in jackets and sweatshirts, holding everything down. Very different from an East Coast beach experience.

Footsteps leading nowhere

View to beach with fog

More sand