Oregon

By Brian E. Clark My oldest son, Matt – who lives 2,000 miles away from me – and I try to get together at least twice a year to ski, raft, hash out life’s vagaries and toast life with a drink. Twice in the past six years, we’ve met in

By Julie Snyder “One last tip,” said Van Go’s former owner as he handed over the keys. “Disconnect the burglar alarm when you’re in a campground, so it’s not accidentally tripped in the middle of the night.” His wince told us that he and his wife had learned this lesson

By Julie Snyder An enormous cherry pie perched atop the carefully packed provisions for our Van Go venture to southeastern Oregon. “What’s this?” I asked Joe. Space was tight in our VW camper, and a cumbersome pie wasn’t part of the plan. “Just a little campfire dessert,” said my sweet-toothed

By Brian E. Clark When my oldest son finished his college studies a decade ago, we decamped for the Rogue River in southwest Oregon for a mellow, four-day rafting and kayaking trip with OARS, an Angels Camp, CA-based outfitter. This past summer (2019), to toast my daughter’s graduation from high school,

By Julie Snyder Shafts of mist-filtered sunlight shot through the rusty, perforated hull of the Peter Iredale, a once-proud English sailing ship. Shadows checker-boarded the sand that had imprisoned the four-masted steel bark since 1906 when a mighty southeast wind and strong currents rammed the vessel aground on Clatsop Beach.

By Julie Snyder The hunt was on. Our mission? To find an idyllic coastal campsite within two hours of Portland. A scenic spot close to the beach that we could pop off to with a minimum of planning. What a silly idea. Campsites on the coast are scored far in

By Brian E. Clark Two-thirds of the way into a 90-minute standup paddleboard outing down the Siletz River on the bucolic Oregon coast, I looked up to watch an eagle fly overhead. And then, for some reason, I temporarily lost my balance and walked backward off the board into the

Reports from Honolulu, Paris, Portland (ME and OR), Madison, Israel, Amsterdam, New York and other places on daily life during these challenging times. Everett Potter, Pelham, NY From my perch in southern Westchester, I’m about a quarter-mile from the first containment zone in the US. No matter, it’s not containing

By Julie Snyder When Joe and I moved to Portland five years ago, we joined an adventure book club that convened in a wine bar. Groovy, we thought. Our new city’s quirky personality manifested in vintages and volumes, two of our favorite things. But we’d overlooked one other quirk. The

By Brian E. Clark In the middle of the 19th Century, roughly 400,000 farmers, miners, and others used the Oregon Trail – and its offshoots – to travel up to  2,100 miles from its start in St. Louis to reach their destinations in the West and begin new lives.  One