Picture of the Day - Keeping Portland Weird

For some reason I thought of this image a short time ago and got the sudden urge to go find it on the internet and share it here. Something triggered this in the past hour or less, but mom broached the topic of Portland, OR, in a conversion this past day. In any case, this image does personify this community which I find charming despite its being rank liberal.
*NOTE: "Keep Portland Weird" is an official unofficial slogan for the city.
**NOTE: This image is not Photoshopped but rather this performance artist has been often photographed in this guise at other locations such as the famous "Keep Portland Weird" mural. He's even appeared on late night TV in this guise.

Picture of the Day - Two Bulls + Two Lovers

This image was captured this past afternoon at a wedding near Bend, OR. It shows the Two Bulls Fire casting a dark, ominous, and yet strangely powerful pall over the wedding. Somehow the couple (with the help of the photographer) looks more dynamic and respects more sexy for it. I offer my regards to the photographer for pulling this off wonderfully. I also envy this couple's wedding and I can only hope that someday I have a wedding with as dramatic and dynamic a situation as this with a fiery backdrop atop volcanic crumbs which cover the entire landscape of that area. For additional images and information on this wedding and couple check out this Buzzfeed article.
Image by Josh Newton.

Picture of the Day - Salem T-Storm Sunset

Severe-warned thunderstorms over Central Oregon off to the east earlier this evening as seen from Salem, OR. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Portland's Hotel Governor

During my visit to Portland the past few days I had the pleasure of visiting the Hotel Governor in the course of dining at Jake's Grill located on the first floor. The property is kept up nicely and the staff are courteous and professional and the food and drink are superb. The place is haunted according to the staff and given the look of the place and my own feeling while there I wholly believe that to be the case. It was built in 1909 so it has had time to pick up some permanent residents. 

Hotel Governor downtown Portland, OR, as viewed from 10th Street. 

I could not resist taking a photo of this marvelous light fixture in the main foyer.

This cool bar reminds me of the one featured in the 1997 mini-series The Shining where the ghost of Delbert Grady successfully gets John Torrance to drink again at a bar in the old Overlook Hotel.

I love these light fixtures but they certainly do bring to mind (mine anyway) the faces in the interior decor of the mansion featured in the 1999 movie The Haunting.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Powell's A Rare Book Experience

I had the honor multiple times this weekend to visit the legendary Powell's Books in downtown Portland, OR. As it turns out this place is the single largest bookstore in the United States with only one establishment in New York City coming close to challenging that size. Powell's fills up an entire city block (centered between 10th &11th, Burnside & Couch) as well as an adjacent annex across 10th Street to the east. Powell's is located in an old four story building and divided up into color-coded sections (blue, coffee, gold, green, orange, pearl, purple, red, rose). I could spend a week in a place like this so my visits this time were I hope quite preliminary.

The Rare Book Room at Powell's Book in downtown Portland, Oregon. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved). 

Picture of the Day - The Armory Annex

I discovered this building labeled "The Annex" in downtown Portland, OR. It is actually the Portland Armory Annex  and a popular venue for large events in the downtown area. However, on this day at this corner of the building it seemed like an abandoned and ignored and hidden-in-plain-sight sort of place in the middle of the city featuring a fortress-like architectural theme with some castle elements. This struck me as the sort of place a modern-day vampire coven might take refuge in an urban setting and yet still feel quaintly at home ala the Underworld movie franchise. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - 1890/1980

I noticed this old/new building in downtown Portland, OR. Obviously somebody was being cutsy in the placement of the years on this building. They recognized the numerical association of the dates of the original construction of the bottom two stories of this building in 1890 and the addition of the third story in 1980. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Passage to Portland

Today I rode along with my friend Dave Richter to Salem, OR, en route to help him do the Gem Faire event in Portland, OR, the next three days. Below are some of the scenes I witnessed along the way today.

The old State of Jefferson barn just south of Yreka, CA, along I-5 was no longer there I discovered but this was in the same general area thus taking its place.

Mount Shasta looking southeast as viewed from I-5 between Yreka, CA, and the Oregon border.

Eaton Hall, Willamette University, Salem, OR.

Sculpture on north side of Willamette University campus. Note the goggles on statue second from left.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Triple Eight Road Trip - Part 3

This is Part Three of the series.

Part One Part Two Part Four

Day Three ~ Lake Abert & Abert Rim/Lakeview

We started this day, Saturday, August 9, 2008, with a good breakfast at the local joint we ate lunch at the day before and then headed on up US395/Highway299 to where they split and then proceeded up US395 to Davis Creek and Goose Lake near the Oregon Border.
We pulled out along the stretch of US395 at the top of the hill overlooking Goose Lake to take a gander at the view and found our first obsidian of the trip which was fun.

We then headed on down the hill and up the road to the state line and stopped in the community of New Pine Creek and drove a short distance down State Line Park Road to Goose Lake State Park just inside the Oregon side of the border.

As we headed back to US395 from the park after our break we stopped at the intersection of the two roads and I noticed a sign standing near the northeast corner of the intersection pointing to a rock shop down State Line Park Road to the east of US395 so I proceeded on across the highway and down a couple of blocks until I found it at the northwest corner at the end of the street where it bends sharply to the north towards Church Street.

When we rolled up on the location we were greeted with the grand sight of an array of neatly organized piles of material, with the great amount being obsidians of various flavors which filled a large-sized yard.
The proprietor was out hosing down his yard full of rocks so we parked and immediately made contact with him. He turned out to be an affable and knowledgeable fellow formerly from California named Frank Newman.
He had a lot of great stuff both out in the yard as well as inside his rock shop. Good prices, too!
I must say I've never seen so much obsidian anywhere in my life which stands to reason as obsidian seems to be Frank's emphasis as he has multiple obsidian claims in the area.
My favorite variety of obsidian there was his many amazing variations of rainbow obsidian with the coolest being the electric blue as well as the lavender as well as the green flash.
What was so amazing is that these flashes weren't originating from the surface of the material but way down inside the stone.

I ended up buying some obsidian from Frank and he was very generous with his prices.
Indeed, generosity seems to define Frank as he invited us to scratch around his nearby claims for which we were incredibly grateful but lacked the time this trip.
We hope to go back and visit Frank next Summer and take him up on his offer but try to get him to go along with us.

In the meantime we and you will be able to see Frank Newman on an upcoming episode of Cash & Treasures which he told us should air this Fall on the Travel Channel.
While visiting with Frank, I asked him about the Lakeview (Oregon) rock show I had seen mentioned before in the Rock & Gem magazine Show Dates section and elsewhere.

I had been toying with trying to get into that show as I liked the area and sensed the local had a good rockhounding tradition and sensibility.
Frank looked at me matter-of-factly and said "It's today!" What were the odds?
I told him about my interest in the show and asked why he wasn't in it and he informed me that it wasn't worth his trouble given how small it is and he could make more money for less effort manning his store and given what he made just from our visit I could see he was right.

Well, that was cool, thought I, we had an unexpected and awesome visit to a rockshop that wasn't even there six years ago when last I passed through this area and then the show I was interested in attending and perhaps even participating in at Lakeview was occurring this very day I was in the area!

So, of course, we headed on up the highway directly to Lakeview, OR, passing by the Lakeview Interagency Fire Center located at the south end of town that is a collaboration of the local offices of the USFS and the BLM and the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the Oregon Department of Forestry. We headed on into town which felt surprisingly good. This town despite being in a rural and generally poor and white region has gone to a lot of trouble to fix up their downtown and make it cool and inviting and I highly recommend a visit there.

Anywho, remembering from our last visit where the fairgrounds were I drove us directly to them and we quickly found the show.
Before going inside we found some signs on a couple of buildings there that amused us and I "hammed" it up a bit.

I wasn't welcome at the Lake County Fairgrounds.

Not just a lot of "beef" but a lot of "bull", too

.

We entered the show and were immediately struck by how small it was.
Heck, it was no larger than our Cayucos Rock Show in stark contrast with how I envisioned it.
It was very folksy and small-townish which was a nice change of pace and flavor.
However, I found the selection of dealers not to my liking.
There was really only one really cool seller and the rest were mostly selling one type of thing which was okay with me in at least one case: the Oregon sunstone guy who owns a mine.
There was one other guy who had a nice cross-section of inventory but was more focused on lapidary rough than on finished products or mineral specimens which are more to my liking.
Anywho, I was too broke to buy anything and there wasn't too much I saw that I wanted which made that easier to deal with.
We picked up some grub being provided at the kitchen in the room next to the show room and took it outside and had lunch on a picnic table under a tree.

Next, we headed out of Lakeview and on up US395 to Lake Abert and Abert Rim, two geological features that don't get enough attention and respect in my view.

Lake Abert

Abert Lake is an alkali lake and thus is fairly lifeless under the water but migratory birds love it.
In fact, it is a significant birdwatching location and both it and the rim are so dramatic and beautiful that it is hard to take a bad photo of either.
This area used to hold a lot more water as recently as during the most recent ice age when a much larger lake filled the lower elevations of this entire area connecting this lake with nearby Summer Lake and others.
You can even still see the old high water marks which form concentric "toilet bowl rings" up the sides of hills in the area.
It is both easy and hard to imagine so much more water there and correspondingly more animals and Stone Age people hunting those animals for survival.

Abert Lake

Abert Lake and Abert Rim

Abert Lake and Abert Rim

Abert Lake and Abert Rim

Abert Lake

Abert Rim roadside marker

Carbonate crust at the northern end of Abert Lake.

We turned around on US395 near the north end of Lake Abert as we only intended to merely see Lake Abert and Abert Rim and leave further exploration of the area for the next time. Even had we the time I was running out of gas and suddenly couldn't remember if there was a functioning gas station at the intersection of US395 and Oregon 31 so we headed back down there and found there was a gas station but it was closed and my pickup truck was pretty much on empty at this point having neglected to check my fuel level before leaving Lakeview earlier.
This oversight would soon cost me as we ran out of gas headed southbound on US395 and coasted to a stop right as I pulled onto Deter Ranch Road (NF-3721) which had a nice big turn-out. Mom was kind enough to drive on down to Lakeview in her SUV and pick up 5 gallons of gas and bringing it back.

After I emptied my gas jug into my truck's tank we headed back on down the road to Lakeview and I filled by tank at the northern-most gas station there which, by coincidence was adjacent to the property containing "Old Perpetual" Geyser at Hunter's Hot Springs Resort so we drove over there when we were done at the gas station.
The website for the place looks great but the reality at this time is that the place looks run down and empty even during Summer and the geyser is perpetually turned off.

While we there an SUV pulled up near us and I thought the ownership/management was coming to find out what we were up to and ask us to leave as the entire place looked closed.
As it turns out it was a nice couple who stopped to look at the geyser like us but were disappointed to find perpetual silence from the half-empty pond which once contained it.
After briefly small-talking with the couple we soon learned they were rockhounds like us.
They were on a rockhounding expedition having just left dry-camping at the sunstone collecting site on public lands near Plush, Oregon. They showed us their haul which was impressive.
They also had recently visited Glass Buttes just south of Highway 20 in northern Lake County.
We told them about the rock show in town and about the rock shop south of town at New Pine Creek at the state line.

We then headed south on US395 and took it back down to Goose Lake Park for a quick pit stop and then did some rockhounding at the big roadcut at the southern end of the big hill where US395 overlooks Goose Lake.
While there we found some nice little blue agate nodules and cavities embedded within the bedrock of the road cut plus plenty of low-grade obsidian.
The entire time we were there we were buffeted by strong winds that also were kicking up carbonate sandstorms on the dry barren flats of the southern margins of Goose Lake, some of which got pretty intense and cool-looking.

Goose Lake dust storm.

Dust storms along the southern margin of Goose Lake.

Goose Lake dust storms.

Dust storm gust front just south of Goose Lake.

We then headed down to Davis Creek to check out collecting location "A" in Gem Trails of Northern California which site is now a field with No Trespassing Signs all over the place.
We didn't have time to head on up to the more popular locations at Davis Creek given the late hour.
We then tried getting to the closest-in of Mr. Newman's claims up County Road 133-C, but turned around after a short drive up the hill and headed back to Alturas.
Next year we plan to spend several days up in this area rockhounding at Davis Creek and with Frank Newman at his rainbow obsidian claims and give you an account of our adventures.
Today was wonderful and capped a great road trip courtesy of mom.
Today's sightseeing functioned as recon for next year's rockhounding adventures we hope.

Signage for The Belligerent Duck in Alturas, CA.

 All photos by Krissa Klein (all rights reserved).

At the end of the day we took a walk along the main drag of town and saw the above store sign.

Part One
Part Two
Part Four