Bend, OR

Unbeknown to many, Cooks Chasm is actually considered a bay. This is despite the fact that it looks totally like the part of the ocean. Resting at the base of the Cummins Creek Wilderness, Cooks is one of those amazing sites. The difference between high and low tides totally changes the look and accessibility of different parts of the chasm. At high tide you get a wonderful display of the surging ocean that pounds against the walls of this chasm as well as forces the ocean into a blow hole to give the show of the spouting horn, likened to a minature geyser.

Upon showing up at the Asian Festival at the Lane County Fairgrounds there was hardly any parking and after hunting we finally found a spot way out in left field. I kept remarking about the amount of cars and that I was surprised at the amount of people who would choose to go to the festival. Well to my surprise the festival was great. We had a blast. There were a million streaming people and the whole place was redolent w/ not only the different smells of Asian food fare but the different arts were amazing.

My favorite all time place on any of the Oregon Coast is the Devil’s Churn. This place turns me into a crazy freak photographer and risk taker. I have been fascinated with the churn since I was 12 or 13 years old. It was my first time viewing this place and it happened to be low tide and I was able to see a small sea faring vessel back inside the cave that rests inside the punch bowl itself and ever since I have had this passionate desire to repel down inside.

Local Ocean Seafood sits across the street from the commercial fishing docks, down on Newport’s old bay front. Doesn’t the name just sound so appropriate considering it’s location. I wonder what it is that you think Local Ocean is? Honestly Local Ocean is a restaurant/café. I had never been to Local Ocean but it came on a recommendation and so instead of going to my normal haunt of Mo’s and eating chowder, I came here.

Waldport seems to be a town frozen in time as much hasn’t seemed to change since I went to school there over 20 years ago. This is still a tiny little town that sits between Florence and Newport. Waldport sits at the mouth of the Alsea River, once famous for it’s steelhead and salmon fishing and still famous for its’ beauty. This little area seems to keep time well with the earlier periods of the late 1900’s and on the surface, technology doesn’t seem to have caught up with the rest of the world.

I love this place! The mystifying moments of the deep where one can walk through, under and over all those creatures we never see, those that swim in the depths of our vast Pacific Ocean. The tunnels of glass allowed me to see, in a 360 degree view, the different species of fish, sharks, starfish, eels, stingrays and a bunch of other species of which I have no clue as to what they are. What I do know is that being inside this glass tunnel was mesmerizing. You can reach out and touch all these creatures or so it seems.

As a young child I well remember Agate Beach. We used to camp right on the beach for days on end and my brother and I would spend much of most days exploring and playing in the surf. Today I do not believe camping on this particular beach is allowed but nonetheless I still visit; sometimes for the memory, sometimes to see the changes, sometimes to find the famous agates that this beach is named for.

Mckay Crossing is part of the Peter Skene Ogden trail that winds through most of Oregon. Peter Skene is Oregon’s most reknowned fur trapper, trader and wanderer aside from Lewis & Clark and his wanderings have made McKay a historical site.McKay rests at the base of Paulina Peak, in a quiet gathering of immense Ponderosa trees and sits on the river with the waterfalls heading one of the camp sites. Mckay does have both camping and day use facilities that travel almost a mile from the top of the falls and up river.