Mount Adams photo-bombed almost every picture I tried to take during my hike in the Goat Rocks a few weekends ago. I couldn’t snap a photo of scree fields, glacial lakes, moss-covered trees — anything — without the 12,200-foot mountain creeping into the frame somehow. The Lily Basin Trail (… and Mount Adams) Ten trees […]
Life is quiet on a San Juan island in the fall. I know this because my sister Laura and I just spent two days on Orcas, the largest island in the archipelago off the coast of Washington State. In the waterfront community of Eastsound where we stayed, “shut” signs excuse many shops from business, the […]
As we headed into the wilds of the North Cascades for a week-long backpacking trip, our choice in pants announced to the world that we were serious. Serious about the fact we were hiking. Serious about not carrying the extra ounces involved in pairs of shorts. Serious about responding swiftly and definitively to fluctuations in […]
Q: What do you get when you put three dental equipment salesmen from Kansas City together in a river raft? A: Knock-knock jokes! I’ll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say, I learned quite a few one-liners during a recent rafting trip in Washington State. My friend Jonathan guides rafting trips on […]
In the Goat Rocks Wilderness of southern Washington, the marmot population is acting particularly feisty these days. During the subalpine area’s brief summer season, the groundhog-like creatures emerge from their rock piles to engage in epic pushing battles atop large boulders. On a recent backpacking trip, I witnessed multiple skirmishes between the pear-shaped creatures, who […]
Laura and I road tripped across the country with a fish named Candy Ass made of shards of metal and rusty nails. The sharp-edged sea creature is the work of Greensboro artist Frank Russell, a new acquisition of mine that will hang in my room once I get one. Laura and I decided to document […]
The EastBurn threw open its doors extra early this morning for Obama. The bar/grill at 18th and E. Burnside in Portland fired up four flat screens and a projector, all tuned to coverage of the presidential inauguration, and served free warm croissants, $5 breakfast sandwiches and $2 pints for those in the mood. Amidst neon […]
OREGON HAS A LONG AND ILLUSTRIOUS HISTORY IN THE SHOEMAKING INDUSTRY. Home of the footwear giant Nike, the state is also the site of the world’s oldest known shoes, 10,000-year-old sagebrush bark sandals discovered in a cave near Fort Rock, east of Gilchrist. Yet with 99 percent of the footwear on the U.S. market factory-produced overseas, […]
OREGON HAS A LONG AND ILLUSTRIOUS HISTORY IN THE SHOEMAKING INDUSTRY. Home of the footwear giant Nike, the state is also the site of the world’s oldest known shoes, 10,000-year-old sagebrush bark sandals discovered in a cave near Fort Rock, east of Gilchrist. Yet with 99 percent of the footwear on the U.S. market factory-produced overseas, […]
This rustic European-style café proves you don’t need meat to create a meal you’ll want to write home about. A small vegetarian restaurant with coca-colored walls and exposed-filament Edison bulbs over each table, Natural Selection serves a four-course, fixed-price menu whose brilliance rests in the pure and natural flavors of its ingredients. Read More »
On the floor of her dimly lit living room, Acquanitta Keith thumbed through a gray plastic box containing school registration papers, report cards and award certificates of her two school-age children. Her oldest daughter, Anamesha Hollins, now a fifth-grader at East Lake Elementary, has attended seven schools since kindergarten: four in Chattanooga, three in Knoxville. […]
Donnie and I biked three and a half days through the John Day area of Eastern Oregon, along the 184-mile Old West Scenic Bikeway loop. I’ll be writing more about the trip later so I won’t give too much away — but I wanted to share a few pictures in the meantime. Bikes loaded with […]
The party moved outside last Sunday in Washington D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood. Washingtonians block partied international style at the annual Adams Morgan Day Festival, established 29 years ago to celebrate the neighborhood’s cultural diversity. And it was loud. I strolled the neighborhood with my college roommate, who now lives there, and a friend of hers […]
Jeff Leigh makes sure all of his customers read the sign mounted on the counter before he sets to work with any needles. “The tattoo you choose to get will be with you for the rest of your life,” the placard reads. “So before asking how much, ask first about the skill and talent of […]