Where Sasha Went

The Alvord Desert

One of the main reasons we were on this epic Eastern Oregon Road trip, which turned out to be near a thousand miles covered in 5 days was to see The Alvord Desert. As I have mentioned most of Oregon east of the cascade range is high desert. I am sure all manner of scientists would take issue with that term, but it is what we Oregonians call it. Compared to everything west of the cascades what ever they get isn’t classified as real rain. You don’t know real rain until you have lived on the Oregon Coast.

But I digress, the vast majority of Oregon is actually technically steepe or scrubland as it is a arid climate that gets just enough moisture a year to not be considered a true desert. Vast grass lands and wild sage is what you will most of the time driving around out here, with the occasional very small pine tree. It’s cowboy country.

Alvord Desert
The Alvord Desert however, is a true desert. It a dry lake bed that gets less than 7 inches of precipitation a year. At 4,000 miles above sea level, it sits east of the Coast Range, the Cascade Range and the Steens Mountain, which itself is nearly 10 thousand feet above sea level. It the winter it is well below freezing and in the summer upwards of 100.

The desert itself is ringed by geothermal activity, pushing both cold and hot springs up along its boarder, providing ample grassland and wildflowers which attract a large variety of wildlife. You can often see wild horses specifically in this area.

Getting There
Getting to the Alvord Desert is not easy, which is why it took me so long to visit. It is hours from my house and due to its sparse human population many many miles from active gas stations. I say active because Fields just south of the desert sometimes has gas and Frenchglen just east of the Steens often has gas. But the area is also maintained by BLM, so the majority of the roads are not paved, which just add yes another level of risk and uncertainty to the trip. We had just left the Diamond Craters and were running low on daylight but set off all the same on the seemingly more difficult route of driving all the way past the Steens Moutain on the western side, then looping back up from Fields. And I am so glad we did, the other route coming from the north directly as a crow flies sounds easier but it is a couple hours on a gravel road and is more remote from gas stations and other services.

Things to Do
This area is the outdoor persons paradise. Houses are sparse, cars on the road even less frequent, wildlife everywhere, most of the area is BLM and as such open to public recreation of all sorts (providing you are respectful and follow the rules). We saw photographers, wind surfers, campers and motor bikers just at the entrance of the park. Which there are several, and are not well marked, be sure to take caution to not drive down someone’s private drive.

This would be the perfect place to set up camp for a weekend of day hiking up in the Steens. You would have no light pollution at night as there are so few homes and certainly no real towns in the area.  The area is also a population destination for land speed enthusiasts. And the womens land speed record here by Kitty O’Neal in 1976.

Places to  Stay
There isn’t really any place to stay in the area directly unless you are camping. The Frenchglen Hotel is about 70 miles away and offers modest accommodation. I love the place personally but it is not luxury by any means. The Alvord Hotsprings also offers bunkhouse lodging which is even less luxurious. Mostly you are roughing it, it just depends on what degree of running water you would rather have.

I am so glad I finally go to see The Alvord Desert, it was so beautiful and peaceful and so different than the rest of Oregon. I hope one day I can go back with more time on my hands to hike and camp. It would truly be a unique experience.

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Diamond Craters

No these craters do not have diamonds in them, the Diamond Craters in Malheur County Oregon are rather located near Diamond Oregon. They are are monogenetic lava field that covers 27 square miles of lava flows and cinder cones.

We were in the area as a part of a larger road trip and wanted to check it out and maybe do a little bit of hiking but we were ill prepared for what awaited us. Which is just a very dramatic way of saying, this place is big, hot and there is not a single ounce of shade anywhere.
History 
Carbon dating suggests that the lava fields were created roughly 7500 years ago. The craters themselves were officially named after the Diamond Ranch which once occupied the area and was owned by a man named Mace McCoy. In the 1970s there was a bit of hub-bub about the area due to a large volume of stone cutters taking lava slabs to sell. This prompted the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to step in and offer protection for the site.  Today it is maintained as an Outstanding Natural Area, which was made official in 1982 to protect the land and preserve it for public recreation.

Our Visit
We showed up mid day after having spent an inordinate amount of time at  the Peter French Round Barn. We didn’t realize how big the area was going to be, and we didn’t really look that much into how to enter the park itself.  We wound up spending a lot of time driving around on the BLM roads trying to find the craters, and after scaring our selves several times about getting stuck in soft sand and no one being around to tow us out we chose to sit on the edge of the one crater at the entrance of the park and eat lunch.
Planning a Proper Trip
If visiting lava fields, hiking in them and/or photographing them is your thing. This is a great place to visit and should not be missed. Do your research, plan to be there early. Have a map and a compass (there is no cell service), bring lots of water and sunscreen and wear a hat. Also I would suggest wearing snake boots, and checking about 40 times for ticks. And make sure you are driving a four wheel drive car.

The Diamond Craters are amazing, there is so much land to see, so many stunning views and so many places to hike or run around in an all terrain vehicle. I wish we had given ourselves more time, but it was mostly a curiosity stop as we had bigger ideas in mind for the trip. If I ever find my way out there I will most certainly be hiking the Diamond Craters.

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Peter French Round Barn

The Peter French Round Barn is really fascinating, both the man, the history of the area and the surrounding scenery is enough to take someone’s breath away. The area has a lot more water than most other parts of Eastern Oregon and as such provides a vast sanctuary for migratory birds. The barn sits on the edge of one such lake (sadly for us the lake was still flooded into the barn) and provides a great stop if you are road tripping or an even better destination.

Peter French
Peter French seems to be a bit of a notorious figure in Harney and Malheur counties. Born in Missouri but raised in California in the mid 1800s. He was raised in a sheep ranching family, as an adult he moved south toward Mexico and got hired by a wealthy stock-man as a horse breaker.

His business dealings continued with this Hugh James Glen which ulitmatly took him to prospecting land in southern Oregon to expand their enterprises. He established P Ranch around 1872 in what is now Malheur and Harney County. Through a series of underhanded business deals he managed to exploit Swamp and Overflow Act by flooding areas of land that he wanted to buy for cheap and then draining it once he owned the land. Allowing him to expand his cattle and horse business in the area to ultimately own  (I believe) around 70,000 acres of land in south eastern Oregon where his company ranched 45,000 cattle at any given point during the duration of his holdings.

Not surprisingly his business practices didn’t earn him a lot of friends in the community (not to mention it seems he wasn’t the nicest of men personally), he was shot in the head by Ed Oliver December 26, 1897.
History of the Round Barn
Rounds barns are not an uncommon as I had thought going into the visit, they were very popular for a while in North America first made famous by George Washington himself, and continued to be relatively popular in Illinois until around the 1920s.

This barn in particular and most round barns are not really barns in the true sense, as they are not built to store or house animals. But rather are built to train horses in the winter months. The Peter French Round Barn was built sometime between 1883 and 1884. The center of the barn is set up to allow young horses to keep warm while not being worked, and the outer ring is used as the training circuit.

Oregon had a very long cold winter this year, with late snows and in the high desert of eastern Oregon summer is a couple months behind the western valley where we had driven from. So it was a bit of shock to us how cold and how wet it still was out here for being so late in the year. We had our waterproof hiking books (great for areas with ticks and scorpions) but sadly the barn was under a couple feet over water in most places.

We did manage to swing ourselves in rather dramatically by clinging to an old wire and the door jab but but even still we didn’t get to explore as much of the unique historic building as we had wanted. I had to take a picture of it with all the carved initials. The are probably newer, but for some reason it reminded me of the Dover Castle which for a brief period served as a prison and the carvings all over the building were from the prisoners.
Round Barn Visitors Center
The Peter French Round Bar is a state historic site, but I got the feeling that it is mostly maintained and perhaps the even the land it sits on is currently owned by the Jenkins family. The family runs a visitors center at the entrance of the turn off which has bathrooms, snacks, drinks, books, souvenirs and a terrific family museum.

We spent quite a bit of time wandering around the building, looking through the museum and talking with the man who is currently running the business. He has since retired from the Jenkins family ranch, it is now run by other members of his family so he spends his days teaching folks about the history of the area, maintaining the site and running the visitors center and tours to help pay for all the upkeep.

I highly suggest a visit to the Peter French Round Barn, it is a fascinating bit of Oregon’s history which should not be lost. Given how far out in the middle of nowhere it is, I suggest making a road trip of the en-devour and exploring other things to see in the vast open planes of Eastern Oregon. More which I will be covering in the following weeks.

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Burns Oregon

I get the feeling that most people who haven’t spent a lot of time in Oregon thing that the entire state looks like the coast and the central Valley around Portland. But the truth is, the majority of the state sits in the rain shadow of the Cascade Range. Meaning everything east of Mt.Hood, south down to California all the way to Idaho is pretty much just high desert. Burns Oregon sits two and half hours east of the Cascades in the beautiful wide open plains of Harney County.

When driving in from the west you will hit Hines first to a new comer like me there didn’t seem to be much of a distinction from one to the other but I did straight away notice this incredible abandoned art deco building. I couldn’t find anyone who new what this used to be, but I would love nothing more than to turn it into something. It was so startling compared to the modest homes and small local park that surrounded it.

Burns OregonBurns and Hines together make up 60 percent of the population of Harney county, which isn’t to say how big the two towns are, rather it illustrates how sparsely population the area is. At just a little over four thousand people in both towns you can literally drive for hours and not see another car. Cattle Ranching, high quality horses and agriculture are the main industries in the area. And like most small towns in Oregon it has a lively local scene.
Things to DoMost of the things to do in the area consists of outdoor exploration, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the sweetest little shop Robin’s Closet. We stumbled onto it while need to take a driving break to stretch our legs.

Robin herself was working the day we went in and she was just living breathing kindness. She told us all about the area and her shop which has this incredible historical mural along one wall. I could have stared at it for hours.

The shop provided basically everything a girl could want or need plus cute little home items, candles, and some snack products. We spent more time in the shop than we probably should have but we were so impressed with the selection. I grew up in small town and I recall how difficult it was to find cute clothes to wear without having to drive to a city. I kept thinking how lucky all the local ladies were to have such a darling place to pop into any time they wanted.
StayWhile we were not leaving Robin’s Closet, Robin told us all about the renovations occurring in the small town. Recently the Central Hotel was renovated and provides both boutique rooms and a small music venue. The hotel website provides pictures of all the stunning rooms and a very nice run down of various places to eat and things to do in the area.

We were unfortunately only in town to break up our drive but I would really like to make my way back there one day and really experience Burns Oregon. It was a really sweet little place with lots of up and coming potential. After visiting with Robin and checking out a couple antique shops we hit the road. We were on a bit of a time schedule and had a lot of ground to cover before our next stop at the Round Barn.

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24 Hours In Portland

Given I live near enough to Portland that I can swing in and do just about anything I want any time I want I have very little reason to actually stay overnight there. But for my birthday this year I got to see my favorite Pod-cast live, a show that started after my bedtime, so I figured why not stay and not drive back home when I am silly tired. A little 24 hours in Portland for a little birthday celebration.

StayWe decided to stay at the Crystal Hotel as I had never had a chance to go there and it has been open for a few years now. The Crystal Hotel is owned by McMenanamins a local company that buys up old building like churches, schools, masonic lodges and in this case an old bathhouse and converts them into quirky affordable places to stay. Very Portland.

The hotel chain often offers smaller sized rooms though and in the some of the school buildings you wind up with very large rooms. Often the buildings have shared bathrooms, though again some of the hotels have some rooms with private facilities. All have restaurants onsite as well as other amenities like pools, bars, movie theaters, distilleries, the list goes on.

The Crystal Hotel specifically has dining, a soaking pool, and Al’s Den which is a bar and music venue.  Then across the street Lola’s Room and The Crystal Ballroom both music venues.

The location cannot be beat, right in the heart of downtown bordering both the city center itself and the fashionable pearl district which has a lot of shopping and restaurants. We chose the location specifically due to its proximity to all the shops we wanted to go into that day prior to the show and then dropped our bags off before grabbing our ride for dinner outside the hotel.
EatThere is an endless possibilities of places to eat dinner in Portland, in my opinion it really does have the best restaurants in the country. They may not be a lot of black tie type locations, but any flavor, anytime of day at any price point is an option here.

We chose to eat at my favorite upscale Mexican place Nuestra Cocina in inner South East Portland. When I live on that side of town I would invariably end up here for any sort of fancy outing I had planned. The food is amazing, the drinks are even better and the location was exactly what we were looking for that evening.

I ate everything on my plate and then some, if you ever wind up over in this area I high recommend.
DoOnce on this side of town there is quite a bit to do in the way of shopping, eating and drinking. In my opinion the food and bar options on this side of town are far greater than downtown and since it is the beginning of the more residential part of town the vibe is much more relaxed.

It wound up being a really nice evening, we had finished dinner earlier than planned and had tickets at Revolution Hall which was north a bit from where we were. We decided to walk. It was about a mile and half walk which is probably not for everyone, but it was pretty normal for us. So we strolled through some of the parts of town I used to hang out in, looking at all the old beautiful houses in that part of town. Popped in a couple shops one the way and rather quickly wound up exactly where we needed to be. Well before the doors opened. Revolution hall used to be a school, and after a long legal battle and lots of lost funding the beautiful building was finally converted into a multi use venue which was the home to my favorite pod-cast Last Podcast on the Left for one night only.

I had a blast and really didn’t want to show to end, even though it was midnight. Our driver promptly picked us up and took us back across the driver to the Crystal Hotel. Though it did take a bit as it happened to be both Rose Festival Weekend and Pride Week. Downtown was jammed with traffic and what should have been a 5 min drive wound up being close to 45.

We tucked ourselves in for the night, slept like babies and got up at the crack of dawn as usual well before breakfast was being served at the hotel. But one of the great things about the McMenamins hotels is that you are always provided coffee and cozy places to tuck in to a newspaper or a book in the mornings. So I wandered around taking a few pictures and then got dressed for breakfast.

After breakfast we checked out, took all our shopping bags back to the car and scooted out of the city. Thus ended my rather fabulous birthday 24 hours in Portland.

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Mississippi Ave

Mississippi Ave – Portland, Oregon When I first moved to Portland Mississippi Ave was not a place one went. It was mostly boarded up houses, trash everywhere, crime was sky high and there really was nothing to actually do there. But over time money was brought into the area and then it seemed almost overnight it was THE place to be. Since then more neighborhoods have been fixed up and those have become the place to be, but Mississippi Ave remains one of my favorite parts of Portland.  It is very easy to spend a day in the area, the hand full of blocks are full of shops, restaurants, and cafe’s, the houses in the area are also very nice so if strolling neighborhoods is your thing this area is a very pleasant place for a little peep.  Coffee Shops It is Portland after all so there is no shortage of coffee shops but the one rarity I find is there are no Starbucks. No offense to Starbucks, I like them plenty but I enjoy supporting small local business when I have the time to do so. My favorite is Fresh Pot, when I lived in the city I became addicted to their not too sweet mochas, and always treat myself to one when I run across the Portland chain.  The store on Mississippi is a lovely, mellow and a little bit moody. Perfect for our weather and sitting down for a book or quiet computer work. Their bathroom on the other hand is fully of graffiti, in the most artistic way and the ever growing Post No Bills addition always makes me chuckle.  If you are looking for coffee and doughnuts Blue Star down the street is really nice (also locally owned) and if you are more of a tea drinker Townshend Tea is really lovely. Shopping For The Home If you are interested in shopping for the home I would highly recommend Pistils Nursery. It is a sweet little place that has really grown over the years in a tall shot gun style building it houses everything from indoor plants, unique rocks and crystals, candles, cook books and of course a really fantastic selection of outdoor plants. They used to have chickens in the outdoor section but I didn’t see them the last time I was there. But it was raining so maybe they were just roosting.    Shopping for Comics Probably not a ton of people out there that are specifically shopping for comic books. But if you find yourself in the area I highly suggest having a look around Bridge City Comics. The story carries collector items, kids comics, graphic novels, zines and tons of local artists. It is a great way to get lost in discovering new things or just revisiting your childhood hunkered down in the Archie section (like I always do).  Shopping for Gifts There is no shortage of places to shop for gifts in this area but my personal favorite is Flutter. A small boutique with an ever rotating collection of unique items, from locally made vintage inspired dresses, to curated collections for estate sale finds and high end perfumes the shop is always a pleasure to browse. I always manage to find something I don’t need but can’t seem to leave without, the last time I was there it was a deck of gorgeous tarot cards, a reprinting of the first Smith-Waite deck.  Shopping for the Macabre  Another of my favorites is not for the faint of heart, Paxon Gate offers up all things a little bit spooky from books on ghosts, to taxidermy, natural history and gothic locally made jewelry. I could and have spent hours in the store, but it isn’t for everyone.  Eating and Drinking There is never any shortage of places to eat and drink in Portland. Second only to drinking coffee, it seems to be a city wide past time, and I have not had a single bad meal on Mississippi Ave. My personal favorites are Interurban (pictured below), Por Que No (if you love tacos), Mississippi Pizza (for pizza), Miss Delta (for southern food) and Ruby Jewel (for ice cream). Truthfully you cannot go more than three store fronts without running into another amazing place to eat.  This is obviously a very brief run down of what this area of town offers. Truthfully if you are new to the are I would suggest just spending a day wandering around and going into what ever place suits your fancy. You cannot go wrong and you are guaranteed to enjoy a pleasant quiet day on Mississippi Ave.
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Lodging Taxes

If you have ever had to itemize a hotel bill for an expense report you will know that the United States has lodging taxes attached to hotels. Fun fact, it is not legally required in every state. I must have been “lucky” to have traveled to all the states that require it as I swear I spent more time trying to work my expense report than I did at the conference I was sent to.

But we Americans are not the only ones with this tax. The hotel tax, or value added tax (VAT for short), is fairly common in Europe. London for example has a 20% tax on lodging, Germany I believe is 7% in some spots and 19% in others.

Since I often don’t stay in hotels and instead opt for short term apartment rentals the VAT’s aren’t quite as high.  I think when we last stayed in Austria we only paid an extra dollar a night. But we did have to fill out a temporary residency card which was turned in to the police by the management team along with our taxes. This isn’t anything weird I promise! I had to do it while I was there for school as well.

However when I am doing a more hop and go type trip I have since decided to not worry about the taxes. It is just a given travel expense for the most part. If you would like to learn more about them and perhaps like to try to save some money by applying for refunds below are a few resources I have found around on the internet.

https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/money/vat-refunds
http://gogreece.about.com/od/Glossary-of-Greek-Terms/g/Vat-Or-V-A-T-Tax-In-Greece.htm
http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/vat-customs/buy-sell/index_en.htm
The point here really is to know your expenses. Lodging taxes can add up quickly and become a significant portion of your travel budget if you aren’t careful. Additionally many locations can appear cheap only to charge you taxes you weren’t aware of when you arrive at your stay. Even if you aren’t worried about a few extra dollars here and there it is good to understand why you are being charged and where that money is going.

Question:
Have you ever tried to get refunds for VATs? Or do you also just let them slide and write them off as a normal travel expense?

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Capri, Italy

Our last day down by Sorrento we spent on the island of Capri. We took our little tram up to Sorrento and hoped on the ferry boat for the day. Since we were on a schedule to ensure we got off the island at the end of the day we didn’t have a whole lot of time to see much. Our friends had a tour to visit the Blue Grotto, so once we disembarked they met up with their tour group and we headed up the hill to explore the area.

We didn’t manage to make it to Capri’s Villa Jovis, a roman palace that is now an archaeological site that can be toured. After our all day trek through Pompeii the day before we were looking for something a little more low key and just chose to wander around the streets and take in the sights.

We headed straight up the hill and wandered into a number of various businesses. I think our favorite was probably the sewing shop. They had so much fabric it was even hanging from the ceiling. We continued up the hill and managed to find where all the people were hanging out. All the designer shops seemed to be huddled together near the top of the hill part of town. There were so many fashionable fancy people and so many shops neither of us would have ever even thought of buying anything in. But it was really fun to window shop and people watch.

We ended our day in Capri meeting back up with our friends and sitting on the beach near the ferry port for a good few hours. Then we caught the ferry back to Sorrento, had some dinner and took our trolley back to our campsite for our last night before heading to Venice the next day.

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