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Photo essay: Portland to Butte – This is the first of what will be three photo essays about our recent trip to the US. I’ve already done a general write-up of the trip, but these photo essays will be mostly about the photos and whatever they bring to mind. As such, it’s probably going to be a little more disjointed than the full write-up.

I started by going through the 1,103 photos I took during the trip and, after getting rid of duplicates and photos that weren’t worth keeping, I ended up with 994. I then divided these photos into three groups, one for each leg of the trip: Portland to Butte, Yellowstone National Park, and Thompson Falls to Seattle. I figured that 100 photos total was a good number to aim for—about 10% of the whole batch—and I will be dividing that up proportionally among the three legs. Thus, this first photo essay will contain 32 photos; the second will contain 47 photos, and the third will contain 21 photos.

Each of these photo essays will have a “companion gallery” in the Imagery section (which hasn’t been updated in a long time). This is basically just a way for me to organize the photos, although if you would like to skip all the blathering and just see the images unadorned, you can head straight to the companion gallery. As always, you can hover over the photos for brief captions; unlike a typical entry, though, you can also click on the photos to get larger versions if you want to take a closer look at something. OK, enough preamble. Let’s dive into the photos.

The first thing we did after getting settled in at our hotel in Portland was head out to the Willamette River and the Tom McCall Waterfront Park that runs along it. (“Willamette” is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, which sounds like “lamb.” If you want a lesson in how to pronounce it, though, just say it with the accent on the first syllable in front of any local and they will politely but firmly inform you of the correct pronunciation.) As you can see, it was very overcast that afternoon; it was like that for most of our stay in Portland, if I remember correctly. Still, the waterfront was very nice, and I took a few good pictures here. I chose this one not necessarily because it was my favorite in technical terms, but because I thought it was the most interesting. The bridge you see here is the Hawthorne Bridge, which connects to Hawthorne Boulevard on the other side of the river. If you’re wondering what those towers are, well, Hawthorn Bridge is a “lift bridge,” which means that the center section rides up those towers (pulled down by the red counterweights) to let large river vessels through. In fact, it is the oldest working vertical lift bridge in the United States. Unfortunately, we did not get to see it in action.

If you look to the very right edge of the photograph, you’ll see two green vehicles with yellow canopies. These are apparently buggies that are rented to tourists so they can drive up and down the waterfront, and they were quite a nuisance while we walked along the river. Most of the people driving them were responsible, but there was one being driven by four kids that kept zipping dangerously back and forth over the pedestrian-filled path. At one point they almost lost control of the vehicle and only barely avoided an accident.

We saw a few murals painted on the sides of buildings around the city, and I think this one was my favorite. I don’t have even the slightest idea of what this is supposed to be, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting (in fact, it probably makes it more interesting). Whoever the artist was, they are either one very creative individual or they were on some powerful substance—possibly both.

We’re jumping straight to Eugene here. The house we rented for our stay is located in the South Hills, not too far from where my brother Brian lives but in a much nicer neighborhood (his words). It was a very nice place, but there was one drawback: It was on a very windy road that had no shoulder. You could walk straight into downtown Eugene from Brian’s place on the sidewalk if you wanted to (in fact, Matthew, HJ, and I walked most of the way back to Brian’s place from downtown Eugene), but it would be quite dangerous to try to walk along the main road off of which our rental was located.

However, if you walk a short distance away from the main road, you reach a park. This park connects with a number of other streets that do have sidewalks; discovering this allowed us to do some actual walking during our stay, which was good because our whole family likes to walk. This photo is from when we first discovered the park. There is a single bench on a concrete slab sitting kind of in the middle of nowhere, and HJ decided to take a break there with Mom and Dad.

We didn’t just walk around our neighborhood, though. Brian also drove us all out to the University of Oregon campus, which we walked around for a while before crossing the Willamette River (yep, it runs through Eugene, too) and walking along a park path through the woods. We eventually got to a boat ramp and decided that would be a good place to finish up. HJ, Mom, and Dad hung out by the boat ramp while Brian and I hoofed it back across campus to his car so we could go pick them up. The photo above is from the park path north of the river. This is another one I chose because it told an interesting story; I just love the juxtaposition of cool-as-a-cucumber Brian in the front of the pack and HJ peeking out from behind him with her whimsical V for victory. You might also be able to make out Dad looking very serious even farther back. Mom was with us, too; she’s just hidden from view here.

Our house had two decks, one leading off of the living room and one leading off of the kitchen. This is the view through the trees (Douglas firs) toward downtown Eugene from the living room deck. It was a very nice house; we had the whole upper floor to ourselves, while the property manager lived downstairs. When we saw pictures of it online, it had looked reasonably secluded in its own little bit of woods. I had expected it to be far less impressive in real life, but to be honest we were not disappointed. We did have neighbors (one of whom for some reason felt it necessary to run an air compressor for hours each day), but it did feel like our own little slice of the hills.

This is the Saturday Market, or at least part of it. Specifically, this is the “food court” area of the market, filled with stalls selling a wide variety of foods and flanked by a stage with live music. There were a few people who seemed to have come out for the express purpose of dancing to the music; one woman in particular brought a bag with different accessories and clothing that she changed out in between songs. Now that’s dedication. HJ and I passed on the dancing and just had some lunch here—fish and chips for me and Mexican for HJ. There is a lot more to the market that you can’t see here; all told it covers about four blocks. One quarter of the market is a more traditional farmer’s market, but the rest is various artists selling their wares from stalls. HJ bought a very nice pair of earrings here: hydrangea blossoms preserved in resin and encircled in silver hoops.

Although we did spend most of our time at the rental house or exploring Eugene, we did of course visit Brian’s place as well. It’s not big enough for everyone to hang out for any length of time, mainly because he doesn’t have a living room. This photo was taken in what would normally be the living room but which he has transformed into his studio (Brian is a musician; a few of his older songs are up on YouTube, if you’re curious). Here, our youngest brother Matthew listens intently as Brian expounds on the intricacies of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Just kidding—I actually have no idea what they were talking about. Given Matthew’s expression of interest, though, it’s probably related to computers, as Matthew is an IT guru.

Here we are back at the rental place, this time on the deck off of the kitchen. I’m not sure why, but this seemed to be where we spent most of our deck time. That barrier in the back separated us from the neighbor with the air compressor. They also had a sprinkler that they ran one day and which sprayed water over the fabric (which had presumably been erected to prevent that) and onto the deck where HJ is sitting in this photo. Aside from that minor (and one-time) annoyance, it was a nice place to hang out.

And suddenly it’s cloudy again! It was bright and sunny (and rather warm) for pretty much our entire stay in Eugene, but the sky began to cloud over as we neared the coast on the bus from Eugene. As I described in my write-up, we sort of got stranded in Florence when the Florence-Coos Bay morning bus never showed up, but my friend Jared was gracious enough to make the drive up to pick us up. It’s funny, because when he came to Seoul last spring, his luggage ended up arriving a day late. Apparently something has to go wrong whenever we visit each other. All things considered, though, it could have been worse. We did get to walk around Florence, which is a quaint little town just off the coast, and we had a nice lunch before making the trip back to Coos Bay.

This photo needs some explanation. Yes, we are in a casino—one run by the Coquille (pronounced “ko-kwel”) Indian Tribe (CIT), the tribe for which Jared works. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, as Jared pointed out, the casino is an important source of revenue for the tribe and funds a lot of critical social programs. On the other hand, I personally feel that casinos are a social evil. I am willing to allow that for some—maybe even many—people, gambling is just another form of entertainment, no more or less harmless than any other pastime. But the US seems to be dealing with a gambling epidemic at the moment, primarily driven by sports gambling (which apparently can be advertised anywhere now) but also “prediction markets” in general, which are essentially unregulated gambling sites. And gambling addiction is a very real problem for many people and ruins a lot of lives. I’m not really sure how to reconcile the money that the casino brings into the tribe with my perception of it as a social evil.

Anyway, while the current gambling epidemic in the US is a fairly recent thing, my stance on gambling has been negative for as long as I can remember. I won’t go so far as to say that I think casinos should be shut down or anything... but I do think we would be better off without them. Many years ago, though, back when my friend Dave was living on the west coast, we all took a trip to Las Vegas. That might seem like an odd destination for someone who is so anti-gambling, but Dave had gotten us a great deal through someone he knew on a hotel room and VIP package. That’s a story for another day, though. The point is that we spent a few days in Las Vegas doing a lot of things that weren’t gambling—seeing shows, eating and drinking, shopping, etc. On the last day, though, we were walking through a casino and HJ wanted to try her hand at a slot machine. I believe it was penny slots, or maybe a nickel—something small, at any rate. But I stubbornly opposed the idea, and she never did get a chance to shake the one-armed bandit’s hand.

In the intervening years, I’ve often regretted being such a hard ass, and HJ hasn’t let me forget it, either. So, as we walked through the casino on the way to the bar where we would be having some drinks as we watched a World Cup match, I asked Jared if they had any slot machines with an actual lever to pull. It turns out that most of the slot machines these days just have you hit a button instead of pulling a lever. They also seem to be a lot more complicated than just having three wheels spin and maybe line up if you’re lucky. Fortunately, though, we were able to find some old-fashioned machines (at least, machines that mimicked old-fashioned slot machines). Before I could make a move, Jared slipped a twenty into one of the machines and told HJ to have a go. I protested, but he reminded me that the money was going to the tribe (and also to pay for his health insurance). So HJ finally got the chance to pull the lever on a slot machine, as you can see here. What you can’t see here is her losing all twenty dollars in rather short order.

This photo is from the next day, when we went out to a small town called Bandon and explored the rugged Oregon coastline. We actually saw a number of these sculptures in the area, including a seahorse, a jellyfish, an octopus, a puffer fish, and a puffin. This is, if I remember correctly, a rockfish (which is also what I had for lunch, in the form of fish and chips). All of the sculptures are created by a collective known as Washed Ashore; as you might have already guessed, the sculptures repurpose trash that has been washed ashore near Bandon. None of the trash has been colored or otherwise modified, just cut up and put together again in the shape of the various creatures that are affected by this trash. It’s honestly kind of mind-blowing to see these huge sculptures and realize just how much garbage makes its way into the ocean.

We went down to the coast, where it was very cold and windy under the gray skies—but we did get to see a lot of sea lions just chilling out on the rocks. This is probably one of those photos you’ll want to click on to get the larger version for a better look at these cute creatures.

The Oregon coast is absolutely littered with rocks, some of which take interesting shapes. The rock on the left side of this photograph, for example, is called “Face Rock.” You can probably see it now: the face of a young girl looking up at the sky. There is a Coquille legend that Jared shared with us about a chief’s beautiful daughter being abducted by an evil sea spirit but refusing to look at him, instead gazing up at the moon. If that piques your curiosity, allow me to point you to a much longer version of the tale.

Here are some more of those rocks I was talking about, although these are mostly on the shore. I took this photo because of a particular formation that seemed to resemble something to HJ and me. Do you see anything interesting here? Look at the big rock in the center of the photo. Now look just to the right of that. There is a rock that HJ and I thought looked like an East Asian noble sitting in a long robe with a horsehair hat on his head.

Here we are back in Bandon—and the sun is shining! A lot of time has passed since the previous photo; after enjoying the coastal scenery, we went back into town and stopped at a brewpub to enjoy some local brews. When we emerged, the clouds had given way to blue skies and a bright sun. In this light, the boats docked in the port of Bandon look idyllic... almost enough to make me want a boat of my own.

Back out at the coast, we went to Bullards Beach State Park and visited the Coquille River Lighthouse (unlike the tribe name, the place name is pronounced “ko-keel”). The weather was still beautiful, although the wind was blowing a gale; we needed all of our layers to stay warm. As I believe I mentioned in my longer write-up, if I had known how hot most of the rest of our trip was going to be, I would have appreciated the cool coastal weather a lot more.

HJ and Jared are making “finger hearts” here—HJ did it first and then Jared copied her. You may notice that they also have something else in common: They’re both good at smiling for photos (unlike me). Jared, in fact, is particularly skilled at taking selfies, so much so that those of us who know him often rib him for making the “Jared face” when taking a selfie. I think it’s really just because we’re jealous that we aren’t nearly as good at it.

We’re back in Coos Bay here, at the farmer’s market that happens every Wednesday. Karen had recommended a rosewater and pistachio pastry that one of the bakery stalls sells (I think there were at least three different bakeries represented in the relatively small market). Here, HJ is chowing down on one. It was indeed quite tasty—but it was also something like seven or eight dollars, which is frankly ridiculous. The exchange rate being very much not in our favor didn’t help, but that aside the prices during our trip still felt really high. I’m sure HJ has records of how much we spent; I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.

And we’re back out on the sunning Oregon coast, with the weather to match. This was taken at or near Shore Acres State Park. For some reason, the scene here looked very familiar, and both HJ and I thought that we might have stopped at this very beach on our trip up the west coast back in 2001. Then again, this beach is pretty far from Route 101 (aka the Pacific Coast Highway); in fact, 101 veers as far from the coast here as it ever gets while in Oregon. So, no, we probably didn’t stop here after all. We just remember the coast being equally beautiful wherever we did stop.

Here’s one final shot of the coast, underneath a slightly less gray sky, with waves crashing on barrier rocks far from shore. You might not be able to tell from the smaller photo here, but there is another colony of sea lions basking on the beach in front of the large rock. (They’re still pretty small even in the larger version of this photo.)

The sky was already starting to clear up when I took the previous photo, and by the time we got to the CIT reservation it was bright and sunny. This is the tribe’s plankhouse, where important events and ceremonies are held. We did get to go inside, but as a gesture of respect for the place’s sacred significance to the tribe, no photographs were taken.

This is one of the dugout canoes that the tribe has been working on recently; I don’t think Jared worked on this one specifically, but he told us he has worked on others. It would have been nice to take one of these out on the ocean, but with the weather being as cold and windy as it was, I think I’m glad we stayed dry.

Back at Jared and Karen’s place, I took this photo through the trees toward Coos Bay in the distance. Their place was really nice, with plenty of room for guests (we had our own room that was furnished and prepared as well as any boutique hotel I’ve ever visited—props to Karen for that), but it is also located near the top of a hill with great views. Being up on a hill, it does get pretty windy outside, but on the leeward side of the house they had a gas-powered fire pit, which we’ll come back to in a moment.

In the early evening we walked out to a brewpub for dinner and some beers; before heading home we went out to the Coos Bay boardwalk, which sits on the east side of the town of Coos Bay along Isthmus Slough. “Slough” is a word that I only learned on this trip to Oregon; it is pronounced like “slew” and generally refers to a slow-moving wetland river or other body of water. The slough here looks more like a typical river as it flows north to Coos Bay, but I suspect that originally it would have been more marshy; I’m guessing that the banks have been built up and/or fortified to make them more suitable for human habitation and construction. At any rate, the boardwalk was a scenic, peaceful place to be as the sun lowered in the west. There is even an old tugboat preserved there that captures some of the area’s history.

And here we are, by the fire pit back at Jared and Karen’s place, making s’mores. You might wonder why I decided to include a photograph of a s’more, but this is no ordinary s’more. See the wrapper just to the right of my freshly constructed confection? That’s right: Instead of a typical square of chocolate, at Karen’s suggestion I used a Reese’s peanut butter cup. She had yet to steer us wrong, so I gave it a shot... and it was amazing. If you are a weird person and for some reason don’t like peanut butter (hi, Mom!), you will not like this. If you are a normal person, though, I would highly recommend giving this a try sometime.

Biting into my PBC s’more brought to mind our first trip to Scotland. We stopped in at a chippy (that is, a fish-and-chips shop) in Edinburgh to try a deep-fried Mars bar, as I had heard it was a Scottish “delicacy.” It wasn’t on the menu, but when I asked the owner if he could make me one, his eyes lit up. He prepared two—one for me and one for HJ. He watched me with eager eyes and templed fingers as I ate the treat, and after my first bite he asked, “Well? How was it?” I answered, with some surprise in my voice, “It’s really good!” He was delighted and began to rattle off a list of candy bars that he had personally deep fried, highlighting his favorites; I’m pretty sure I remember peanut butter cups being among the candidates. I laughed and told him I would have to try those next time; the Mars bar was good, but it’s not the sort of thing you want to overdo. When I bit into my PBC s’more, though, I found myself wondering how I had never thought of this myself, given that experience. It kind of makes me want to try other candy bars the next time I make a s’more.

We had a great time at Jared and Karen’s place, and it was great to finally meet Karen after hearing about her for so many years. But Yellowstone beckoned, so early the next morning we hopped into the rental car we had picked up the previous afternoon and headed for Seattle. As I mentioned in my longer write-up, our original plan had been to head directly to Yellowstone via Boise, but we discovered that it was cheaper to drive one-way to Seattle and then do a round trip to and from Yellowstone from there. In an ideal world, we would have had time to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway, but that would have required us to leave very early in the morning, and we weren’t prepared to do that. We ended up driving a short way up 101 and then turning inland at Reedsport to follow the Umpqua River east and eventually join I-5. Jared recommended this route both for the beautiful drive along the river and for the elk viewing point along the way shortly after the Reedsport turnoff. We munched on a snack in the cold morning winds here as we watched the elk grazing in the open fields.

The drive up I-5 to Seattle was fairly uneventful, and we managed to return our first car and pick up our new car, a Kia Niro hybrid, as I related in the longer write-up. From there it was slightly under two hours to Ellensburg, where we spent the night. The next morning we got up early again and headed toward Spokane (which, at the time of writing, is beset by wildfires). We had lunch at a pretty good sandwich shop in Post Falls, a small town past Spokane, and then kept driving toward Missoula, where we would again spend the night before the final push to Yellowstone.

I-90 from Seattle to Yellowstone is not my favorite road. I’ve certainly been on much worse interstates (I-35 from Dallas to San Antonio might be my pick for least favorite interstate), but I-90 can be quite a chore to drive as it climbs up and down mountains (I mean, it crosses the Rocky Mountains, for crying out loud), especially with some sort of construction going on once every fifty miles (if not more frequently). Seriously, I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever been on an interstate with that much construction.

What I-90 does have going for it, though, is the scenery. Yes, it’s an interstate, so you’re barreling through that scenery at high speed, but I was still able to appreciate the natural beauty. At one point, the highway crossed a viaduct that towered over an old mining town below. HJ looked down and noted how quaint it looked. That was all the excuse I needed to get off the highway; I looked up, saw an exit, and put on my blinker. A few minutes later we were parked along one of the streets of Wallace, Idaho.

We didn’t spend long there, as I did want to get to Missoula and have time to head downtown for dinner and drinks, but we did spend a little while walking around the streets of the old town. It was now very hot—something we would have to deal with from now on—so we tried to walk down the shaded sides of the streets, as we are doing in this photo. There is a market set out in the street, which was closed to traffic, and far in the distance you might be able to make out a stage on which a band was playing.

I didn’t know anything about the town when I made the impulsive decision to stop, other than the fact that it was called Wallace and was obviously an old mining town. While preparing this photo essay, though, I decided to look up the town on Wikipedia and was surprised to see that such a small place (in 2020 it had a population of 791) had such a long page. You can go look it up if you’re interested in reading about the town’s rather complex history; I’ll just mention a few facts I found interesting. For one, even though the place is tiny, with a population under a thousand—and despite the fact that I have been calling it a “town” (and will probably continue to do so)—Wallace is apparently a city. Secondly, I-90 was originally planned to run right through the town, essentially wiping out the downtown area (hooray for government planners!). To prevent this, town (ahem, “city”) leaders listed every building in the downtown area on the National Register of Historic Places; I-90 had to settle for a detour through city streets, meaning that Wallace had the last stoplight on an interstate in the country. The viaduct was built in 1991, and now I-90 passes next to and above the town. Finally, Wallace was apparently where the 1990s disaster thriller Dante’s Peak was filmed!

Had it not been so hot, and had we known in advance about what the town had to offer (there is apparently a tour of a silver mine, for example), we might have actually scheduled a longer stop there, maybe leaving a little earlier in the morning and stopping there for lunch rather than Post Falls. Something to keep in mind if we ever do this trip again.

The trip from Wallace to Missoula was uneventful, and we checked into our hotel on the outskirts of town. There were buses from near our hotel to the downtown area, but we decided it would be easier (and a lot quicker) to drive the ten minutes into town, especially since parking was free in the evening. We parked along the street not long after crossing the Clark Fork River and looked around for someplace to eat dinner. We eventually settled on the Sumac Cafe, which is rather oddly located off a back alley but turned out to be pretty good. From there we walked twenty minutes to the Draught Works brewpub. Unlike a lot of places that call themselves brewpubs, Draught Works is the real deal, with half of the building taken up by the brewery. Jared had recommended it, and the beers turned out to be pretty good; I liked the Shadow Caster Amber Ale and the Lemon Meringue American Sour. At any rate, I took this photo on the way to the brewpub; I was struck by the old-fashioned Art Deco style of the service station.

We took the long way back to the car when we left the brewpub, as I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to walk off the flight I had consumed. I know a lot of people (especially, it seems, here in Korea) don’t take drunk driving all that seriously; I see people having a drink and then immediately getting into a car and driving off. I don’t know. I guess if you know your own limits, maybe that’s OK. For me, though, I have to be absolutely sure that the alcohol has worn off before I even thinking about getting into the driver’s seat—especially since it’s not just me in the car. I rarely if ever drive in Seoul, so it’s usually not an issue here, but in most places in the US you have to drive everywhere.

The sun was setting as we walked around the northern part of town, and I snapped this photo of the fading light hitting this church with the “M” on Mount Sentinel in the background. Contrary to expectations, the “M” does not stand for Missoula; it stands for the University of Montana, which is located in Missoula.

The following day was a Saturday, so we got up early to hit both the Farmer’s Market and the People’s Market downtown. The Farmer’s Market had a lot of interesting things on sale, but once again everything seemed really expensive, so we didn’t end up buying anything. The People’s Market, seen here, was a somewhat different story. This is more of a crafts market, and there were some pieces there that I would have considered buying had we not been traveling (or if shipping back to Korea wasn’t so expensive). HJ did find one artist who was selling, among other things, what we thought were really nice painted earrings. We asked the artist about them, and she told as that they were actually made from clay—she made the patterns in a large circle and then rolled the clay out into thin ropes that she sliced and then fired. Apparently, as long as you’re careful with the rolling, the pattern is preserved in much smaller form. HJ bought two pairs, one featuring owls (a favorite motif of hers) and another with an intricate flower bouquet design; this latter pair was given as a present.

Before leaving Missoula, we headed south to Caras Park on the Clark Fork River. Directly opposite the park, there is a place in the river that has been built up with rocks to create a wave for river surfing or kayaking. This is Brennan’s Wave; it was first built in 2002 to commemorate a Missoula kayaker named Brennan who died on a kayaking trip to Chile that year. Jared had told us about the wave, but I did not know this history as we watched the whitewater roiling and churning; I only learned it when I was preparing this photo essay. At the time, it was a dynamic, refreshing scene under the hot sun, but looking at this photo now I can’t help feeling a sense of melancholy. It’s amazing how context can change your perception of something.

We thought about sticking around in Missoula to have lunch, but it was too hot to be walking around, so we hit the road again and ended up in Butte for lunch at a small local cafe. As I recounted in my trip write-up, we met some locals there who let us know that the Montana Folk Festival was going on that weekend. So, instead of walking around in the heat of Missoula, we ended up walking around in the heat of Butte! And it was very hot—but I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to see the folk festival. Our first stop was an area along Broadway where Montana Folklife had set up tents for various artists. In the photograph above is a Dakota/Diné artist named Noah who primarily does beadwork. He started the vest he was working on a few years ago, put it aside, and recently took it out again, determined to finish it. We watched as he patiently wove tiny beads into the vest and told us about his art. He was one of a few artists we stopped to talk to before heading to a stage at the end of the street where a cowboy was telling stories.

This is looking back on Broadway, with the back of the tent erected over the storytelling stage down at the lower right. The historic district of Butte was interesting to walk around; the architecture made it feel like it had been frozen in time. Well, maybe “frozen” isn’t the best word to use here, considering how oppressively hot it was. Still, we enjoyed the brief time we spent at the folk festival before continuing on to West Yellowstone, which was only a few hours away at this point.

And that will bring this first photo essay to a close; we’ll pick up again next time with photos of the park itself.