Oregon

A collection of photos taken in my first year living in and adventuring around Oregon.

One of the greatest joys of moving to a new neighborhood, city, state, region, or country is getting the chance to explore and have everything just be new again. Below I’ve included some photographs I’ve taken in my first year-and-a-half in Oregon and some brief descriptions.

Clockwise from top left: Portland Union Station, fun neon a few blocks from my first apartment in the Alphabet District, a streetcar rolling through PSU's Urban Center, and more fun neon and glass construction down the street from my partner's.

As much as I adore Greater Boston, one major benefit of life in Portland is a much lower cost of living and, thus, ability to live alone in very close proximity to the center of the action. Downtown (as maligned as it is), the Pearl, and the inner east side have been great to explore themselves, but the transport links available so close to the CBD has made exploring just that much easier.

Left: the space age-y municipal elevator connecting Oregon City's main street (along the river) and residential district (on the cliffs above). Right: the old paper mills and Willamette Falls along the Willamette River just upstream of downtown.

While it doesn’t have commuter rail (besides a little suburban onet that’s a bit of an oddity and only runs 2 round trips a day) in the same way I’m accustomed too on the East Coast, transit links to Portland’s satellite cities are surprisingly frequent. One of my favorite little day trips we’ve made on TriMet’s buses includes Oregon City, a little mill town just upriver of the city that reminded me of the mill towns I call home.

Left: Hoffstadt Creek Bridge, crossing a gorge on the way to Mt St Helens. Right: Coldwater Lake, formed when its outlet was blocked by debris in the aftermath of the mountain's eruption.

Nestled right between the Coast Ranges and the Cascades (part of the Ring of Fire!), Portland has phenomenal views of the mountains and even has a few remnants of volcanoes within it’s own city limits! I’ve got a wonderful view of Mt Hood from my new apartment’s windows and balcony, but I feel some weird attachment to Mt St Helens; maybe its the history of eruption, but seeing it’s now cut-off summit in the distance, alone among much smaller hills, is impressive in a bit of a different way than Mt Hood’s iconic, near-perfect shape. Jackson and I took a day trip there and had a wonderful time hiking through lava fields and trying our best (and failing) to catch a glimpse of some elk. I’ve been bugging him to bring me to explore the lava tubes on the southern side of the mountain too. Maybe this summer.

Clockwise from top left: cargo ships off Astoria in the Columbia River estuary, the architecturally very fun post office along Cannon Beach's main street, beachgoers near Cannon Beach's Haystack Rock with the Coast Ranges in the background, Cannon Beach Ocean Rescue meandering past (very expensive) beachfront homes along the beach.

Finally, one of my favorite slivers of the PNW to explore since moving has been the Oregon Coast. It’s simply stunning and haunting, and I love the foggy, cool weather that’s pretty common along it. Cannon Beach in particular reminds me of Connecticut’s shore towns (with a touch of California), and I adore Astoria’s surprisingly built of downtown, adorable colorful houses, views, and Scandinavian heritage.