Last summer we stayed for a few nights in a little lovely town of Yachats Oregon. About ten or so miles north of it is the town of Waldport. It is not a big town but it seats on the Alsea Bay and HW 101 crosses it, providing some shelter for boats and opportunity for some photography. I think we went twice to this place for sunset photos, this one was on the first night.
Usually claustrophobia is associated with little tiny spaces, like closets, small rooms, WC on the airplanes. But there are other types of claustrophobia’s, one of them is opposite of the small places, it is when people feel claustrophobic in large spaces, it just happens for these places to be a bit less “open”. I’ve heard stories of people who grew up in New Mexico, went to college to NC and felt absolutely claustrophobic. If you been to both states then you’ll know what I’m talking about. And there is another type of claustrophobia, not space related, I call it “organizational” or “authority” claustrophobia. It is a bit complicated to describe it. All I can say is that I think I have that type of claustrophobia, that is why many years ago I left Soviet Union and pretty much all of my professional career work in consulting industry, which is to me one of the great forms of modern day capitalism.
Anyway, why am I talking about all this? Well, the following image got me thinking about it. Being free. Open space. No restrains. No other reason.
I love how you can see for miles and miles on the American West, there is no ending to it. On a clear day like this you can see so far away; we were about thirty miles away from the Mt Hood and you can see it like it is right in your back yard. Nothing like this ever happens on the East coast. Most times we have too much humidity here for such clear views.
While visiting Oregon one of the biggest surprises for me was how quickly the landscape and weather changes from West to East. In a matter of 15-20 miles it changes from lush-plush forest area to pretty much dry sun burned steppes. It was my first visit to Oregon and first time we drove from Portland to The Dalles, I really could not believe my eyes to such a drastic change in environment.
Last summer we were staying at a little resort in Yachats, Oregon, right in that middle blue house on this photo. I took this photo on the first evening, just after we arrived there. The following two days I went out to check the beach and every time it was completely different. During low tides it did not have the same tidal pools at all. Ocean really controls the beach and how it looks day after day.
It was a nice and cool night in early August. I’d love to go back and visit it again one day. Oregon coast is awesome.
I can’t remember the exact location where I took this photo, it is somewhere in northern part of Oregon coast. I think it is somewhere between Canon Beach and Rockaway Beach, but I might be mistaken. Even in the middle of the summer that water is very cold, those surfers really into surfing. Personally I have never tried any water sports in cold Pacific ocean waters, so my hat goes off to them. I’m sure wet suits help a lot, but still it is cold water in northern part of Oregon.
This is from my recent short visit to Portland. I came in late afternoon, stayed there one night and then headed back to Seattle. According to every local that I had a chance to interact on my short photo walk it is very unusual to have clear day in the middle of the winter. So a lot of them enjoyed nice weather and I guess I was lucky too. Clouds were slowly coming in and the following morning we had full overcast with rain.
Portland downtown is not as big as other nearby large cities, it has only a few tall buildings, and they are spread around the downtown area, so it does not have the same “big city” photo ops as Seattle or New York city, but it is very easy to get around it with free tram system and abundance of great restaurants to eat at.
