Category Archives: General

GORGE(OUS) VIEWS – MAJESTY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE

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Magnificent viewpoint near Nesika Lodge looking upstream towards Bonneville Dam.
Magnificent viewpoint near Nesika Lodge looking upstream towards Bonneville Dam. One of the many spectacular views to be found within the Columbia River Gorge.

The Columbia River Gorge is one of the natural highlights of the Pacific Northwest.  Only the Columbia River penetrates through the Cascade Mountain range and does so in a magnificent manner.  Long an important transportation corridor whether rail, old highways, new freeways, canoes or flatboats.  Waterfalls tend to bring the tourists to the Gorge along with the views of the immense canyon from spots like Crown Point on the Historic Columbia River Highway.  But trails take you to the top of many other vista points as magical as those at the Vista House.  Here are a few of my personal favorite Gorge views.  Maybe you have others.

In no particular order with regard to personal preference, I present them from west to east.

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DOBERDO – HUNGARIAN SACRIFICE RECAPTURED IN THE KRAS

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Headstone in the Austro-Hungarian military cemetery in Bovec, Slovenia bedecked with a faded Hungarian tri-colored ribbon.
Headstone in the Austro-Hungarian military cemetery in Bovec, Slovenia bedecked with a faded Hungarian tri-colored ribbon similar to graves in cemeteries in Doberdo.

In 2018, as part of centenary observances of World War 1, a monument unveiled at Fiume Road Graveyard in Budapest.  This became the first national memorial erected commemorating the efforts Hungarians undertook during the Great War.  Government officials noted the memorial was in line with a fundamental theme of the nation: to restore historical continuity broken during the Nazi and Communist occupations.

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CRUISING INTO THE MAGIC OF BAYS OF KOTOR

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Sunset over the Bays of Kotor - the mountain of Vrmac looms darkly in the middle.
Sunset over the Bays of Kotor – the mountain of Vrmac looms darkly in the middle.

In the past, I have not been a big fan of vacationing on huge cruise ships.  A few friends and I watched from the shore of Glacier Bay as cruise ship after cruise ship made their way up the large fjord.  We were happy experiencing the wilderness of one of the America’s most magnificent national parks on a more personal scale.  Just us and the grizzly bears.  Could the Bays of Kotor change that feeling?

Another time, I stayed at a hotel in Kusadsi for almost a week a few years ago.  Every day brought several behemoths to dock at the waterfront. Buses lined up for the inevitable bus pilgrimage to nearby Ephesus.  And then, at sunset, the giant ships would set sail into the sunset for their next day’s destination – Bodrum, Mykonos, Santorini, Istanbul. Again, I was happy to be staying behind.  This year, I bit the bullet joining a cruise taking in the Adriatic and western Mediterranean.  The cruise turned out very enjoyable.  The highlight, the slow entry into the wondrous fjord system making up the Bocche di Cattaro, known locally as the Boka Kotorska or simply, the Magic of Kotor.

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TRANSATLANTIC JOURNEY REVEALS MAGIC IN THE AIR

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Late Fall sunshine on the east Greenland coast seen on a transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Seattle.

After just returning from a series of eye clinics in Albania, I will share a few thoughts on the sights seen outside the window from over 34,000 feet as I made my way back on a long transatlantic sojourn. This was the second set of clinics I have worked in Albania.

My transatlantic journey began too early at a crowded Nënë Tereza Airport just to the northwest of Tirana.  The first of three flights involved in my return to Oregon was scheduled for 0600.  Another colleague was flying to Rome at 0530, so we shared a cab. We left our hotel out in the western Albanian countryside near Durrës at 0330.  This coming after our last day of clinics. In an unheated building, we saw over 700 patients in Kukës, Albania, three hours north of where we were staying close to the border with Kosovo.

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FROM THE NORTHWEST TO THE FIELDS OF FRANCE – 361st INFANTRY REGIMENT IN THE GREAT WAR

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Private Ora Roscoe
Grave of Ora and his wife on the right.
Grave of Ora and his wife on the right.

On a recent visit to a cemetery, I visited several family ancestors buried in the very small community of Bellfountain, Oregon. Bellfountain lies in the southern part of the Willamette Valley. Amongst the graves, I found one particular headstone near the family ancestors mentioning the man’s service in World War 1 as part of the 361st Infantry Regiment.

The American Army mushroomed almost overnight with the country’s entrance into World War 1 in April 1917. Selective Service – conscription – was brought back for the first time since the American Civil War. One of the units raised, mostly from draftees from Washington and Oregon was the 361st Infantry Regiment, 181st Infantry Brigade, 91st Division.

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HARD TIMES, WALKABOUT ON THE LYLE CONVICT ROAD

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Ollie checks out the view over the river, the railroad and the current highway from the former roadbed built by Washington convicts in 1910-1911.
Ollie checks out the view over the river, the railroad and the current highway from the former roadbed built by Washington convicts in 1910-1911.

Oregon and Washington have used prison labor for various projects throughout their history.  Convicts have been working on a variety of projects from laundry to license plates to agriculture.  They also worked on convict road projects, though that only arose in the early 20th century.  Penitentiaries hoped to relieve overcrowding in the prisons while at the same time providing employment not conflicting with free labor.  They saw the employment also as a form of reward to their better behaving prisoners.  Prisoners had marks of degradation such as stripes, chains and shaven heads done away with.  Here, they gained a certain amount of freedom.  The work, done in the public good, was also seen as reformative.

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MINING MAGIC WITH A SITEMAP – REFRESHED MEANDERING

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corgis mixing
Finding One from the Other.

Keep at something long enough and it grows. That means it gets harder to find things. A couple of links within a post may glean a way forward to more information. The drop down menu can also lead on, but is a bit cumbersome, especially for the normal person spending 0.87 seconds on the site. I could leave it all up to SEO and search engines. Slow, but sure, the search engines actually do hit on a few of the posts. But I thought a simple page – sitemap – could do the job for the person actually interested in what is available. A simple matter of updating, on my part, as we go meandering along.

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TIGER TOWN BREWERY – RENEWAL FERMENTED IN THE WILD WEST

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Tiger Town on a quiet afternoon during the week in May. A different picture after June 1 and on the weekends before.

Tiger Town Brewing Co. is another one of the many examples of how craft breweries can revitalize a community.  Mitchell, Oregon is and has always been a very small town.  Centered not far from the geographic center of the State, Mitchell’s population since 1900 has always wavered around the 200-person mark, some years over (especially 1950 when the population soared to 415, though ten years later, it was back down to 236) and some years under.  The 2010 census clocked Mitchell at only 130 people though that number rebounded a bit by 1920 with 160 people calling Mitchell “home”.

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