Recently we passed the 4th anniversary of buying "Ocean", one of our cars. It's a BMW 230 convertible.

We bought the car used from a dealership in San Diego county. Yeah, that's not exactly right next door. The first thing we did after signing for the car was drive nearly 500 miles home.

Here's a pic from when we picked it up:



We bought the car, a 2018 model, with 24,xxx miles on the odometer. Today it's at 57,xxx. So we've driven it about 33,000 miles in 4 years. That averages out to 8,250 miles/year, well below the US average of 12-15k per year.

How do we like it? We still like it a lot! The car looks great, and a convertible is awesome in this part of California. Mild winters and mild summers mean we can drop the top to enjoy al fresco driving much of the year.

This car has a less powerful drivetrain than the BMW convertible it replaced. It's certainly no slouch with a 0-60 time under 6 seconds, but our previous car was even faster. We almost never miss the extra oomph. The car has all the creature comforts we want, which is way more important than winning stoplight races.

Oregon Cascades Travelog #12.5
McKenzie Pass, OR - Wed, 2 Jul 2025, 7:30pm

When we first neared the summit and entered a lava field at the edge of the McKenzie pass we thought, "Enh, we've seen lava fields before." But then it kept going. And going. And going. We realized it was a big thing. I started making video as we drove through. But then Hawk pointed out, "Stop! We just drove past an observatory made of lava! Go back."



And holy shit, up here at 5,325' (which isn't that high in California but seems like the roof of the world here in Oregon), there's a observatory made of lava rocks. Not just the floor is lava, but the walls and ceiling, too!

We were tired as hell, and hungry, and sore. We were counting the minutes until we got back home. But suddenly all those feelings went away. We had to explore this observatory made of lava!



It was a slow slog up those winding, uneven lava-rock steps to the top. A fierce wind blew away whatever warmth clung to our bodies. But the views as we circle around were amazing. Above is a view of The Sisters. It's actually the Three Sisters, but South Sister was feeling shy this evening and hid behind Middle Sister (on the right).



The observatory has chutes in its walls labeled with what mountain you can see looking through each slot. There are too many volcanic peaks visible to include them all. I'm sharing this non-peak picture, above, to show the view looking west, where we're headed next. We've already driven a few miles across this lava field, and there's about a mile more to go. When I looked north toward Mt. Washington, the lava field seemed to extend miles in that direction. It's amazing there's a road through here.... And according to plaques in the observatory, this is the route of the original road built across this part of the Cascades!

The Art & Wine Festival comes to town once or twice a year. And it doesn't just come to our town; it comes to several towns in the area. So if we miss it in Sunnyvale, we can catch it in Mountain View. Or Santa Clara. Or Fremont. Or Los Altos.

Last year and this year we've gone to see the Los Altos show. It's similar to the others; there are one or two organizations that run all the shows, and many of the vendors sign up for multiple shows as it's a significant part of their business. Los Altos tends to be a little higher end than the other shows, befitting the city's elevated real estate prices and snooty attitude. But what also sets Los Altos apart for us is that Hawk is now one of the artists at the Art & Wine Festival.



Hawk has been selling some of her jewelry creations through an established rock shop downtown. This year the shop owner invited her to be an "artist in residence" during the art show. Woohoo!

Hawk was at the store/show all day Saturday and will be again all day today, Sunday. Unfortunately she made now sales Saturday. The shop owner was surprised it was a weak day for her whole shop. There were plenty of visitors looking, but nobody was buying.

I don't think it was just the shop that was seeing slow sales. I spent an hour walking around all the booths in the afternoon, and other than the booze stands and the places selling ice cream, I didn't see anyone transacting much business. Oh, the streets were plenty crowded with festival-goers. But festival-goers were in look-but-don't-buy mode.

Oregon Cascades Travelog #11
Blue Lake OR - Wed, 2 Jul 2025, 6:30pm

According to our map on AllTrails, it was going to be an uphill climb from Lower Proxy Falls to the upper falls. Up, up, all the way; the steepest uphill on the trail. Well, aside from the off-trail climbing we did getting back up to the trail after climbing over logs and walking through water to see Lower Proxy Falls from its base, it was basically flat on the way to Lower Proxy Falls. In fact, the last little bit was gently downhill. AllTrails was out to lunch.

One thing I always enjoy about the Pacific Northwest, especially the Cascade Mountains, is how we're so often surrounded by huge trees.

I grew up in a neighborhood where a stand of old growth trees remained behind our house. It's almost unheard of today to have old growth trees in a suburban neighborhood. Developers bulldoze the entire plat for simplicity, build houses, and maybe plant a few saplings in the yard. But we had a few mature trees in our yard plus a stand of untouched forest behind us.

As a kid I always the view from our back yard of the tall, straight trees behind the house. But those were East Coast trees. They only seemed tall relative to my diminutive size. The tallest one, a looming Black Walnut, probably wasn't much more than 80' tall. But compared to everything else, and compared to me, it seemed huge. Out here in the PNW the commonest tree is the Douglas Fir, which easily grows to 200'+. It's humbling to feel so dwarfed by nature. It throws me back to my childhood sense of wonder.

It was just as well that the trail to Upper Proxy Falls was gently because Hawk and I were seriously flagging. It had been a long day, going on 6pm already as we wound down the last bit to the base of the falls.



Upper Proxy Falls was both pretty and a disappointment. Pretty, because, well, look at it. 😅 And yet also a disappointment because it was shrouded by so many trees and didn't seem to have a big, main tier anywhere but just a series of steep cascades.

Two groups of hikers arrived practically on our heels. One pair were the gal and guy who said "Yeah, no" when we told them about our adventure getting to the bottom of Lower Proxy Falls. They were content to admire these falls from across the pond at the bottom.

Another trio of hikers were young women who immediately started climbing a faint trail up the hill to the right of the falls. It seemed their goal was to get about 1/3 of the way up— that's as far as any of them got before them stopped, anyway— and take Instagram pictures (or is it TikTok videos nowadays?) of themselves in one of the larger cascades with water pouring over their heads. I timed my photos for when they were standing behind trees so they wouldn't ruin my Instagram-worthy pictures. 😂

After this Hawk and I hiked back up the slight rise from the bottom of the falls and the finished the loop back down to the parking lot. I honestly don't remember a lot about the hike from that point, other than that it was down at the end. We're both tired enough that we fell into the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other mindset, kind of block out other things around us. Now we're back at the car, resting for a moment before beginning the drive home over the McKenzie Pass to Bend on the other side of the Cascades.

Update: But wait, there's more! An unexpected hike appeared on the way home, when we thought we were too tired! Stay tuned....

Oregon Cascades Travelog #10
Blue Lake, OR - Wed, 2 Jul 2025, 5:30pm

After hiking Downing Creek Falls earlier this afternoon we drove back up toward the Santiam Pass then south down the McKenzie River canyon. We passed a few signs for waterfalls along the way and sped past them at 60mph, confident they weren't interesting. (Ironic foreshadowing: they were totally interesting. We'd have to come back for them!) We turned west, heading back uphill along Old McKenzie, and reached the trailhead for Proxy Falls.



The Proxy Falls trail is a loop with spurs off to two waterfalls, Lower and Upper Proxy Falls. We quickly found that our AllTrails.com map was out to lunch. It showed the first part of the trail as being downhill. You can see in the pic above that it's decided uphill. We huffed and puffed up a ridge of volcanic rubble.

Just as we were running out of steam the trail leveled off. Soon enough we reached the spur for the first falls.



The spur trail led to a partial view of Lower Proxy Falls. Much of the Falls, especially its base, was shrouded by dense trees down in the canyon. The trail seemed to peter out here. Keyword: seemed.

We paced back and forth a bit, peering down the little ridge we were on to see if there'd been a washout or slide that obscured the trail. Sure enough, there had been. We could see remnants of a trail at the bottom of the hill. We picked our way carefully down the hillside, then balanced on and climbed over the trunks of huge fallen trees across the bottom of the canyon until we reached the foot of Lower Proxy Falls.



To really get the best view of the falls we had to walk out into the middle of the creek. At first I hesitated as I was wearing my hiking sandals instead of my boots. Boots would let me step through a few inches of water without getting my socks wet. But I deemed that the weather was warm enough to deal with wet feet, plus what's beauty without a little discomfort? 😅 We walked into the creek and got our feet wet.



Once we were satisfied drinking in the view of the falls and soaking our feet in chilly water we scrambled across the big logs (much bigger than those you see in the photos above!) to the bottom of the hill opposite the falls. We picked a different route to the top, looking to save ourselves a few steps. I took a small spill on the way up. Again, what's beauty without a bit of discomfort. 🤣

At the top of the hill we met a pair of hikers looking for the falls. We told them about our cross-country, wet-foot expedition, and they basically said, "Yeah, no." In fact I think those were their exact words: "Yeah, no." 🤣

Fine by me if they choose to stay on the bunny trail. Me? In beauty I walk.

Keep reading: These were Lower Proxy Falls; next we visit Upper Proxy Falls!

Last week our Nissan Xterra passed 130,000 miles. It was on the last of several days we spent in Oregon, just after we finished hiking at Smith Rock State Park.



Unlike some other times we've passed a big milestone with a car I didn't pull over to take pictures. On the narrow country lane we were driving at the time there wasn't room. Thus I settled for taking a few quick pictures from behind the wheel.



Speaking of other milestones, I don't think I've posted one of these "Milestone xxx,xxx" blog entries since we hit the 100,000 mile mark with this car. And that was nearly five years ago.

Part of the reason it's been five years between posting about milestones is that it took five years to add these 30,000 miles. We don't drive this car as much as we used to. I mean, not that this car really ever saw us packing the miles on, though there was a period of about a year when I used it for a 75 mile/day commute. That packed on the miles. But 30k in the past 5 years is an average of just 6,000 miles/year. That's less half the US average of 12-15k/year.

Why is our mileage so low? Well, it's not from avoiding long car trips. 😅 We drove 1,762 miles in 6 days on this Oregon trip. In fact big trips like this, plus medium trips where we drive 400-500 miles in a couple of days, like the Spring trip we did to the Sierra foothills in March, account for at least half of the mileage overall nowadays. Short trips around town most days of the week are the other half. What's not part of the mileage is commuting to work. That's because I've worked remotely for several years.

This car, a 2011 model, is now nearly 14 years old. We occasionally wish it had some more modern features, like Apple CarPlay, though we bought an inexpensive BlueTooth adapter for it that makes it only slightly fussy to play our tunes from our phones. We're in no rush to have a car payment again. We can imagine keeping this car for a few more years.... or until it requires a costly repair. Yes, sadly, this Nissan has needed a few $1,000+ repairs plus one $2k repair several years ago that actually cost more like $4k when including the towing costs (the car died in a remote small town) and travel costs (we were 1,000 miles from home). Thankfully our most recent spot of car trouble only cost us $150.

Oregon Cascades Travelog #8
Bend, OR - Wed, 2 Jul 2025, 11:30am

I posted two blogs already about hiking Tumalo Falls and all I've shared is... Tumalo Falls (see part 1, part 2). Well, okay, not just the falls but also a bit about the art and science of photography. But, hey, there's still hiking to be done here. In beauty I walk, and all of that.



The trail continues past Tumalo Falls up a pretty stream canyon. Maybe a mile or so in it reaches Double Falls. These aren't as awe-inspiring as Tumalo Falls but definitely worth the extra hike.



I'm sharing here two pictures, one I took with each of the cameras I'm carrying. I won't explain this time what the differences are.... I leave that to you for homework. It'll be easy if you've actually read my past two blogs and not just looked at the pictures. (Extra credit for identifying where that quip comes from, BTW. 🤣)

At 2 miles this isn't a huge hike. It's certainly not our plan for the day. It's actually just our plan for before lunch. We'll hike back down and drive back into town for some eats, then drive up over the crest of the Cascades for more hikes this afternoon.

Oregon Cascades Travelog #7
Bend, OR - Wed, 2 Jul 2025, 10:30am

We got a bit of a late start leaving our hotel room in Bend today. As a result we put off a hike in the desert-y terrain west of here because we'd want to start early to beat the heat until later in the week. Instead we came here, to the Oregon Cascades where there's shade on most trails, and hoped we weren't starting too late for the popular Tumalo Falls trail. We weren't; we arrived in good time. And it would be the first of at least six (depending on how you count them) waterfalls we'd see today.

Fair warning: In this blog I'm going to talk tech(nique) about photography. If that makes your eyes glaze over, you're more than welcome to employ the Playboy magazine approach of just looking at the pictures and not reading the article. 🤣



If waterfalls were scored on a scale of views divided by distance or effort to get to them, Tumalo Falls would score very highly. The first viewpoint, where I make the photo above, is just steps from the trailhead. There's also an upper viewpoint that you can see above the falls to the left in the pic above. I'll get back to that in a moment.

On this trip I carried two cameras, as I often do— though less now than before. The two cameras are 1) my cell phone's built-in camera, which I virtually always have with me, and 2) my Fujifilm interchangeable lens camera that I opt to carry with me when I think the views are going to be really great... or require one of the things that camera, and the special lenses I own, are really good for. I'm selective about bringing the latter camera because it's comparatively heavy and bulky.

So, what's this heavy, bulky (comparatively) camera really good for? Let's start with the same basic picture:



One thing you can see straight away by comparing these first two photos is that, in good light, the Fuji captures way richer colors than my iPhone. "Oh, but can't you punch up the colors in Photoshop?" you might ask. I already did! The first picture is the result after fiddling a bit with saturation and contrast. The Fuji kicks the iPhone's iAss when there's good light.

BTW, why do I specify "good light"? Take look at the deep shadow to the right of the falls. The iPhone pulls out more detail in the shadow. Again, yes, I can try to fix that in Photoshop, and again, yes I've already done that in the Fuji's picture. The difference is that modern iPhone are actually doing exposure stacking, automatically combining multiple images capture immediate after each other at different exposure values to show more detail in areas of deep shadow. Doing this with a conventional camera involves a technique called HDR— high dynamic range— that requires some manual steps in addition to special software. The iPhone just does it automatically and gives you the result without you even having to think about it.

Okay, so rich colors in good light are nice, but what else can the heavy, bulky camera do? Well, I like to bring it whenever I know I'll be seeing waterfalls, because it can capture motion-blurred water.



Here's a photo from the same vantage point again but with the camera set to make an exposure lasting 0.25 sec. Relative to that speed the water is moving very fast, so it blurs into an appearance like silk sheets, while the trees' leaves move only slightly and the rocks move not at all.

Achieving this blur effect requires a few pieces of equipment and a degree of control over the camera. The key piece of equipment is a neutral density (ND) filter, a lens attachment that blocks out most of the light. This allows the camera to be set with a very slow shutter speed and not capture an image that's all washed-out white from so much light hitting the sensor. Remember, photography is the art and science of captured light. Capture too little, the picture's all black. Capture too much, the picture's all white. I'm using an ND filter that blocks 98.5% of the light. (Why 98.5%? That's an approximation. It's actually passing through 1/64, or 1/2⁶, of the light. This is called a 6 stop ND filter. Every "stop" is a factor of 1/2.)

While this extra gear is fun to use effectively it's also a minor nuisance to use. Or, more specifically, switching in and out of the gear is a nuisance. The filters screw on and off the front of my lenses, and I have a little pouch to keep them in when they're not screwed on a lens. Going back and forth between "filter is screwed on" and "filter is off, and stowed" is time consuming. And on the trail it's also a bit dangerous. What if I drop a filter? The big ones aren't cheap. And when they get dirty I have to clean them— which while hiking is also a nuisance.

Thus I decided after doing the screw-it-on/screw-it-off thing at the viewpoint near the trailhead I would just leave the ND filters on the lenses on my Fujifilm camera. I'd use my iPhone for standard snaps and my Fuji for the specialized blur shots. BTW, that's how pro photographers roll. When you see them juggling multiple cameras at an event, it's because the camera are set up to do different things really well, and it's easier to swap cameras between shots than to reconfigure the gear. So, for the rest of the hike I rolled like a pro. 😅

Oregon Cascades Travelog #24
Back home - Sun, 6 Jul 2025, 6pm

We're back home from our trip to the Oregon Cascades and high desert. We got back home a bit after 5pm today, was a bit over 6 days after we left home Monday afternoon. The trip today was all driving, no adventuring, as we decided this morning we just wanted to get home. Today's drive was 334 miles, bringing the total distance for the trip to 1,762 miles. That's a lot to cover in 6 days— nearly 300 miles per day— especially with all the hiking we did in addition to the driving.

We're already unpacked from the trip. We make a point nowadays of unloading everything from the car and putting it away as soon as we get home. Years ago we'd sometimes play the "Ugh, we're so tired" card and leave things in the car, intending to unpack the next day. The thing is, there's usually no more convenient time to do it. The next day after a trip is usually a work day, which means there are plenty more reasons to put off unpacking. I think the record was stuff got left in the car for a week one time. 🤣

Speaking of tomorrow being a work day, it is. For me, at least. That was a big part of why I favored coming straight home today. At 6pm now it's not exactly "early", but I've got things unpacked, I'm stretching out to relax, and I can take it easy the rest of this evening. All this will make it somewhat easier to start a full work week tomorrow morning.
Edit to add: One thing that's not done from this trip is the blogging. I figure I've got about 10 blogs stuck in the backlog. We'll see if I can clear them out this week.

Oregon Cascades Travelog #22
Misery Ridge, OR - Sat, 5 Jul 2025, 3pm

We're hiking the Misery Ridge trail. You know we had to take pictures like this.



But really we weren't miserable. At least not yet, while we were at the top of the ridge. 🤣 There were so many beautiful sights up there!

I already wrote about the hike around the river and the climb to Monkey Face (previous blog entry). Here's another view of Monkey Face:



This one's with anonymous hiker standing where I posed for my selfie in the previous blog.

That snow capped peak in the distance is Mt. Jefferson, BTW. It's one of seven volcanic peaks in the Oregon Cascades you can see from up here, including all three of the Three Sisters.



There are other views from atop Misery Ridge beside the Monkey Face. This is that forbiddingly steep dark ridge that looms over the river. From here it looks like I could hike down to it and skip along its top.

But I didn't. Because, while the hike up here wasn't exactly miserable it also wasn't... a walk in the park. 🤣 It was hard. And I wanted to rest.



Hawk sat down on a bench with a view over Monkey Face while I hiked down to it. When I came back I didn't want to sit, exactly. I was concerned if I sat I might not want to stand back up... and hike all the way down the mountain. So I stood. In the shade. And used this tree as my dressing stand to take the weight off my pack off my back while I stretched.

Soon enough it was time to start down. This being the Misery Ridge loop route we selected, we didn't have to double back the way we came. There was still more trail ahead of us.



That trail ahead of us was the steep part of the trail. The part that does countless switchbacks up the front face of Smith Rock. From the top it's no less steep... though it is at least down.

Going down still doesn't make it "a walk in the park". Going down a steep trail is a toe-jamming, knee-jarring, try-not-to-slip affair. Hawk and I did it mostly in silence.



The last bit down the steep switchbacks reminds of playing Donkey Kong. This is what it would have looked like from the ape's point of view. Maybe that's why the rock at the top looks like a monkey face!

When we crossed the bridge at the bottom of the canyon I rested up at that round oasis for a bit. This time I did sit... because I needed to regain strength for the 200' climb up and out of the canyon. While sitting there I chatted with some climbers about the day's beautiful weather. "It's hot out here, is it 90°?" one asked the other. "No, it's only 75," the second answered. I chimed in that 75 was correct, adding that it certainly feels like 90 because of the sun exposure. "And I'm so glad we hiked today when it's not actually 90, like it was a few days ago," I quipped. Yeah, it would've been a lot tougher on us if we'd done this hike on Tuesday like we'd originally planned.

Hawk caught up to me at the oasis. I didn't realized how far she'd fallen behind. She was in bad shape from the steep descent. I took her pack for the climb out. I think for her this was the Misery Ridge part of the trek. For me it was... well, I chose not to form an opinion of it. It was just the last thing we had to do to finish an otherwise amazing hike. In beauty I walk... even if I'm hobbling at the end 

I'm jotting down these notes as we're stopped just outside the park. There's an ice cream store here! Middle of nowhere, and someone has the bright idea to build an ice cream shop right next to desert-y park where everyone comes out hot and tired and hungry from hiking. Brilliant!