The Compass Rose Queen

Goodbye 2025, Hello 2026

Posted on December 31, 2025 by compassrosequeen

Hello to my friends, family, and any followers that I don’t know personally. Happy New Year and 7th Day of Christmas!

This year, I did not get any Christmas cards or newsletters sent out, so this post will have to do as far as a family update for the year. If you still need some Christmas cheer, there is a link below to an article Chris wrote recently about Charles Dickens, inspired by the film “The Man Who Invented Christmas.” I think I posted about most of our family outings and adventures on previous posts, so I won’t go into detail here. Read on for highlights of the year and updates. And stay tuned to future posts; I’m currently working on a sequel to my Grand Canyons article (“The Alps of Everywhere”) and one for a “Top 10 Things to Do in Eugene/Springfield Area”.

Here is a rundown of family highlights and new experiences for 2026:

In the winter, the kids got to bring a friend with them to play in the snow at Willamette Pass. We also got a bit of real snow here in the Valley instead of an ice storm, so I taught the kids how to make snow ice cream. In the spring we took my mom to the Enchanted Forest for her 70th birthday celebration on Mother’s Day. There, we all got tee-shirts with one of Chris’ drawings on it! They recently added that design to their online store, so you can order one if you want. Link below. Later in the spring, we bought a house! It’s a cute cottage that we are remodeling to make room for each of our 5 kids to have their own bedroom. Many thanks to my real estate agent cousin for the great find! This summer we camped at Carter Lake (part of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area) and visited Crater Lake National Park. This was the kids’ first full national park, and Chris’ first time to Crater Lake; he’d been to other national parks in the country but not Oregon’s. At the end of the summer, we went to Oaks Park in Portland so the kids could experience an amusement park with lots of rides. They loved the big scary roller coaster, and two of the kids roller skated in the nation’s oldest roller skating rink! Then on my birthday, we checked out the more northern coastal town of Newport and visited a wolf sanctuary. This fall, I went back to teaching. It’s been busy but fulfilling. My students are a hoot! I deeply appreciate my much-needed 3-year “sabbatical” in the insurance brokerage world while I got used to having 5 kids, but I am grateful to get back to where my heart is. Chris and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary in small-town Southern Oregon, exploring and taking in history. Just this week, we took the kids ice skating, a first for Chris and the two youngest ones. Our youngest had never even roller skated, so he was hugging the rim and having a tough time, but he refused to stop! By the end, he was able to skate a little without holding on. Next time, we’ll get there early enough to get a plastic seal.

Other than those new/big adventures, the year was filled with the usual rhythm of things: playing at city parks, springtime hikes, swimming holes and cultural festivals in the summer, visits to relatives and pumpkin patches, dressing up for Halloween, kids’ birthday parties (they just keep getting older and older! And taller and taller! Only the youngest kiddo is shorter than me now), decorating for holidays and seasons, taking walks, drawing (Chris and the kids are so good at it!), writing (do check out Chris’ regular blog and posts by him and me on our church’s blog if you get a chance), playing instruments (17yo plays cello in the school orchestra, 13yo plays violin and trumpet), building Lego things, petting the cat, working hard, learning the hard way, learning from others, lamenting sad things, and all the other things that make up our lives.

Some of the teens & tweens are now pretty camera-shy, so we did not get a Christmas card-worthy family photo this year. They hide their faces when they see their picture-happy stepmom holding up the phone. What do you do? Life is not always picture-perfect. But I am grateful for this sweet family. And for our extended family, friends, and community organizations that support us. I’m hopeful that 2026 will bring more personal growth for all of us and new opportunities and adventures. May 2026 bless all of you, too.

Art & writing from Chris and me this year:

Chris wrote a post for both his personal blog and for our church’s blog about Charles Dickens. Check it out here: https://www.citysalt.org/blog/2025/12/19-charles-dickens

Here are a few of my most recent blog posts on the church blog: https://www.citysalt.org/blog/2025/10/24-beyond-the-binary-jc and https://www.citysalt.org/blog/2025/8/15-loving-our-enemies-within-jc and https://www.citysalt.org/blog/2025/6/6-evolution-of-faith-jc

Chris’ blog: https://professorpopinjay.com/ On it, you can find humor articles, pictures of his art, and his movie “non-review” posts.

Chris’ Enchanted Forest tee-shirt if you need to update your wardrobe with something fun: https://www.enchantedforest.com/product-page/adult-enchanted-forest-car-park-t-shirt

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: christmas, family, holidays, life, travel | Leave a comment

Walk With Her

Posted on October 19, 2025 by compassrosequeen

There are so many world-traveling women out there now and in history that I’d love to write about. But I am lucky to know personally one woman that travels more than anyone I know! Tyler Burgess has retired from years of leading walking tours around the world and teaching fitness walking classes in Eugene, but she still travels to amazing places and shares them with us in a variety of artistic media.

Tyler grew up on a ranch in Wyoming, attended the University of Wyoming in Laramie, and then lived in Montana before moving to Oregon. I’m sure the epic beauty of those states impacted her wanderlust, but she told me she was inspired to travel from hearing her mother’s stories of travel (her father who was stationed in the Pacific Islands during the war).

She founded her business “Walk With Me” in 2000. For many years, she gave walking tours in 10 different countries, taught fitness walking classes at the UofO and LCC in Eugene, coached marathon walking training, and directed four marathons.

Now she is officially retired from all that, but she is nowhere near done traveling. She packs a fold-up bicycle into her luggage for many of her trips so she can travel by bike across places like Sri Lanka. In Europe, she’s done a few different pilgrimages on the Way of St. James. She says she loves those because the local churches have been praying for the pilgrims for over 1,000 years, and the hospitality is amazing. Her son lives in Ecuador, so she has a good excuse to travel around South America, too. She says her favorite specific place to travel to is Venice. The destination isn’t the goal; she loves meeting interesting people on the way. Her most recent trip (as of the time of this writing; I started this post a while ago but she keeps going places!) was to bike across New England.

Fun fact: Tyler played a part in my going to Afghanistan before I even met her. My mom had met her years ago through the singles group at her church. When I was looking for a teaching job, Mom ran into Tyler and told her that I’d been offered a job in South Korea and one in Afghanistan, but was leaning toward Afghanistan. Despite having joined the army and going to live in Germany during the Cold War when she was half the age that I was when I went to Afghanistan (see my previous article about her journeys), Mom was understandably anxious about my decision. She asked Tyler what she thought I should do. Tyler said something like, “Oh, she should go to Kabul! What an opportunity!” Mom felt that was confirmation from God that I would be okay or at least was making the right decision. That helped me feel better about it, too, because I didn’t want to cause emotional distress for my family.

Years later, after I had returned to the U.S. and was teaching and living in the Eugene area, I found a couple of her Oregon walking guidebooks in local bookstores. One of them was about Eugene walks, complete with sketches of things she’d seen along the way. I did some of the walks from the book and loved them.

Now Tyler attends the church I do, so I am getting to know her myself! And I get invited to her travel talks. I’ve been to a few of them. It’s so neat to hear about her trips and look through her watercolor hand-painted travel journals. She also puts together fast-paced Youtube videos and writes about her trips on her blog. You can find links to those on her website https://walk-with-me.com/, but here are a couple photos I’ve taken of the pages in her travel journals. Postcards of her Oregon-themed sketches can be found in the Eugene Cascades to Coast (Travel Lane County) visitor’s center in downtown Eugene. And you can find lots of her books on Amazon, including city walk guidebooks and sketchbook diaries for some of her bigger walks like the Way of St. James in Europe.

If you’re in the Eugene area, I hope you get to meet Tyler! And if not, you can buy her books on Amazon.

Mom and Tyler at her book booth in 2024 when Mom and I did the Springfield Art Walk

Categories: Journeys of Women | Tags: life, travel, writing | Leave a comment

Wolf-Themed Trips and Back to School

Posted on October 11, 2025 by compassrosequeen

My husband and I celebrated our 3-year wedding anniversary last month, with our first kid-free overnight trip! We stayed a night at the Wolf Creek Inn, an historic site in the Oregon State Parks system. More about that later, as well as the White Wolf Sanctuary trip that we and the kids took in August. But first, a big announcement.

If you’re friends with me in the real world or Facebook, you may know this already, but I thought I’d make it official on here, too. I went back to teaching! In my “Quick Update” post this spring, I talked about getting promoted to an account manager position at the insurance brokerage firm USI. There were some aspects of that position that I really liked, but it hit me all of a sudden that I really missed teaching after three years away from it, and I’d better get back into it before it was too late.

Fortunately, one of the schools I taught at before had a position come open for this school year. Now I’m teaching two classes each of 8th & 9th grade math, one high school math support class, and a credit-recovery World Geography class for 12th graders. I’m exhausted already from trying to get back into teaching and find my groove after three years out of it (and six years out of teaching regular ed classes). But also energized by getting to work with kids again! They are so fun! I’ve already gotten a drawing from one kid, and another kid and her mom donated a neat map-themed trunk to my classroom. There are tough days, but I feel more like myself now that I’m back in the career I trained for. Chris says I come home with more interesting stories. Certainly it’s more fun (and easier on my ADHD than sitting in a cubicle). I’m very grateful.

I’m also thankful to my husband for supporting my move back to teaching. It won’t be easy for me to balance work with family, but he will help. He is so great! We enjoyed taking time out of our busy lives for our little anniversary overnight trip to Southern Oregon a few weeks ago.

Wolf Creek Inn started out as a stagecoach stop on the Applegate Trail in the 1800s. Over the years, famous visitors have included Clark Gable and Jack London. The latter wrote a short story here, and they preserved his little room as a museum piece as well as named a the peak just south of town after him. We hiked it and enjoyed the views, although it looked like the Smoky Mountains due to the Moon Fire complex. The next day, we visited the nearby ghost town of Golden (also a State Heritage park in the Oregon State Parks system) on our way out. Speaking of ghosts, Wolf Creek Inn has embraced their alleged haunted status, so they have gone all out on Halloween decor. We even found Jack London, or at least a skeleton on the bed in his museum room! It was a little overwhelming. But the place kept its charm. The ballroom upstairs wasn’t decorated as Halloween-ish, and had big tables to spread out on, so we hung out up there to work on our writing and art.

Wolf Creek Inn is also an interpretive site along the Applegate Trail, complete with covered wagon and informational signs and a picnic table. A great spot to stop for a break on a road trip. We also visited a different Applegate Trail site in Myrtle Creek on the way down that was really neat. When I lived in Myrtle Creek many years ago, I didn’t know there was a hike you could do along the ruts of the trail! It goes up a bluff with great views of the valley and South Umpqua River below. In that area, we also stopped at Pizza Palace in Tri-City so Chris could see why his pizza restaurant reminds me of it, and ate lunch at Ken’s Sidewalk Café in Canyonville. I’ve shown Chris and the kids some of my old haunts in this area before, but it was fun to show him around a bit more without the kids. Wolf Creek Inn makes a great weekend getaway!

Speaking of wolves, on my birthday in August, we got to go to the White Wolf Sanctuary in Tidewater, Oregon. It’s up in the mountains near Waldport. The trip was thanks to the Summit Award I earned at USI. We made a loop of the trip, stopping to eat at a fisherman’s market in Newport and see the giant rock formations in the ocean at Seal Rock. We arrived at the meeting spot to get to the wolf sanctuary a little late, but fortunately they waited for us. It was a very educational and neat place. One of the wolves, Nukka , was the most friendly, letting us see her up close in her giant pen. She was beautiful. And she knew it. She would strut around and pose for us to admire her, reminding us of my cat Arwen. So cute! Thanks to USI for this experience!

This new (school!) year will be busy, so I may not get to write as much for a while. I’ve got a couple articles drafted and will get one of them out very soon (see below for preview). If you’re wanting some fall scenery ideas in the Eugene/Springfield area, be sure to check out my post of autumn photos from this past winter, a few posts ago.

Recently I’ve discovered a couple blogs that I think you’d enjoy. I’ll list them here along with websites and blogs from two very interesting local friends of mine.

http://www.walk-with-me.com – my friend Tyler’s website (with link to her blog on it). My next post is complete, and it’s about her fascinating life! She is an author and artist and led walking tours around the world for years. Stay tuned in a day or two for more about her, but if you can’t wait, check out her website.

jeromycilley.com – my former coworker at USI has had a very interesting life, too. He has some unique hobbies that he shares on his website/blog, including making music and hunting for animal skulls.

http://www.adventurouskate.com – Kate teaches women how to travel on their own.

http://www.thewanderingqueen.com – Michelle teaches women how to hike and backpack.

Categories: My Trips and Tips | Tags: family, hiking, life, nature, travel | Leave a comment

Grand Canyons of Everywhere

Posted on August 17, 2025 by compassrosequeen

Notes: For this post, NP = National Park, NM = National Monument, SP = State Park, NRA = National Recreation Area, and BLM = Bureau of Land Management. All photos were taken by me. I’ve been working on this article for months, and am saddened by the recent news in Grand Canyon National Park. My condolences to all who are affected by the wildfire destruction at the North Rim. Donating to the Grand Canyon Conservancy is one way to help. I’ll list the link at the bottom of this post. I’ve also been deeply saddened by many other things impacting people in the national and world news lately. Please join me in praying for these situations to get better and/or helping out in any way you can.

Recently I saw a photo of Grand Canyon NP, and it got my brain gears turning. I remembered having seen other gorges with the title “Grand Canyon” in them, such as the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone [River] in Yellowstone NP, or having Grand Canyon as a nickname, like Breaks Interstate Park, dubbed “the Grand Canyon of the South.” Could the U.S. national park one then be called “The Grand Canyon of the United States”? Or just the very literal “Grand Canyon of the Colorado River”? Or is “the Grand Canyon” enough to denote the big one in GCNP?

Being the information nerd that I am, I decided to look up Grand Canyons for every region and state in the USA as well as any I could find in other countries. Here’s a fun list of what I found. I’ll try to add photos for any that I’ve seen myself if I can find them in my old photo folders. Links to references and websites with multiple “grand canyon” locations will be listed at the end.

I had fun looking at canyons ranging from epically grand to small-but-scenic. Some are noteworthy for their width and others for their depth. Being from the state of Oregon with fairly dramatic topography thanks to volcanic activity, my definition of a canyon may be different than some people’s definition of a canyon. One time I was driving through Nebraska to visit family and came across a place called “Massacre Canyon.” While it had an interesting human history, I thought it was only a slight dip in the road compared to gorges we have back home. For many of the states, I could only find a “Little Grand Canyon” of some sort which resembled the scale and scenery of the many waterfall canyons we have here in Oregon. But I will happily let these states and regions lovingly nickname their local scenery as Grand Canyons, because, why not? Everyone needs one, evidently. You’ll notice that many of these are in national parks, state parks, preserves, and national geologic areas.

Cool fact: for Nebraska’s entry below (which is not the aforementioned canyon), I learned a bit of neat family history on my dad’s side! Also, for educational purposes, check out this description of the difference between a canyon and a gorge, although we use them somewhat interchangeably around here: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-the-difference-between-a-canyon-and-a-gorge.html

Enjoy this list, and please comment about any you’ve been to or any you know of that I missed.

By U.S. regions, these are known as “The Grand Canyon of the…”:

Midwest: Turkey Run SP in Indiana – deep sandstone ravines carved by glacial action and later wind and water
North: Hull Rust Mahoning Mine in Minnesota (human made, so less interesting to me, but still looks pretty)
Pacific: Waimea Canyon, Waimea Canyon SP in Hawaii – formed by erosion as well as the collapse of the volcano that created the island, more than 10 miles long and 3,000 feet deep!
Northwest: the Columbia River Gorge on the border of Oregon & Washington, or Hells Canyon on the border of Oregon & Idaho. I’ve been to the Columbia Gorge many times to hike to the many waterfalls or gaze out from the Crown Point Vista House, and even went on a short river cruise with my husband Chris on our honeymoon. It is beautiful! Haven’t been to Hells Canyon yet, though. By some measurements, it’s the deepest gorge in the world. I’ll make it there someday.
East: Pine Creek Gorge in Pennsylvania or Letchworth SP in New York – explained more below.
West: Couldn’t find a definitive answer for this (or “Grand Canyon of the Rockies” online, but I’m voting for the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Wyoming. I loved seeing the canyon at Lower Falls even more than seeing the geysers! So big and beautiful. There are several other canyons in national parks that could vie for this title that will be mentioned in the U.S. States section below.
South: Providence Canyon SP, Georgia, or Breaks Interstate Park on the border of Kentucky & Virginia – I saw the latter with my ex-husband when we drove an hour or two from his parents’ house in Eastern Kentucky to see fall foliage there. The leaves hadn’t turned yet due to lack of rain, but I got a neat photo of a lady painting the lush green gorge. The ironic thing about this one is that it’s technically farther north than Grand Canyon NP!
Southwest: the Grand Canyon [of the Colorado River] in Arizona – I haven’t been to the national park side of it yet, but years ago I got to fly over it in a small jet and stop at the Hualapai tribe side of it with my ex-husband’s family who were living in Las Vegas at the time. It was spectacular, but in some ways so grand that I couldn’t even comprehend it. Can’t find my old photos, sadly. Someday, I’d like to hike down into it, at least a bit.

By continent/world region:

South/Central Asia: Band-e-Amir NP in Afghanistan – Okay, I am spoiled. I’ve flown over this one in a 10-seater jet, as well. When I was a teacher at the International School of Kabul, some colleagues and I organized a trip with a pilot friend who worked for an organization that flew people who worked for NGOs around the country. It was a day trip to see the Buddha Caves and other wonders in the Bamiyan area. They flew us over Band-e-Amir so we could see Afganistan’s Grand Canyon on the way there. It was so beautiful! I managed to get a photo or two over the wings of the little King-Air jet.
Central Asia: Charyn Canyon in Kazakhstan – the “Valley of the Castles” portion of it looks fantastic, literally.
Western Europe: High Cup and Cheddar Gorge in the United Kingdom, Cruz du Van in Switzerland, and the Bastei Rocks in Saxon Switzerland NP in Germany – This last one isn’t on the compilation websites below, but when I googled Grand Canyon of Germany, it showed up on the blog https://www.girllightning.com/2017/08/grand-canyon-germany-bastei-rocks.html I was excited because I’ve been there! I hiked to the beautiful stone Bastei Bridge in the snow once while on vacation from teaching overseas. A scene from the Han Solo movie was filmed there.
Eastern Europe: Vikos Gorge in Greece (listed as world’s “deepest compared to its width” by Guinness Book of Records), Tara River Canyon in Montenegro (over 40 waterfalls pour into it!), and Sulak Canyon in Russia (deepest in Europe)
Southern Africa: Fish River Canyon in Namibia – the largest canyon in Africa, one of the most popular hiking trails in Southern Africa
East Asia: Yarlung Tsangpo (or Zangbo) Grand Canyon in Tibet/China – the deepest canyon in the world according to Wikipedia
South America: Colca Canyon in Peru – home of the Andean Condor
Australia: Cappertee Valley in, well, Australia (that one continent that’s just one country) – the widest canyon in the world, according to Wikipedia
Northern North America: the aforementioned GCNP is of course the main contender for North America’s Grand Canyon, but Canada has one, too: the Grand Canyon of the Fraser in British Columbia (not to be confused with nearby Fraser Canyon, which looks even more epic to me in the photos)
Mexico: When I published this post, I just listed Copper Canyon (Barrancas del Cobre in Spanish) in the state of Chihuahua, México, because it looks amazing and has tall waterfalls and a fascinating history. However, my husband and I recently got to video chat with my ex-husband and his partner in México, and they told us about Cañón del Sumidero in the state of Chiapas. It looks amazing, too! Hopefully someday, I’ll get to visit both of these.
Central America: Pacuare River in Costa Rica is famous for whitewater rafting through rainforested gorges.
Oceania/Pacific: Waimea Canyon in Waimea Canyon SP, Hawaii, USA (see description in U.S. regions above)

By every U.S. State: (some of these may be repeats from the U.S. regions list). Note: I couldn’t find any feature referred to as a “grand canyon” for a few states. Any guesses? Read on to find out! If you’re from those states, please tell me if there’s a “grand canyon” of any sort there!

Alabama – Little River Canyon National Preserve in the Southern Appalachians has waterfalls, sandstone cliffs, and forested vistas
Alaska – Grand Canyon of the Noatak River, in Noatak National Preserve – people float the river in the summer to see more of the canyon in a short amount of time
Arizona – Grand Canyon of the Colorado River (aka GCNP) of course, but don’t miss Walnut Canyon NM. I stopped there on a road trip and loved the history (the cliff dwellings from the Ancestral Puebloans as well as the visits and quotes from legendary author Willa Cather). And the canyon itself may not be as big as at GCNP, but it was beautiful.
Arkansas – Vendor Valley – the deepest canyon in the Ozarks was labeled “Arkansas’ Grand Canyon in a marketing campaign by the owners of Cliff House Inn. Works for me! I’d stop there, based on the photos I see!
California – Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne [River] in Yosemite NP, or Kings Canyon in Kings Canyon NP – these both look beautiful in pictures, and are in national parks, so of course I want to go to both of them. I’ve been to Yosemite Valley in Yosemite NP, and it is a pretty impressive glacier-cut gorge, too! (Yes, that’s a huge understatement)
Colorado – Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP – this one looks so deep and epic in the photos I’ve seen! Black because it’s in the shade most of the day.
Connecticut – some random chasm made by installing a pipeline, according to Reddit. That’s all I could find. Sorry, Connecticut!
Delaware – Delaware Water Gap NRA – a dramatic mountain pass in the Appalachians
Florida – ????? couldn’t find one
Georgia – Providence Canyon – human-made from mining but still looks neat, or Tallulah Gorge SP – Tallulah Falls looks awesome in the photos!
Hawaii – Waimea Canyon (see above in Regions section) – I mean hey, I’ll use an excuse to go to Hawaii. This one of course looks epic in the photos.
Idaho – Bruneau Canyon on BLM land (not to be confused with Bruneau Dunes SP) – deep and wide, it looks like a NW-style geologic version of the Arizona GC but without the crowds. In fact, very few people make their way out there. Hells Canyon, where the Snake River runs between Oregon and Idaho, is by some accounts the deepest canyon in the world (if you use the top of mountains in the calculations).
Illinois – the Little Grand Canyon Trail in Shawnee Forest – compared to some of the others, the 100 foot sandstone cliffs may not sound huge. But for Illinois, that is pretty deep! And it has a neat natural staircase carved by water that you can climb.
Indiana – Turkey Run SP (description above in the Regions section)
Iowa – Lost Canyon in Whitewater Canyon Wildlife Area is “Iowa’s Little Grand Canyon”, aka “Midwest’s Little Grand Canyon” – 200-foot cliffs believed to be formed by a collapsed ancient cave system
Kansas –Arikaree Breaks – ravines and canyons in a badlands area, a nice break from cornfields! I feel like I saw topography that looked like this when I drove through Kansas from Colorado to Oklahoma.
Kentucky – Red River Gorge Geologic Area – Red River Gorge in the Daniel Boone National Forest boasts 41 natural bridges, according to the NPS. Kentucky also shares Breaks Interstate Park with Virginia.
Louisiana – Longleaf Vista Recreation Area in Kisatchie National Forest is “Louisiana’s Little Grand Canyon” – doesn’t look like a canyon or even a valley to me, but one website says “the topography is rugged by Louisiana standards” so we’ll let it slide.
Maine – Gulf Hagas – has multiple waterfalls gushing out of stone cliffs very near the Appalachian Trail
Maryland – Swallow Falls SP had some famous historical figures as visitors over 100 years ago! Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone camped there in 1921, according to the state park website.
Massachusetts – Chesterfield Gorge – a pretty hiking area with small waterfalls and 70-foot rock walls
Michigan – Canyon Falls is “the Grand Canyon of the UP [Upper Peninsula]” – the river falls 30 feet into a box canyon
Minnesota – Hull Rust Mahoming Mine (human-made from mining)
Mississippi – Red Bluff – an exposure of red clay, soil, and sand sloping into the Pearl River floodplain
Missouri – Grand Canyon of Charrette Creek has high vertical walls on either side of a wide floodplain, or Grand Gulf SP is considered one of the natural wonders of the Ozarks and “Missouri’s Little Grand Canyon”
Montana – Gates of the Mountains Wilderness Area was named by Lewis & Clark for how the cliffs seem to open up like gates as you traverse the Missouri River, or Bighorn Canyon NRA which looks more like the big Grand Canyon and is of course epic since it’s in Montana
Nebraska – Frenchman Creek Valley is “Nebraska’s Little Grand Canyon” or “Wauneta’s Little Grand Canyon” according to a local sign. It looks badlands-esque and also looked to be very close to where my Dad grew up. I sent him a screenshot of the webpage, and he says he would see it weekly when he rode along with his dad (the grandpa that died before I was born) to a job he did for the state, which was observing and recording which farmers were irrigating because the state was monitoring water usage.
Nevada – Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas – I couldn’t find a reference to a Grand Canyon in Nevada because every search for Nevada led me to tours of GCNP from Las Vegas. But I’ve been to Red Rock Canyon (on BLM land) with my ex-husband and his family, and it was stunning. Pink and red colors swirling everywhere. Absolutely otherwordly. Can’t find my photos of it, sorry!
New Hampshire – Sculptured Rocks Natural Area is a geology-oriented nature preserve with impressive rock formations surrounding a popular swimming hole
New Jersey – Palisades Interstate Park (geologic site) – a 12-mile long and 1/2 mile wide area of cliffs and uplands just minutes from Manhattan – I had no idea that New Jersey has scenery like this!
New Mexico – Rio Grande Gorge – the Rio Grande’s “grand canyon” follows an eroded chasm in northern New Mexico. I crossed over the Rio Grande much farther south in New Mexico, so I didn’t see this beautiful stretch of it, but even the part I saw was sure grand!
New York –Letchworth SP “the Grand Canyon of the East” – follows the Genesee River over several large waterfalls
North Carolina – Linville Gorge – earns its nickname as “the Grand Canyon of North Carolina” as one of only two official wilderness gorges in the South, with the Linville River 1400 feet below the ridge and having one of the few old growth forests in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
North Dakota – Painted Canyon in Theodore Roosevelt NP aka “Grand Canyon of North Dakota” – named for its colorful rocks, it reminds me a bit of the Painted Desert in Arizona’s Petrified Forest NP.
Ohio – Conkle’s Hollow State Nature Preserve in the Hocking Hills region – I’d go see this one just for the name. But it also has 200-foot Black Hand sandstone cliffs that look amazing.
Oklahoma – Red Rock Canyon Camping & Adventure Park – formerly known as Red Rock Canyon SP as well as Kiwanis Canyon Park – its red rock cliffs now offer activities run by a private company since the state ceased operating it and some other parks to balance the budget. But before it was a state park, it had plenty of history – Native Americans used it as a winter camp, and was later a rest stop for pioneers on the California trail (you can still see wagon ruts).
Oregon – Owyhee River Canyon /Canyonlands in SE Oregon/SW Idaho is the main contender for the title according to the internet, with breathtaking scenery in every direction. Also shared with Idaho, Hells Canyon could count (see description in Idaho above). And the Columbia River Gorge, shared with Washington, is full of activities (see description in U.S. Regions above). For smaller ones only in Oregon, visit Crooked River Gorge for Central Oregon with the spectacular Smith Rock SP and other viewpoints, and Silver Falls SP with its dramatic waterfall canyons. And my friend Natasha says to make sure to include Crack in the Ground as a “Little Grand Canyon” in South-Central Oregon, which is a small but amazing slot canyon from a volcanic fissure. I’ve been to all of these except Owyhee and Hells Canyon.
Pennsylvania – Pine Creek Gorge, called “the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania” – a perfect V-shaped gorge that is included in a state natural area and contains a state park
Rhode Island – No real canyons that I could find. My husband tried to help and found Cranston Canyon, a road construction project. That’s it.
South Carolina – Jones Gap SP or Jocassee Gorges – Jones Gap is part of the Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area on the Blue Ridge Escarpment and has waterfalls. Jocassee Gorges has waterfall canyons and a beautiful lake.
South Dakota – Spearfish Canyon “Grand Canyon of the Black Hills” – a long, narrow canyon of limestone palisades and waterfalls
Tennessee – Tennessee River Gorge – formerly known as Walden Gorge, is the 4th largest largest river gorge in the eastern U.S.
Texas – Palo Duro Canyon SP – the 2nd largest canyon in the country, according to the Texas State Parks website. Looks like some beautiful places I’ve seen in Arizona. Caprock Canyons SP was also mentioned on some sites, and has the bonus of bison herds.
Utah – San Rafael Swell, Zion NP, or Canyonlands NP – any of these 3 would qualify! And probably others, too, since Utah is chock-full of epic parks. Does Bryce Canyon NP count, too? The only one of these I’ve been to is Zion NP. Y’all probably already know about the NP sites, so I looked up San Rafael Swell. It’s a large dome-shaped geologic feature carved by flash foods into valleys, canyons, gorges, mesas, buttes, and badlands, according to Wikipedia.
Vermont – Quechee Gorge in Quechee SP is Vermont’s deepest gorge, formed by glacial activity
Virginia – Breaks Interstate Park – “the Grand Canyon of the South” (also in Kentucky) – description in U.S. regions section above
Washington – Grand Canyon of the Elwha or Palouse River Canyon – I’ve seen the Elwha River in Olympic NP, but I don’t think I saw this section of it, or the nearby section called Goblin’s Gate, which looks amazing.
West Virginia – New River Gorge NP is one of the USA’s newest national parks, and ironically the New River is one of the oldest rivers in the nation. The Endless Wall trail zig-zags along a cliff edge nearly 1,000 feet above the river. The park is also famous for rock climbing. I think my ex-husband and I drove over the landmark New River Gorge Bridge once.
Wisconsin – has many small canyons and no consensus on a “grand” one, but the Dells of the Wisconsin River is a 5 mile gorge with Cambrian sandstone rock formations and tributary canyons, and Devils Lake State Park has 500-foot bluffs above the lake.
Wyoming – the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone – description in U.S. Regions section above

Compilation websites (for photos of some of the places listed above):

https://www.wanderlustmagazine.com/inspiration/grand-canyons-around-the-world/ Eight Grand Canyons around the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/gallery/2024/dec/12/owyhee-oregon-world-grand-canyon-in-pictures Grand Canyons around the world, inspired by and starting with Owyhee Canyonlands in SE Oregon.
https://www.journeylatinamerica.com/travel-inspiration/destination-guides/spotlight-on-canyons-gorges-latin-america/ I found this one after publishing the post, and it confirmed my Copper Canyon nomination.
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/ This website has several articles for Grand Canyons in various states.
https://quincykoetz.com/2012/05/grand-canyon-of-36-other-grand-canyons/ This one gives info for 10 Grand Canyons from various regions of the USA, and has a map to others.
https://www.completenorthamerica.com/did-you-know-america-has-3-grand-canyons/ Three famous Grand Canyons in the U.S.
https://www.southernthing.com/grand-canyon-of-the-south-2563250269.html This one lists Grand Canyons and “Little Grand Canyons” of the South.

Donate to the Grand Canyon Concervancy: https://preserve.grandcanyon.org/campaign/705507/donate

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: grand-canyon, hiking, national-parks, nature, travel | 2 Comments

From Cornfields to Castles, then Conifers

Posted on April 24, 2025 by compassrosequeen

4/25/2025 – Note that this article has been edited for accuracy. You’ll know which part when you get to it. 🙂

Last year I promised to write about my mom’s life journeys. Really, this post could be about both of my parents, but since my overarching blog theme is the journeys of women, we’ll start with her. I interviewed her for this, and found out some things I didn’t know! Read or skim all the way for fun photos.

My mom, Vicki, was born in a small town in farm country, Nebraska. Harvard is surrounded by cornfields. She likes to say she graduated from Harvard (adding “High School” after letting people be impressed for a moment). Her ancestry is mostly German, English, and Scottish. Random genealogy note: we’re distantly related to the guy that invented Kool-Aid, and there is a Kool-Aid museum in Nebraska! There is a strong German heritage in Nebraska, too, as evidenced by the existence of a fast-food chain called Runza that specializes in German-inspired stuffed meat pockets. Bonus genealogy note: Mom’s Scottish ancestors came to the U.S. as a young couple who ran away because she was the daughter of aristocrats and he was the family gardener and they weren’t allowed to be together, or so the story goes. Anyway, with all the German heritage around there, Mom took German classes in high school.

Her early travels with family were to the nearby museums including the Pioneer Village (we went there once when we drove to Nebraska to visit family, and it reminds me of the Oregon Trail museums we have here in Oregon) and the state capitol building in Lincoln. I have her little souvenir binoculars she got at Pioneer Village when she was a kid. Mom was enthralled with the big city of Lincoln with its department stores complete with escalators and chocolate pie. She also got to see dinosaur fossils at the University of Nebraska (GBR!*).

When she got a little older, she ventured out farther across the state with church friends to Scotts Bluff and a church college in Indiana. She also went with her family to visit her much-older brother in Colorado. She loved the drive up into the mountains and watching airplanes take off at the airport. She let me have this souvenir booklet of Colorado pictures that her grandma must have given her!

She says she didn’t have big travel dreams at that age yet. However, her horizons were to soon get much bigger.

When she married my dad right after graduating high school, they soon enlisted in the army for a three-year tour. They listed Germany as their top choice of where to be stationed since Mom had studied German. Not only were they lucky to be stationed together at all, they were assigned to their top choice!

They were stationed at the American army base in Hanau, near Frankfurt, but lived off-base in the nearby town of Oberrodenbach. They had an upstairs apartment in a Germany lady’s home. Because of this and my mom’s high school German classes, she got really fluent while she lived there. Dad learned some while there but didn’t have the head start Mom had. Mom remembers the beautiful cobblestone streets in Oberrodenbach and how you could hear the noise of trucks driving on them from across town. She loved it.

General life in Germany included good friends at the American chapel and good food. Her favorite dishes were schnitzel, currywurst, and goulash suppe.

They traveled around Germany whenever they could. Mom’s favorite part of the country was Bavaria. There, they saw all three of Mad King Ludwig’s castles, including Neuschwanstein (I’ve been there!) and another one that had a huge grotto with boats in it. She also loved the mountain ski town of Garmish-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps. She says it was just the cutest town. It’s the highest one in Germany. They saw the Zugspitze (the highest mountain in Germany/ the Bavarian Alps) but she didn’t get to ride the historical cogwheel train to the top. Another highlight was seeing the lighting of Heidelberg Castle, another one that I’ve been to. Mom says that when her parents went to Germany to visit her and Dad, they all went to the town of Eckertsweier to meet some of my grandparents’ relatives.

Being in the middle of a bunch of European countries, Mom and Dad got to travel to several of them. They went to Holland, Belgium, France, Austria, and Switzerland. Between those and Germany, Mom got to see castles, cathedrals, and sobering visits to concentration camps.

One of Mom’s favorite places outside Germany was Paris, France. She never got to go up the Eiffel Tower, but she loved seeing it anyway. She remembers eating crepes along the Seine River and watching people paint there. Her other favorite city outside Germany was Salzburg, Austria. There they signed up for the Sound of Music bus tour, where they could see many of the locations filmed in the movie.

Mom and Dad loved Germany, but Mom was pregnant with me at the end of their three-year commitment, so they decided to return to the U.S.A. However, they didn’t want to live in Nebraska. They (we! although I don’t remember it since I was a baby) stayed with family there for a few months while they prepped for a new life across the country. Two of my dad’s brothers had moved out west, and my parents decided to join them. They’d been to Oregon to visit before, and with all the forests and mountains, it looked like Germany to them (minus the castles, of course).

They drove across the country with a baby in the back seat. According to one story I was told as a youth, I wouldn’t stop crying for hours in the car. As I remember the story, they filled my baby bottle with wine, and I sacked out for the rest of the drive. That may explain some of my idiosyncrasies… (Note: after reading this, Mom pointed out that she only put a tiny bit of wine in my bottle of milk or formula or whatever. I pointed out that makes for a less exciting story. The version my 10-year-old self remembers is funnier, although if it really happened to someone, I admit it wouldn’t be funny. Please do not fill your baby’s bottle with wine!)

For many years, Mom’s main travels were with us to Nebraska to visit family, with occasional trips to Washington for Dad’s jobs. She finally made it to the top of something big: Seattle’s Space Needle! My parents didn’t have a lot of money for tourist traps, but that is the biggest thing I remember getting to do as a kid on a trip. Our trips to Nebraska were pretty epic, too. One time when we were young, Mom took my brother and me back there, and didn’t want to drive by herself, so she took us across the country by train. It was so much fun! Another time, Dad flew us there in a 4-seater airplane (he was a flight instructor at the time). Guess who was the copilot? Mom! Yup, she learned how to fly! Not everyone’s mom gets to do that.

Mom took a few trips on her own when us kids were older, too, especially after my parents divorced. She went to Kansas and to Texas on work trips and enjoyed watching the storms. That’s one thing she misses from Nebraska. Oregon gets most of our lightning storms in the mountains, so we don’t get to see them as much here in the Valley.

Mom remarried when I was in college. My stepdad, Darrell, had also lived in Germany when he was in the American military, albeit earlier than my parents. Mom and Darrell have not been able to go to Germany together, but they’ve made up for it by going to towns here in the Pacific Northwest that have been made to look German. This includes Mount Angel here in Oregon, which grew in numbers in the late 1800s with many immigrants from Bavaria and a group of monks from a town named Engelberg in Switzerland. The name Mount Angel is the English translation of Engelberg. The abbey the monks founded on the top of Lone Butte is still a place of peace and prayer today. Mom and Darrell have also made it to Leavenworth, Washington. Leavenworth was a dying timber town when its residents came together with a creative idea to save it: recreate it as a German-themed tourist town. With Washington state’s Cascade Mountains on one side of it, Mom and Darrell felt like they were in the Bavarian Alps! And of course ate bratwurst and did fun touristy things like the horse and carriage ride and old-time photos. Mom says the photographer was retiring the next day after her photo shoot, so I can legally post the photo here, which is great, because Mom couldn’t find any photos of her in Germany for me to post.

Before those trips, Mom finally made it to California for the first time. I think she and Darrell went there for their honeymoon. They drove down the coast a ways and enjoyed the Redwoods, beach, and Victorian architecture in Eureka before driving east over the mountains to the Mt. Shasta area and heading home on I-5.

Mom also made it to Canada with Darrell! They went with my aunt and uncle to Vancouver, B.C. to see the sights several years ago. Mom is terrified of heights, but she walked across a canyon on the Capilano Suspension Bridge! I was so proud of her when she told me that.

They’ve taken other trips, too, like a road trip across the country to Amish country in the Midwest and short camping trips in their RV. But lately they’ve slowed down to work on their property (they live on 9 acres in the country west of Eugene) and spend time with people they care about. My stepkids love going out there to visit “Grandma Vicki” and run around the property with my brother, “Uncle Ben.”

Mom and I have gone on day trips around Oregon in recent years, like to the tulip fields near Woodburn and fun places in the mountains like Newberry Crater National Monument. But I’ve been wanting for years to take her somewhere really neat, like San Francisco or Victoria, B.C. I’m not sure what the future holds, but if nothing else, there’s always hanging out in my hometown. She raised us in Eugene, Oregon, and there’s nowhere like it, with miles of hiking trails in the woods at the edge of the city.

*GBR = Go Big Red, what Nebraskans cheer at sports events (at least American football games)

Categories: Journeys of Women | 3 Comments

Quick Update

Posted on April 9, 2025 by compassrosequeen

Spring is here! And I’m coming up for air.

The last few weeks have been intense. I got a promotion at work to a new position. We bought a cute little house and moved our 5 kids and cat into it, thanks to great friends who helped. And then, from staying up too late unpacking several nights in a row, a virus got me and I got bronchitis/laryngitis.

Two trips to the doctor later, today I feel pretty decent. I’m very grateful that I could work from home for the last week, and for my coworkers who have been helping out and mentoring me in my new position.

I’ve been working on some fun travel/journey-themed posts for you all! They are coming soon. For now, I’ll leave you with a post I wrote a couple months ago for my church blog. The theme of the series was “Think about such things” Philippians 4:8. It made me think of what Frodo focuses on in order to survive his difficult journey in the Lord of the Rings, so that’s what I wrote about. Yes, my church let me write about LOTR!

Enjoy! https://www.citysalt.org/blog/2025/2/28-think-about-such-things-jc

Categories: Miscellaneous | 2 Comments

Admiring Autumn from Afar

Posted on January 30, 2025 by compassrosequeen

Okay, so I know this isn’t the time of year everyone is thinking of autumn. It’s January. If we’re daydreaming about a different season, it’s probably spring or summer. But I found some neat places nearby in the last year or two for viewing fall colors that I haven’t gotten to share yet. Besides, it’s January. The bleakest time of the year in many parts of the country and the Northern Hemisphere. My nation has a new president who is making sweeping changes, many of which are impacting people I know and populations I care about, like Afghan refugees that were promised to settle here and now can’t. I think we could all use some vibrant color right now; a bit of hope for the future. Read on for some photos and local destinations, and check back here in October or November for ideas of places to visit!

Eugene and Springfield have some beautiful places to see fall foliage, often mixed with evergreens. The sunny summit of the Mt. Baldy trail (one of the Ridgeline Trails in South Eugene) has epic views and great trees, doable for all ages with its 1/2 mile trails to the top. Willamalane Park in Springfield has a great playground, but my kids love to play below the giant sequoias and deciduous trees near the runner’s track just as much. Oakmont Park in Eugene has flowers and foliage to spare.

How many Eugenians have heard of Linslaw Park? I’d driven by it a million times on my way to the coast, but never stopped. Last fall, my Central Oregon friend Tracey treated me to an overnight trip to Florence while she was in Western Oregon for a conference. We stopped on the way for a picnic lunch at this Siuslaw River wayside in the Lane County Parks system. It had a pit toilet, a small boat ramp, a couple picnic tables, and a sign with only the last letter of the park name still on it. But I loved it! Subtle fall foliage stood under evergreens and along the river. I’d been to the coast enough that month to not have an agenda of my own this trip. After that wayside stop, I decided I’d be along for the ride to any other places Tracey suggested. It was so much fun to see places I’d never thought to stop at! This included a coffeeshop in Mapleton that had kittens on the back patio and a Mexican restaurant on the bayfront in Old Town Florence.

The next place I found with great fall colors was up the McKenzie River. The drive along the way was devastated by the 2020 fire, but fall foliage is growing underneath the burned evergreens for a stark contrast and a visual of new hope. My friend Jas and my mom came with me for that day trip. We saw some blue sky (and slackliners) over Sahalie Falls, which was beautiful. But the visual highlight of the trip was the Secret Garden at Belknap Springs, which we walked to after soaking in the pools. The autumn splendor was all around the garden, and so gorgeous! I’d never been there that time of year. It was perfect. We finished off that trip with a stop for dinner at my family’s new favorite road trip restaurant, Takoda’s in the town of Rainbow.

The last new bit of fall foliage I discovered last year was at the Eugene Japanese-American Art Memorial. This is a tiny park tucked behind the Hult Center (performance hall). I’d been there before, but not in autumn. The Japanese maple tree was in full color, and the fallen leaves of other trees blanketed the ground with gold. The memorial honors the American people who were sent to internment camps during WWII just for being Japanese immigrants or American-born of Japanese descent. I hope and pray that we are not entering that dark of a time now.

Categories: My Trips and Tips | Tags: autumn, fall, hiking, nature, parks, travel | Leave a comment

Happy New Year 2025!

Posted on January 1, 2025 by compassrosequeen

It’s 2025! I can’t believe it. This summer will be 30 years since I graduated from high school; 25 since graduating college. But mostly I’m excited for a new year of life and adventures. And I’ll be praying for our country and world.

The last few months were fast and furious due to work (we call it “Busy Season” or 4th quarter) and holidays. We got to do some fun things, though.

I’ll try to do a fuller post soon with some trips and tips from the rest of the year. But for now, family photos from the year. Our Christmas card photo was from playing in the mountain snow way back in February, because it’s not easy to get 5 kids in a picture at a time with no one scowling. Next, the only other family pic with all of us (not scowling) for the year, which took place in October at the coast right after my previous blog post. That was a nice day trip with the kids’ relatives on their mom’s side. We went to the beach that I’d tried to take them to on 4th of July weekend but was too packed then, the Heceta Head Lighthouse beach. They loved it! It’s small, which is nice so our teens don’t disappear 2 miles down the beach like they usually do at the South Jetty Beach. And it’s small because it’s surrounded by cliffs and a lighthouse. Beautiful! Lastly, our fun new experience for Christmas 2024 was to go see the film “Elf” at the historic Elsinore Theatre in Salem. I’ve been there before, but Chris and the kids hadn’t, and I knew they’d love it. It’s the most beautiful theater I’ve ever seen, built nearly 100 years ago in a Gothic style. Our family photo is from a high walkway in the lobby by stained glass (the artwork is all Shakespeare-themed). One kiddo isn’t in the picture because she wasn’t feeling well that day, but she is off to the side and enjoyed seeing the theater.

For more about our experience seeing that movie there, check out my husband’s movie “non-reviews” website at https://popinjaynonreviews.wordpress.com/2024/12/31/elf-at-the-elsinore-theatre/.

It’s getting late and I need to work in the morning, so I’ll leave off with a list of 10 (plus one I added later) things I hope to do in this new year:

Travel & hike more. 2024 was busy with fixing up and selling the old house; plus we couldn’t go far since we’re stuck driving two vehicles to fit everyone.
Buy a new house and van (okay, then we’ll be fixing up that house, so we’ll see how much traveling & hiking I get to do)
Take Chris & the kids to Crater Lake National Park for their first time
Host a monthly write-in with friends
Work out more. I got a small stair-stepper for Christmas so I can watch hiking videos and pretend I’m hiking while it’s raining outside! Not nearly as fun, but helpful in Western Oregon, which has been extra grey and rainy this year.
Take the kids to visit relatives in Idaho while Chris and I (and my Dad if I can get him to come) visit my relatives in Utah and Nebraska
Get back into practicing my guitar
Hike Broken Top with friend Jas, plus places she hasn’t hiked yet like Smith Rock
Finish reading some books I started about step-parenting and other needed themes
Play video games with the kids more because they love it
Adding this one late because I forgot it: Take the family to Portland by train and visit Powell’s! We can do this one even before we get a new vehicle that fits us all, which is another goal for the year. Oh, and maybe go ice skating this winter? Our oldest loves it.

What do you hope to do in 2025? I’d love to hear your ideas, dreams, and resolutions in the comments! I hope you all have a good 2025, despite the difficulties and challenges of life and in our world.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: family-travel, hiking, nature, travel, travel-tips | 4 Comments

Sunny Days Mini-Adventures

Posted on October 19, 2024 by compassrosequeen

Autumn is upon us! It’s been a busy year with trying to fix up our old house to sell. It finally sold this month! Writing-wise, I’ve been working to update the structure of this site, and working on this post. I keep trying to publish it but not getting to it, so now it will be a compilation of many of our little adventures from the spring to early fall seasons. Feel free to skim/skip ahead to things that look promising to you as future trips or ideas!

This year’s adventures were almost all afternoon or day trips. In fact, the only overnight/over-the-big-mountains trip was for my job. (That was fun, though; more on that later!) We had reservations for a campground on a lake at the coast this summer, but they were canceled due to impending road construction. Fortunately, the house we’re renting now has a nice backyard and patio where we’ve been able to have s’mores in our little metal fire pit. And we live in a part of the state/country/world where potential adventures are close by for quick trips.

During spring break, we went to the coast for a day and to Wildlife Safari in Southern Oregon. Our middle kid was the only one that had been to Cape Perpetua before, so we took them all up there to see it. No whale sightings that time, but the kids were fascinated with the Spouting Horn and Thor’s Well at Cook’s Chasm. Then we tried to find a beach to play on since Cape Perpetua is mostly rocky basalt flows. We found a small parking lot for one right along Highway 101 called “Ocean Beach Day Use Area” that worked for our Northwest Forest Pass (which was also useful at Cape Perpetua, so both places were free). We ate at Mo’s in Old Town Florence and finished the day with a rainbow over the dunes and sunset over the horizon at South Jetty Beach (also on our NW Forest Pass). Our other spring break activity was going to Wildlife Safari in Winston with my stepkids’ cousins from their birth mom’s side of the family, who happen to be part of my good friend Jas’ extended family. Chris had to work, but I took a day off, and most of our kids came to hang out with their cousins at the free Village area which I wrote about last summer. We splurged on the little train ride that goes around some of the animal areas.

Our next trip out of town that spring was a family trip to a wildlife refuge. We met my stepsister and her family at Paddington’s Pizza in Salem to celebrate my nephew’s late birthday, and then all drove to the Ankeny Hill Wildlife Refuge to explore. It was really pretty! Ponds, wildflowers, and wildlife. And some cool hands-on nature exhibits for the kids to play on.

In May, my colleague Ashley and I were stationed at a table at an employee benefits event for one of our clients in Redmond. We drove there the night before and stayed at a hotel. But first, we drove up to Smith Rock State Park near Terrebonne since she’d never seen it. We were there right as the sun dipped behind the rocks. Then we ate out at the Pump House Bar & Grill in Terrebonne. I had a shrimp & cheese grits dinner that was delicious. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a local brewery/outdoor concert venue in Redmond to meet up with her sister and brother-in-law who live in Bend. It was a quick trip for work, but it was the only time I got to go to the other side of the Cascades this year, and my soul needed it.

Weekends for the rest of the spring and part of summer were spent painting and other projects on the house, so the majority of my travel/outdoors trips were to local hikes and walks in the Eugene/Springfield area on Tuesday nights with some friends from church. My sort-of-cousins Terry and Colby revived these “Walk & Talk” nights from 2021, and this year my oldest stepdaughter often came with me if I had time to pick her up after work. Sometimes we walked through pretty neighborhoods, on riverfront paths or through parks, and other times we hiked the Ridgeline Trails of South Eugene. One of the first walks ended at the home of a lady named Tyler who leads walks around the world professionally. She just came back from a few months walking the Way of St. James in France, and I hope to write a Journeys of Women post about her soon. Our last official Walk & Talk night was to a sunset hike to Swing Hill on the north flank of Mt. Pisgah a few weeks ago. The last time we did that, in 2021, Terry got a photo of me on the rope swing that is now on his travel/photography website. You can see it at https://www.gobedo-journey.com/venture-out/

Our summer family adventure trips consisted of playing in the Willamette River or local parks, a day at the coast, a hike from Alsea Falls to Green Peak Falls, peach picking with my mom, and best of all, a whitewater rafting trip. We took the kids to the river in the Eugene/Springfield area a couple times on hot days because it’s a quick drive away and free to park. The coast trip was a bit of a bummer because we went on the 5th of July which was extremely hot inland, so nearly every Oregon resident was at the coast. We drove up and down it trying to find a place to park near a beach, and ended up at Cape Perpetua again. The waterfall hike only had three of the kids because the 12 & 13-year-olds decided we took them to too many waterfalls in 2023 and they refused to go. The rest of us had a blast. The oldest one climbed up the rope with me to get to the top of Green Peak Falls, and all three kids had fun splashing in the pool below it. Along the hike back we stopped at a rope swing along the river.

Playing at Cape Perpetua near Thor’s Well

Rafting was probably the highlight of our family summer trips, although our 13-year-old refused to go, citing her fear of deep water. The rest of the kids had a blast, though. At my job, I won the Summit Award, which earned me an “experience” through a vendor company. Ideally it’s supposed to be something you’ve never done before. I’ve been lucky enough to have rafted both the McKenzie and the Deschutes before. But of the choices on the vendor website with the points I had, that was the only one that our whole family could do. And I really wanted to take everyone. I’m so glad I did! We rafted the beautiful McKenzie River with Horse Creek Lodge & Outfitters. Our guide was very nice. The McKenzie is my favorite river in the world because it is so clear and blue. The kids were nervous about the rapids at first, but quickly gained confidence, and our youngest two rode in front for the rest of the way! Our sometimes-sulky teens & tweens were giggling the whole time. The water was very shallow in most places (and since it’s so pure, you can see the bottom except in the rapids), so our 13yo probably would have been just fine. I’m sad that she missed it. Our youngest kid asked me that night if we could go again the next day. I informed him that it costs a fair amount of money and we can’t do it all the time. But I’m so glad we went. Afterward we ate at Takoda’s in Rainbow, and discovered they have a lovely landscaped outdoor seating area, complete with koi pond and waterfall. The previous day had been stormy and cold, but we lucked out for our rafting day!

Want to leave the country (or time travel) but can’t afford it? Visit cultural fairs! We went to three this year. My youngest stepdaughter and I went to the Scottish Festival just north of Eugene, where we met up with my friend Sarah and some of my cousins. Bagpipes make me really sentimental because they were played at my high school’s graduation every year, and the parade through the event did not disappoint. At one point they stopped right in front of us for a ceremony, and a lady with a big drum let my girl and my cousin Josh’s twins try it out. The Enchanted Forest band that I’ve mentioned before, Possibly Irish, played a concert with some Scottish tunes. The kids got free prizes for filling a “passport” with stamps from visiting every clan’s table, so we had a great time hearing stories of family history from various clans and trying to figure out where exactly my ancestors came from. And I tried haggis for the first time! Later in the summer, the same friend Sarah took our whole family to one of the Renaissance fairs, the Canterbury Faire in Silverton. My cousin Josh took his twins and his stepsister and her kids to it, too. The line to get in was long (even with pre-purchased tickets) and my kids were hot because of their costumes, so they didn’t last long. But we enjoyed the jousting tournament and a juggling / acrobatics / comedy show before Chris left with all the kids that would fit in our car (we’d carpooled with Sarah’s friends). Our youngest girl got stuck with me, but we got to walk around with Josh and his kids, eat ice cream, and play at various booths and activities before riding home with him. Lastly, I took our 13yo, 9yo, and 7yo to the “Noche Cultural” in Springfield. This was a celebration of Méxican culture and heritage. We ate delicious food, watched performances, and the 9yo learned from a caballero how to rope a cow. And the kids played in the bouncy castle, of course. ¡Muy divertido!

The last family trip we did was to my friend’s daughter’s wedding in the Myrtle Creek area. The wedding was beautiful at a private park by the river owned by the local Native American tribe, and the food was delicious thanks to the culinary skills of the father of the groom. We took the two oldest girls with us for the day and promised them ice cream at Sherm’s Thunderbird store in Roseburg on our way back up. But we found something even cooler on the drive home that I’d never noticed the whole time I lived in that part of the state for a while. Chris is fascinated with dams and other hydroelectric features. Driving north out of Roseburg, something caught his eye. Seeing a big dam, we pulled off at the Winchester exit, ignored the sign for a “fish viewing area,” drove across a beautiful 100-year-old bridge to river day use area with no views of the dam, drove back across the bridge and this time heeded the fish viewing area sign, and found the viewpoint for the dam. What’s better, it had a staircase down the side of the cliff to an interpretive area with windows into the side of a fish ladder. Chris was giddy. I was impressed, but even more with the bridge. This website tells a bit more about it: https://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=oregon/winchesterbridge/

Chris and I got in a couple of small mountain hikes just the two of us this year at the end of summer, mainly to appease my summer FOMO and need for exploring new places. We’d heard about Horse Rock Ridge from the couple that runs the children’s ministry at our church. It’s in the mountains up past the Shotgun Creek park near Marcola, so it’s not too far away for an afternoon hike. The trailhead isn’t marked and we drove past it at first, but we eventually figured it out from the cars parked along the road. The first part of the trail was easy and forested; I think it followed an old defunct logging road. Then it opens up to rocky outcrops and meadows, the trail alternating between the two types of terrain. It’s really neat! I think the trees have grown up to where you can no longer see the high Cascade mountains off to the east, but it was a beautiful trail nonetheless. We followed the rocky parts of the trail all the way up to the radio tower, passing a rocky cave. That part of the hike would have been tough for the kids, but it was neat.

Our other hike was on our second wedding anniversary in late September, to Castle Rock in the Cascade foothills near the town of Rainbow on the McKenzie River. It took us over an hour to get there, but that’s not bad for the views we got at the top. The majority of the trail was a nice forest trail, steep but not difficult footing. Closer to the top, you can see huge cliffs and crags that give the hill its name. When you get to the top, it was rocky and challenging terrain, with no good place to sit for a picnic. The views were fantastic, though. You could see the McKenzie Valley way down below you, including the golf course, and I believe you could see a bit of Cougar Reservoir. But the best part was off to the east. The eastern horizon looked cloudy and hazy for most of our drive, so we weren’t sure if we’d be able to see the High Cascades. Arriving at the top, we found clear blue sky, walked over to the far side, and there were all three Sisters volcanoes! And Mount Washington! And others. We celebrated the rest of our anniversary by checking out the dam at Cougar Reservoir (Chris loved the tall structure that moderates the water temperature) and eating at Takoda’s restaurant in Rainbow. I mentioned the side patio of it above in the rafting paragraph, but guess what else it has a view of? You guessed it… Castle Rock! They even have a burger named after it, which I of course ate. Chris had the ribs. Our server said we lucked out with the views from the top of the mountain because the whole area had been socked in with wildfire smoke most of the day, explaining the haze we’d seen on the way up. It cleared up just in time for our hike. It was a lovely anniversary.

I took a solo trip after that to the coast for a memorial service for an old friend’s husband. The day was sad, but also sweet, because I got to see her and other friends from the early days of my first marriage, including longtime friend Rainie. She and I met up before the service at the Blue Heron Bistro, a German/BBQ restaurant in Coos Bay that was a fun odd mix of German and American country decor and food. She had lived in Germany for a few years, and I was born there, so we love to meet for German food wherever we can. At the service, we got to visit with the couple that I lived with in the months before my ex and I married. On the way home, I stopped at one of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area hikes that I hadn’t done before. The sky was crystal clear and I could see the ocean over the dunes. I reflected on the day and prayed for my friend and her teenage son as they go through the waves of grief.

Lastly, to celebrate selling our house, we splurged last weekend on a fall farm day. I’d been to Johnson Farms once before with girlfriends, but this time my mom and brother met Chris and the kids and me there. We went on the “wild hayride” that involves throwing mini-pumpkins at scarecrows on the ride and using up the rest of your bucket’s worth at a slingshot gallery by the pumpkin patch. All 5 kids loved it! And we almost got a perfect family photo, until someone knocked the stem off the 9-year-old’s pumpkin she’d picked from the patch and she started crying. It’s a near-impossible task with 5 kids to get a picture with everyone looking at camera and hopefully not scowling! There was also a covered hay maze and slide area as well as goats to pet. Our 16-year-old loved the big black goat, which was the largest domestic goat we’ve ever seen! It was a great way to enjoy the warm autumn days before my job gets too busy with overtime and the weather gets too cold and wet. Tonight we celebrated a clear fall day with relatives and friends by a campfire in our backyard and s’mores. In September I’m always sad to leave summer behind, but this has been a beautiful October, and I’m grateful!

Sorry for the super-long post, but hopefully this gives you some ideas for day trips if you live in the area, or makes you want to come visit if you don’t. Plus it takes the pressure off of me a bit at the end of the year to catch up on everything for a Christmas newsletter. If I don’t write much in the next few months, it will be because I’m out enjoying life with my family and friends in this beautiful state whenever I’m not working overtime. Happy fall, y’all!

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: hiking, nature, outdoors, travel, waterfalls | 3 Comments

Happy Oregon Statehood Day! (And Sno-Park Season!)

Posted on February 14, 2024 by compassrosequeen

Oregon is 165 years old on Valentine’s Day this year! In case you haven’t noticed, I love my home state. I wasn’t born here (or any of the states in the USA, for that matter), but it’s the only U.S. state I’ve lived in, and I love it.

My husband and 5 kids and I recently moved across town, so it’s been a busy winter. This last Sunday, we finally took a break from unpacking and organizing to do one of my favorite Oregon activities: driving to the high passes of the Cascade Mountains to play in the snow. We needed it! The fresh mountain air, the pine trees, the snow… it was invigorating. Last year, we met friends at Santiam Sno-Park in the Santiam Pass. This year, we went to Salt Creek Falls Sno-Park near Willamette Pass. Both are great, but there are some differences. Stay tuned for a few travel tips, and comment below to share your favorite places to go in Oregon in the winter! (Or if you’re not living in Oregon, where would you want to go?)

If you’re not familiar with the Sno-Park system here in the Northwest, it’s pretty cool (pun intended). For one $4 parking pass, your whole family can play all day at any of the designated Sno-Parks in the national forests. Other than that, you do have to pay for (or borrow) the gear: sleds or inner tubes, snow pants, winter gloves, snow boots, hats, scarves, and anything else you need to keep warm. But you’d need all of those but the sleds/tubes if you went to one of the more expensive places anyway, like the pay-per-person tubing runs that pull you up the hill at the ski resorts. And those usually cost at least $10 per person. So I think the sno-park passes are the best bang for your buck, at least if you have as many kids as we do. But be aware that Sno-Parks usually only have a pit toilet for facilities. We used the bathrooms at a gas station in Oakridge on our way there.

Salt Creek Falls Sno-Park has sledding runs that are longer and a shallower grade than Santiam Sno-Park. For that reason, we felt that it’s a little safer than Santiam. But do beware of a ditch off to one side that our kids kept sliding into because they were trying to avoid the snow ramps people had built into the runs on the other side. There is a lot more flat space at the bottom for building snowmen and other typical snow activities, too. Our kids built snow-bears after getting bored of sledding and played in a fort that someone had previously built. But for most of them, the highlight was careening down the hills on an inner tube with one or two of their siblings. Okay, for our 13-year-old, her highlight was filming Chris and me ride down together and flip over at the bottom. My face planted deep in the snow, and she laughed for about 10 minutes.

Salt Creek Falls is also less crowded than the busier Santiam area. We found out last year that Hoodoo Ski Lodge at Santiam Pass is huge! It even has an arcade! In contrast, after playing in the snow this year, we visited the much smaller and quieter Willamette Pass ski lodge. If our kids were overwhelmed at Hoodoo last year, they were underwhelmed at Willamette Pass. But it was nice. Be aware that Willamette Pass Lodge doesn’t allow you to bring in your own food anymore. We may or may not have eaten our packed lunch at a cafeteria table as discreetly as we could because we didn’t know till we got in there and saw the gazillions of signs posted about it (they even wrote it on a white board). We ordered nachos to ease our conscience a bit, ate quickly and played some board games, and gratefully used the real bathrooms before heading home.

Someday, my husband and I hope to book a room and stay a couple days at Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood. We plan to sit by the giant fireplaces, look at the views of the mountain, and read and write and play card games to our hearts’ content. But until then, my favorite winter activity in Oregon is probably playing at the sno-parks. What is your favorite winter activity or place to go in Oregon? Or somewhere else if you don’t live here? Comment below; I’d love to hear it!

P.S. Happy Valentine’s Day! And Ash Wednesday to some of you. I hope that wherever in the world you are, you feel loved by the people around you. You are definitely loved by God. I’m praying for peace in the world on this day dedicated to love.

2/14/2024 Note: Evidently I’m not the only one who celebrates Oregon’s birthday! Check out That Oregon Life’s post here: https://thatoregonlife.com/2024/02/love-letter-to-oregon/?utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter%2021424&utm_medium=email

Categories: Traveling with Kids | Leave a comment