The Cleetwood Cove section of Crater Lake was much bluer than the rest. I have no idea why. I was surprised the lake was so blue on a day with mostly gray clouds. Count on a temperature much cooler than you may expect at Crater Lake. We were in the 60s most of the day even though I was expecting 70s. If you are biking it around the lake, 60s are fine for uphill portions (of which there are many on Rim Drive), but things got a little cold on the downhill stretches, even with two shirts.

Posted on August 24th, 2010 under places. Tags: crater lake. Comments: 2

Ryan and I went for a bike ride around Crater Lake this past Saturday. It was a day filled with many highs and many lows. I’ll share some of those, and some photos, over the coming week.

The first “low” was that the road is much longer than I anticipated. A friend told me it takes 2.5 hours on a bike, but we did not find that to be the case. Crater Lake is about 5 miles across. Using the old equation of πr2 (pie r squared) yields a circumference much smaller than the road that goes around the crater, which we found out after the fact is 36 miles in length. You are not actually on the rim of the crater for very long or in many places on the “Rim Road.” Usually you are on the outside of the rim, with just occasional glimpses of the beauty of the lake.

Posted on August 23rd, 2010 under places. Tags: biking, crater lake. Comments Off on Crater Lake week

A few days ago I took a friend to the Medford airport at 4:30 a.m. On my way home I took a bunch of pictures of Ashland just before the sun began to make its appearance. Today is the first of those images. I took it from Oak Street. This is the Ashland Railroad District. The building to the left is the A Street Marketplace which is 100 years old this year (built in 1910). For most of that time it was home to Oak Street Tank And Steel. In 2000 it was remodeled and turned into the current A Street Marketplace which has restaurants, a theater, and more.

Posted on August 21st, 2010 under only in ashland, places. Tags: buildings, night photography. Comments: 1

A few nights back we had a really intense, and really short, lightning storm. The next morning I woke up to this view out the window.

Posted on August 18th, 2010 under nature, places. Tags: clouds, sunrise. Comments Off on Sunrise after a lightning storm

As I walked out of the Ashland Recycling Center on Water Street the other day I had the above view. I like the empty box car over the mini tunnel. These same tracks eventually turn into this scene.

The Ashland Recycling Center is right next to a skateboard/bike park. I’m guessing that is where the biker in the tunnel is about to go.

Posted on August 17th, 2010 under places. Tags: clouds, skywatch, summer, trains. Comments Off on Water Street

The old SOU logo is being replaced with a new one. The one in today’s photo will likely be replaced in the next month. The art buildings can be seen in the background.

I always thought the old logo was supposed to represent the mountains, but I recently heard that they are supposed to be the windows in Churchill Hall. A photo or two of the new SOU logo will be coming here soon.

The weather has been really great in Ashland since returning from hot and humid Tokyo. Every day the highs have been in the 80s, lows in the 50s, and best of all no humidity. The humidity is about the only thing I don’t miss about Japan.

Posted on August 11th, 2010 under places. Tags: signs, Southern Oregon University. Comments Off on Old SOU logo

Before my year in Japan I would visit Quiznos about once a week for lunch. It was my favorite place for lunch in fact. Just across the street from SOU, the Quiznos sub sandwiches were far superior to Subway (which is actually on campus).

After a week back in town I decided to go out for my first meal back home. I totally missed the “Space For Lease” sign and went straight to the door. There I found the sad news that Quiznos had gone out of business. Nooooooo……

I guess they didn’t think I was coming back to support them. 🙁 There was always a line at lunch so I’m not sure what happened to cause the crash while I was gone. Maybe the place was empty at night and on weekends?

I bet there will be some students next month who are unhappy to find Quiznos went under while they were away on summer break.

Posted on August 10th, 2010 under places. Tags: buildings, signs. Comments Off on Quiznos no mo

Revisiting one of my favorite places in Southern Oregon, the Avenue of Giant Boulders.

Posted on August 9th, 2010 under nature, places. Tags: avenue of the giant boulders, clouds, hike, mountains, trees, water. Comments: 1

One more pic from our return flight from SFO to MFR. Here we are approaching the airport in Medford. The United flight was on a small plane with probably about 30 seats. Several were empty and most were taken up with the bodies of Japanese middle schoolers who were on our same flight from Narita (Tokyo) to San Francisco. I found out they were doing a mini, one-week home stay in Eagle Point and White City (Oregon). Since I was the only one on the flight who could speak both English and Japanese they moved me to the exit row. That was nice as I had more leg room, but it meant my view was obstructed by the wing and propeller of this small plane.

Small planes coming from the south have to go over the mountains that spring up on the California-Oregon border. Frequently this involves a load of hair-raising turbulence, and this flight experienced about as much turbulence as I have felt on the dozen or so planes I’ve taken on this Medford-San Francisco journey. The Japanese kids were freaking out but had big smiles on their faces when we finally landed.

Posted on August 7th, 2010 under places. Tags: aerial, medford. Comments Off on Flying into Medford