ANGELA B. PAN

I feel in love with Oregon. I loved every minute we were there. I felt so at peace and calm during our whole road trip across the state, I would highly recommend it to anyone who’s considering visiting the Pacific Northwest.

The real reason we went was to celebrate my birthday and to visit a place we had never been to. Portland was a city that both Andrew and I had heard was a fun place to be but never been. But we also knew it was the place to be if you like good food and weird things. Both did not disappoint!

Since this was our first time visiting Oregon, we didn’t really know what to expect. We’ve been back for less than a month, I already know of somethings that I would do differently. With that said, we will be back again. Both Andrew and I left with the feeling of wanting to see and do more. But I think that’s the sign of an amazing trip. Prior to the trip, I did tons of research on the Oregon coast on Pinterest and asked some friends who I knew had visited before. Through my research, I quickly realized that Oregon is a very dog-friendly state. Minus Crater Lake that doesn’t allow dogs in most areas of the park, Frankie was allowed everywhere else we wanted to go. So we booked 3 plane tickets off we went!

Here is a recap of everything we did and the things I would do differently next time:

Day 1: Fly into Portland

We arrived early in the afternoon, grabbed our rental car and went straight to pick up the essentials: Blue Star Donuts. I know I don’t normally give food recommendations but if you like fancy donuts, then Blue Star is where you want to be. I’ll have another donut recommendation later on our trip that ended up being our favorite.

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While we were photographing the sunrise, Andrew mentioned that he would like to be able to walk on the beach. It was perfect because I had planned a hike for us to do just that. So after I was done capturing the sights from the Ecola State Park viewpoint, we went back to the hotel, packed up all our stuff and picked up Frankie so we could go on our first hike in Oregon.

The Crescent Beach Trail started right back at the Ecola State Park viewpoint. It’s a 2-mile hike that at first didn’t seem too bad but what we quickly learned that a lot of the beach trails that are along the Oregon coast are very steep. What’s beautiful about Oregon is that there are over 300 miles of untouched coastal land meaning you won’t see beach houses or anything like that on the coast. It’s all just natural trees, dunes and gorgeousness. But it also means getting on to the beach is quite strenuous.

This image was taken towards the beginning of the hike before it got to be too bad. We were still getting some of that early morning glow coming through the trees and I asked Andrew to stand in it. It’s funny because at first I didn’t remember which hike this was, but noticed Andrew was wearing jeans so I knew this was the first hike we did. We both made the mistake of wearing jeans. I say it was a mistake because climbing up and down those hills was hot, sweaty and sticky. After this, it was all athletic shorts all the time. Of course, Frankie didn’t notice the hills at all. He had a free ride everywhere he went.

My camera settings for this image are F6.3 at 1/40th sec ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

Home from our amazing trip to Oregon. It was Andrew, Frankie and I’s first time visiting the state and in one short week, I feel like we got to see a lot. I was so excited to start looking at my images when I got back that I didn’t really know where to start.

So I started with this one 🙂 I love it and reminds me of all the amazing adventures the three of us got to go on.

This image was taken on the second half of our trip while we were hiking to the Toketee Falls in the Umpqua National Forest. The hike was short, 0.8 miles roundtrip but its heavily trafficked. So much so that it was hard to find parking and there were times where we would have to wait for people to pass on the trail before we could even go further. With so many people, we figured it would be easier to put Frankie in the backpack and go at our own pace instead of his.

We let him out right after I captured this image when we arrived at the waterfall. It was great because there was a little viewing platform for all of us to see the waterfall and Frankie could stretch his legs a bit. After a little rest, Frankie went back into the backpack, we hiked back to the car and drove straight to Bend right after.

I think one of the best parts about this trip is that even though we would have long driving sessions, there would be places where we could park and go on like hikes like this. It was a great way to get a little bit of cardio in while checking out the sights.

My camera settings for this image are F4.5 and 1/2500th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 24-70mm lens.