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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By the way, I’m working on an Oregon road trip post with everything we did in the week we visited. Reflecting back on the trip, there were definitely a few things that I would have done differently and discussed that in the post. If you have any other questions about Oregon, please let me know. I’ll try my best to answer them.

In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying going through the images from the trip. It’s been sort of a slow process but I’ve been really happy with the results so far. Especially this one for some reason. By the time we arrived at Myers Creek Beach Viewpoint, the sun had already been up for a while. It wasn’t the middle of the day but we could definitely feel the heat from the sun. It made for harsh lighting conditions so I was a little bit hesitant to even attempt to edit this image. I remember being so excited about the water reflections in the sand that I started shooting right when I got out of the car. I captured this just steps away from the rental in the parking lot.  Although you can’t see any reflections, you can tell how glassy and still the water was. OMG

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/800th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 24-70mm lens.

I was TIRED! I don’t know why but driving down to the Samuel H Boardman State Scenic Corridor was a trek! It took way longer than I thought it would have and by the time we were in the vicinity, I was just ready to go straight our Airbnb and lay in bed.

But then we drove past Meyers Creek Beach. Holy cow. This place looked beautiful. It woke me right back up. Since I was the one driving, I made a mental note to remember the name. As soon as we parked, I went into my phone and wrote it down so I knew where I wanted to go for the next day. Luckily, it was already in my notes as one of the first places I wanted to visit in the corridor. LOL, it was honestly no surprise.

So this image was taken the very next day. We didn’t make it for sunrise but this was still taken in the early morning. Unfortunately, the whole time we were in South Oregon there were barely any clouds. So I tried my best to fill the frame with the lines in the sand. But I think one of my favorite parts about this image is that even though there weren’t many clouds, you can still see a few clouds above the mountains but then you can also see it in the reflection in the sand. OMG.

My camera settings for this image are F6.3 at 1/2000th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 24-70mm.