ANGELA B. PAN

One place that I’d love to be in the fall time would be Oregon. Gah, I seriously loved visiting the state. It was amazing in the late summer. I can’t even imagine what it would be like in the fall or even spring.

This image was taken along the Drift Creek Falls Hike. Towards the end of the hike, you have to cross this suspension bridge in order to see the waterfall. It actually flows right underneath so the views start when you’re on the bridge. It was a little shakey which made me a bit nervous, but Andrew seemed to have no problems with it. He had no hesitation when I asked him to go back to the center of the bridge and walk back.

I think my favorite part of this image (besides Andrew) is the framing of the leaves. If I didn’t look at it through my camera lens, I probably would have not noticed how perfectly they frame the bridge. I especially like how the leaves in the front are glowing yellow while the trees in the back are so dark green. It makes it look like a really long bridge, which it was! And I actually kinda like the bright lens flare on the top left. I think it adds even more direction in the image that leads your eye to Andrew.

My camera settings for this image are F9 at 1/125th sec and ISO 640 with my Sony A7II and 24-70mm lens.

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 planning for our trip to Oregon, Toketee Falls was high on my list of things to do. It looked so beautiful from all the pictures I saw and the best part about it is that the hike wasn’t too far. It was the perfect stop on our way to Bend, Oregon to get out and stretch our legs for a bit.

What you don’t see from all the Instagram and Pinterest posts is that this place is PACKED! Out of all the places we went to, this was by far the hardest place to find parking and the busiest trail. There were several times where we had to wait for people to pass in order to continue on to the trail. Regardless of how many people were there, it was still very cool to see and I’d recommend if you are in the area.

Although this was technically not on the trail, it looked like it could have been a short detour. There were a lot of people who were climbing around these rocks that Andrew and I decided to go down to see what it looked like. As Andrew was exploring, I captured this of him and Frankie. Yep, that’s Frank in the red backpack. He’s just not looking at the camera. LOL.

My camera settings for this image are F9 at 1/20th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 24-70mm.