My Favorite Secret Places; A Blogger Game of Tag

I have been tagged by a blogger friend, and am to write about my three secret spots in the world. Places where my heart feels at home and where my mind wanders when I dream. There are many other settings that have written themselves onto my heart and jump to mind when I ask myself what experiences have been most special. A dark street in Kyoto lined with trees of cherry blossoms, illuminated so only the lampposts and flowers shine in the night. Diving through a forest of coral on the Great Mayan Reef, among brightly colored fish, octopus, and turtles. Watching bears in Glacier National Park. But, I think the answers to this question are more than a vivid memory of a single experience, rather about places I know well: the steady friends of the places in my life.

I love the vast empty space of Oregon’s Alvord Desert, unrolled into flatness below the giant fault block Steens Mountain. I suppose I love it because there is so much noise in my life, not just auditory, but also visual and kinetic noise. To use a term from art, the Alvord is my negative space, a place where my mind retreats to find calm.

The valley floor is stark and bare, the alkali clay surface cracked into jagged lines like an endless white-tile mosaic. All vegetation and rocks are held back, distant. The emptiness close by is broken only by that which we bring with us. In warmer weather, heat waves rise from the surface, distorting and then dissolving the edges of the flats and my companions if I wander too far from them. The experience is surreal, the white place in movies between life and death. Without the mountain peak visible above the shimmer, the world would disappear.

The surrounding valley is mostly void of trees, with the exception of willows and cottonwoods following the streams that flow from the higher elevations. Sagebrush spills over the land, and offers its scent in every breath. To the West, Steens Mountain presses abruptly to the sky, lifting 5500 feet above the dry lake bed. The mountains to the South, Southeast, and North are not as imposing, but complete a rim containing the void.

Three hundred miles north and west of the Alvord Desert, a ribbon of blue water has spent centuries sculpting a bed for itself into the volcanic earth. Its banks are a verdant green of grass and trees, a shock of color surrounded by muted desert tones. The contrast leaves little doubt that the Lower Deschutes River brings life, is life, in this place. The steady pull of gravity creates unending power in the water; restless to return to the sea and begin again its life giving cycle.

Herds of wild horses graze and run on the far bank, in the Warm Springs Reservation. High, open canyon walls rise with rolling rhythm, enclosing the life giving river in a valley of its own making. Open hillside grasslands dotted with pungent sagebrush and twisted juniper are broken by rock outcroppings and cliff bands.

They all come eventually, if you watch long enough; the wildlife of the canyon are sustained by the water. Skunks chase and play and river otters raise their families along the banks. Osprey return to their nest and hungry young with trout. Fly fishermen tempt steelhead and pull their leader from the trees that line the bank. White water rafters float by laughing and splashing each other with their paddles. Then quiet returns, and the river continues flowing, nurturing the lives it sustains.

Oregon’s coastline is rugged sea cliffs and huge open beaches. The pounding Pacific Ocean rises and falls in tides, revealing and taking back vast stretches of sand and tide pools. At the base of Yaquina Head, a bluff of land stretching out from the shoreline, obstinate against the waves which crash endlessly against its cliffs, are rocks and pools exposed at low tide, filled with starfish and spiny urchins. Monolith boulders stand sentry, towering above the tidal pools. Washed clean of soil, seaweed clings to their bases and noisy rookeries of common murre crowd their tops.

The beach to the south of Yaquina Head sweeps down toward Newport, a tourist haven complete with a brew pub, wax museum, and shops selling plastic souvenirs and t-shirts. Tucked against the head on the north end, piles of driftwood logs like tumbled matchsticks rest against the cliffs, strewn where the ocean left them during high tide storms. My dogs and children run free on the beach, chasing the wind. At the end of the day, we climb the stairs back to our favorite condo at Starfish Point, and watch the sun slide down the sky and vanish into the Pacific.

~The Chain letter originated on : http://www.tripbase.com/blog/tripbase-blog-tag/

~I was tagged by Lisa Bergren, she wrote about places in Montana: http://theworldiscalling.com/2009/12/my-3-nw-montana-secrets/#more-1505

~Now I need to go look at the list to see who has already played, and tag 5 more people who have not… I’ll have to get back to this part. My family wants me to run off with them for a few hours.

Update… OK, I have found 5 travel bloggers who I don’t see on the Tripbase already-tagged list.

Travel And Travails – By Dee Andrews, who has just returned from a year living abroad with her family. “Find inspiration, share ideas, seek the unexpected, in traveling and in life.”

Family On Bikes By Nancy Sathre-Vogel, who is biking with her family from Alaska to Argentina. “When we reach the southernmost tip of South America, Davy and Daryl will become the new Guinness World Record holders as the youngest people to cycle the Pan-American Highway!” Oops. Just heard back from Nancy. I guess she’s already played. I must have missed her on the list. Here’s her post, anyway: Hidden Gems

Travel Sights With Lilliy By Lilliy K., also known as Fun Lilliy. She has lived in many places~ “Every trip adds to who I am in some way. I have been lucky to been able to see many cities and countries and would love to share all that with others that have the same passion.”

Globe Hoppers By the Anderson Family: “6 Continents – 88 Countries – 9 Iowans – 1 Family” How cool is that?

That Traveling Couple By Andrew and Elysia. A young, Australian couple living in Toronto, who love wandering. “we wanted … to share stories about our adventures and in doing that hopefully shed some light on some amazing places you too can visit! Plus we just LOVE everything about travel so this is just pure, unadulterated FUN for us”