Oregon’s Beauty in Writing, Views and History-See What These Talents See

Jane Kirkpatrick:  Come Visit the World in Oregon

Have you ever been to Rome...Oregon? People from around the world converge on this tiny town because float trips on the Owyhee River begin at Rome. To take that trip is to step back in time as the river meanders through rock pillars that look as much like Utah or Yellowstone as eastern Oregon. 

           

I’m intrigued by Oregon’s many towns named for places better known somewhere else. As I write historical novels based on the lives of actual women and men, it interested me that so many Eastern/Anglo names of towns speckle Oregon’s landscape while our northern

neighbor, Washington, hosts dozens more mountains, cities, creeks etc. that bear native names. In researching frontier diseases, I learned that the malaria mosquito that arrived on the Columbia River on “Boston ships” of the 1870s, never crossed the Columbia into Washington. Instead, the mosquitos afflicted the vulnerable tribes of Oregon. My theory is that when settlers arrived in the 1840s, there were few Indians left to say what that river or mountain was called. So white settlers named the places from their traditions, reminders of “back home.”

One of the rivers that does bear an Indian name is the Coos River on the southern coast. I invite you to Charleston — Oregon. Near-by is beautiful Shore Acres State Park overlooking the Pacific. My book A Gathering of Finches tells the story of the woman who inspired the creation of that park. You can stay in a B & B in Charleston on your way to enchantment visiting the five acres of formal garden that Cassie Simpson’s husband created for her.

www.oregon.com/attractions/shore-acres-state-park  

How could I not talk about Portland — Oregon? Years ago, when I worked with families whose children had disabilities, a story was told of a Portlander visiting a classroom of Downs Syndrome children in Sweden. “Are you from the Portland on the east coast or the Portland on the west coast?” asked this preschooler shattering the then held view that Downs Syndrome children could not learn. Those Swedish kids knew of two Portlands and where they were in the United States. Oregon’s Portland is at the confluence of the Willamette and the mighty Columbia Rivers. In my latest novel Everything She Didn’t Say, Portland plays a part. But so do cities and rivers across the west as the subject of this book — Carrie Strahorn — traveled for twenty-five years with her husband developing railroad opportunities and actually building cities in the west. Portland was an important hub for railroad development and Carrie in her 1911 memoir Fifteen Thousand Miles By Stage wrote of that city and rivers that flow through Oregon’s history and our very contemporary lives. (sign up for a chance to win one of two copies of that book out in September at my site.) 

www.jkbooks.com.

          

Leave a comment here to win a copy of this new release!  Jane offers this great prize to 2 lucky winners! 

Please come to Oregon and visit Dallas and St. Louis and Jacksonville and oh, so many more cities whose history comes from the east but lives on in the west — and most of those places have a creek or a river that runs through them and are lovely to sit beside.

Jane is internationally recognized for her lively presentations and well-researched stories that encourage and inspire.

A New York Times Bestselling author, her works have appeared in more than 50 national publications including The Oregonian, Private Pilot and Daily Guideposts. With more than 1.5 million books in print, her 30 novels and non-fiction titles draw readers from all ages and genders. Most are historical novels based on the lives of actual historical women often about ordinary women who lived extraordinary lives. Her works have won numerous national awards including the WILLA Literary Award, the Carol Award, USABestBooks.com, Will Roger's Medallion Award and in 1996, her first novel, A Sweetness to the Soul, won the prestigious Wrangler Award from the Western Heritage and National Cowboy Museum. Her novels have also been finalists for the Spur Award, the Oregon Book Award, the Christy, Reader's Choice and the WILLA in both fiction and non-fiction. Several titles have been Literary Guild and Book of the Month choices and been on the bestsellers list for independent bookstores across the country, in the Pacific Northwest and the Christian Booksellers Association. Her books have been translated into German, Dutch, Finnish and Chinese.

Helen Picca: Oregon- an Incredibly Diverse State

Diverse geologically and climatically.  It is a rather large state, ranking 9^th overall in land size, but much further down the scale in terms of population.  We rank 27^th in population, but 40^th in population density—that’s 39.9 people per square mile!

Along the I5 Corridor, a major west coast interstate, lie the big cities:  Portland, an eco-friendly city and home to the Portland Trailblazers, the Japanese Gardens and the International Rose Test Garden, containing over 10,000 roses; Salem, the capital city set amid parks and gardens, featuring the Ale and Cider Trail; and Eugene, a college town, known as “A great city for the arts and outdoors.” 

East of that major artery are the Cascades, a mountain range of extraordinary peaks extending from Mt Shasta in northern California all the way to British Columbia, Canada, with 11 peaks over 8,000 ft in Oregon. 

 Within that range lies Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the USA, and perhaps the most pristine.  Almost 2000 ft. deep, this bluer-than-blue lake within the crater was formed when Mt. Mazama blew its top and it is the only National Park within the state. 

Further east of the mountains, lies dry, flat plains that are desert, and high desert filled with manzanitta bushes and majestic Ponderosa pines, and not very many people.  There are mostly small towns, remnants of frontier outposts that supported cattle ranchers, many ranches still active today.  

But on the west side of the Cascades is a whole other environment—the lush valley, where much of the state’s agriculture is grown and on out to the very edge of the continent, to the Oregon Coast.  Otherwise known as “The People’s Coast,” where the beaches are designated as public land.  

The coastline is dotted with fishing and resort communities from Seaside in the north to Harbor in the south, all 363 miles of rugged coastline, where monolithic rocks—called sea stacks—can be spotted all along the ride on U.S. Highway 101, the scenic coastal road. This scenic byway is one of the most famous in the United States and is a tourist attraction in itself.  For more information see the brochure at https://visittheoregoncoast.com/pdf/OCVA_PCSBBrochure.pdf  

Yes, it rains a lot seven to eight months a year, but the rest of the year is gloriously sunny and, with a fairly constant ocean wind, is mildly temperate—80 degrees would be considered a heat wave!

The southern coast of Oregon, Curry County, is where I call home and where I was inspired to write.  Several years ago, I was sitting on a bench in the town of Port Orford, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, taking in the scene before me: a working fishing dock, majestic rock heads to my right and to my left nothing but trees, green evergreen forests as far as my eye could see, near to the California border.

There were no houses, no golden arches, no big box stores.  Just nature—the sea, the forest, the mountains of the coastal range.  I was transfixed by its raw beauty when I was struck with an idea, loud in my head, “write a book about Port Orford.”  That was the start of my writing career. 

 In “The Last Frontier of the Fading West,” a work of historical fiction, I tried to capture the sense of this small fishing community, where everyone knows each other.  With a population of 1190 in 1.56 square miles, small may be an understatement.  I started by researching the town and the county and discovered a little-known fact that this town was the place where survivors were brought when an oil tanker was sunk by a Japanese submarine during WWII.  I knew that was where my story would begin…

“I remember it like it was yesterday—the chaos, the fear, the uncertainty. . .the first time I saw him.   The immediate attraction, that queasy, sort of stomach-turning sensation that set me all aflutter.  I was young—so young—naïve, isolated in a small world of safety and comfort too soon shattered by a phone call.”

One of the things I truly love about living here on the southern Oregon coast are the hiking trails.  Nowhere else that I have found can one hike all alone, not see another human being, and find patches of wild berries to gorge upon, like Thimbleberries 

or Huckleberries

  With enchanted forests, misty fern grottoes and breathtaking ocean views, one can escape to serenity, where the imagination can run free.  For more information go to: 

https://www.oregonlive.com/travel/index.ssf/2016/04/8_great_day_hikes_on_the_orego.html

It was in this environment, so pristine and bucolic—where I can ride down the highway and see fields of cows and sheep, pass countless blueberry and cranberry farms (and very few cars)—that I was able to forge my path to happiness.  Here, I was inspired to write my story, of my life getting on and running on the hamster wheel and going nowhere. Then, getting off, searching for greater meaning in life, to finding peace and contentment. In other words, happiness. From New York to Hawaii to Oregon, the first part of this book is memoir, recounting a life not fully lived; the second part contains 10 aspects of life I worked on, the 10 Easy Steps, that led me to the ultimate goal of happiness.

When was the last time you asked yourself, “Am I happy?” Do you feel like you are running on a hamster wheel and going nowhere? This practical 10-Step guide offers a way to jump off the wheel, slow down and experience a more fulfilling life. 

Brimming with wry humor and insightful anecdotes, here is Picca’s personal odyssey--a search for greater life satisfaction. Within these pages lies a proven path to a state of peacefulness and genuine contentment. You, too, can abandon the futile hamster wheel, add meaning to your life, and find lasting happiness. Are you ready to be happy?

For more information about the great state of Oregon, go to https://traveloregon.com/  to find places to go and things to do. 

For more about me and my books go to:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B074NRDVW1 where my books are available in both paperback and kindle versions. 

Follow me at https://www.facebook.com/HelenPiccaAuthor/   

or on Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17029583.Helen_Picca

Please comment below, letting me know if you’ve ever been to Oregon and do tell me where you live.  One lucky reader will receive a signed copy of “The Last Frontier of the Fading West.”  (Sorry, US only)

H.L. Wegley Brings Oregon-Land of the Golden West:

My wife and I were both raised in the same community in Oregon. In our day, every school kid learned the Oregon state song, Oregon, My Oregon. The first line ends with the words, “land of the golden west.” But the second verse calls Oregon, “land of the setting sun,” for good reason.

The Oregon Coast boasts some of the most spectacular sunsets in the world. Despite the muddy picture that mid-winter on the Oregon coast conjures up, it’s a great time for sunshine, between rainstorms of course. Here’s what the January sun can produce at Lincoln City.

The Cascade Mountains, separating Eastern and Western Oregon, are lined with spectacular volcanic peaks. Mount Hood is the most prominent.

Further south, outside the tourist town of Sisters, are three sibling peaks known as, what else, the Three Sisters.  In the clear air of Eastern Oregon, the sisters are visible from 50 to 60 miles away. The picture of the Three Sisters was taken from Paulina Peak, near Lake Paulina, 60 miles from the farthest sister.

The Deschutes River flows northward along the eastern slopes of the Cascades. This river provides the best steelhead fishing in the world and hosts its own brand of cascades, such as Steelhead Falls.

Sometime soon, I’m going to set a scene at the falls. It looks like a great place to get shot at … well, if they don’t hit you.

North of Bend Oregon, near the small town of Terrebonne, the deep canyon of the Crooked River cuts through the desert for 125 miles. This miniature Grand Canyon provided the setting for part of the classic 1967 western movie, The Way West, in which Sally Field made her movie debut. The view from the canyon rim is stunning, but sometimes a bit hazy during the summer when wildfires sometimes create a smoky haze.

On a plateau along the Crooked River, avid golfers will find one of the best kept golfing secrets in the United States, an incredibly beautiful course with magnificent vistas. Irrigation makes the Crooked River Ranch Golf Course, which lines the canyon, an oasis in the desert.

Brave golfers can try to drive across part of the canyon to shave a stroke or two off their score. If a golfer comes up short, regrets are as deep as the canyon (400 - 500 feet). Just drop another ball and take your penalty strokes. You aren’t gonna’ find your dimpled darling. It’s gone!

My latest novel, No True Justice, uses Lake Billy Chinook, near Madras, Oregon for several action-filled scenes. The lake, formed by Round Butte Dam at the confluence of the Deschutes, Crooked, and Metolius Rivers, meanders through canyons, some lined by 500- to 800-foot-high cliffs. It’s a bad place to be caught when a helicopter approaches with a black ops team using RPGs to take you out. Oops. That was a bit of a spoiler. Or maybe a teaser. Regardless, Lake Billy Chinook provides some panoramic views of Mount Jefferson.

The main verse of the Oregon State Song ends with, “Hail to thee, Land of the Heroes, My Oregon.” I would have to add “land of heroines,” because some of the finest hours of any heroine in print are lived in my four novels set in this great state. Of course, I’m not a bit biased.

If you leave a comment, you’ll be entered into a giveaway for my recent release, No True Justice. It is set in Oregon near 5 of the 7 pictures in this post. This romantic suspense tells the story of Gemma Saint, a young woman coerced into WITSEC to silence her as part of a conspiracy to influence a presidential election. You can read more about this story, including 4 chapters, here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FLLW3DJ/ or you can visit my author page: http://www.hlwegley.com and look under the Books tab for the Witness Protection Series.