River Market & North Downtown: Detailed Printable Map Guide

Six of us stood shoulder to shoulder, awaiting the floatplane on a rickety dock in northern Yukon. The last time we’d all gathered had been as gangly youths, spouting downy fluff on our faces – full of bravado. A decade and a half had passed since that screaming, drunken crescendo to engineering school. A time when beer for breakfast didn’t raise eyebrows; long before jobs, stress, heartache, coffee, booze, and time had all left their mark on each and every one of us. We carried the history

As I ran stark naked from the crudely whitewashed, low ceilinged concrete building I sweated furiously. The late afternoon breeze immediately brushed my skin and with a few more giant bounds I leapt into the cold Volga. Not far behind, two large, hairy similarly attired Russian men followed suit. Moments before they had together violently attacked me with the leafy branches of a birch tree. Russia. Despite knowing better, despite 12 months of research, reading, watching and learning, it h

Ripples of silver brown water flow west, and even in the shallows the force of it grips my legs, pulling me with it. A small stone, dislodged, bounces onto my foot with a gentle tap. It settles momentarily before it continues its journey through the aeons to the coast. This is the long game of life, a mountain crumbling to the sea, a cycle played visibly and openly in Oregon’s High Desert. Four huge glaciated volcanoes dominate the skyline of the High Desert Plains. Bare black lava flows, so