Leaving Oregon - Autumn 09

I am leaving today, in the airport currently.

Good bye autumn
Good bye chilly weather
Good bye beautiful scenery
Good bye yummy Korean food
Good bye green trees
Good bye foggy morning

Note: Photos are taken by Chun at different times and spot

Painted Hill & Sheep Rock

Everywhere was reported to be cloudy, shower or wet on last Saturday. The only place that didn't rain probably is the place we went. I visited some colourful hills with a bunch of monkeys. LOL. The name of this place is Johd Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

(Note: This pic is from Bong's camera)

It is in a very outskirt area near Mitchell. There are no restaurants nearby Painted Hills, the nearest is the tiny one in Mitchell. We visited the Painted Hills which looks like watercoloured hills. The sands and soils has some kind of minerals that create yellow, red, green, goldish colours. Some parts of the hill are very fragile that walking on the ground will cause the soft surface to sink.

By the time we reached there it was in the afternoon where the sun was above our head.

There is a trail where we can walk on to get closer look at the hills.

After that we went to visit Sheep Rock which is the fossil monument. There are a few trails for people to hike and we took the shorted one which was like 1km.

There is this place called Blue Basin at the end of trail. Green or blue-ish rocks/hills. It was quite a boring place because all were hills and hills and hills, number of humans we saw didn't exceed my finger counts.

A group photo at last. We were back to Hillsboro at 11pm. Tired

Fall & Trillium Lake

I am here in Oregon during fall. All the leaves beginning to turn yellow, some to red.. and orange. It is my first time experiencing fall, to tell the truth. The scenery is beautiful. Perfect for a peaceful weekend if you want to spend it slow and comfy.


It was my second and last Sunday morning in Oregon. I wanted to go somewhere that I can take a photo with Mt Hood behind me. Lovely Aichee and hubby introduced me to this place called Trillium Lake where it supposed to have Mount Hood reflection on the water.

This is the photo I took of Aichee accidently when I was swinging my camera. Anyway, I kinda love it. Feels like the world around her moving nonstop, going back in time.

We stopped by the road side on the way up to the lake, and took some photos, which looks something like Yosemite valley.

There is supposed to be Mount Hood at the end and it's reflection in the calm water. However it was really cloudy and grey on Sunday. There isn't any hope to see the mountain at all. We hung around for like thirty minutes or plus hoping for the cloud banks to slowly shift away. But they didn't because there was like clouds everywhere. Anyway, it was nice to just be there. Twillight kind of weather..

This man had the lake all by himself. He was out there fishing with his small little puppy on the floating boat. We went for dimsum later on, not a dissapointment because the food was not bad.

My Grand Canyon trip

I squeezed a tight Grand Canyon trip on the next day I arrived in Arizona. I asked Wee Meng if he would like to go with me again to Grand Canyon because he visited the place many times before. I always see pictures of the magnificent Grand Canyon from people that travelled to The States but I haven't been there myself. Despite the short trip, to be exact 3 days, I had to Chandler, hardly I must visit the sandstone hills at least once in a lifetime. There isn't much chance to travel here again after this trip, I guess.


Early Sunday morning, we departed from my hotel. The drive took about 4.5 hours. Luckily I had Wee Meng to chauffeur me as I have not drive in any road in Arizona before.. Pity him that he has to hold the steering wheel whole day.


This is a must-take picture to prove that I have been to Grand Canyon National Park. The wind was strong that day. The weather board put 100m/h of max wind. After the stop to snap this photo, both of us decided to put our jackets on.

We were told to drive along the road which we will see the canyon from all the different points, from the map. We stopped at all the points near east entrance station, South Rim.

I can't really remember which point all these photos were taken because the views look almost the same from every point with the Colorado river flowing in different direction but the canyon stand still, layer of different brown tone. It was very windy, too strong that I can feel my body were leaning to a side and both my legs were not touching the ground whenever the wind blow. There were a few times my bag almost flew away if I didn't hold on tight to it.

This view I am not sure where it is. It can be either Grandview, Moran , Lipan or Navajo Point

There is a viewing tower to watch the dessert view

The dessert view

This was about an hour before sunset. This is the hermits rest. We came here in shuttle bus provided from the village

I have to show at least one picture of Wee Meng because he is the honorouble tour guide. He was trying to act courage by sitting at one of the cliff overseeing the canyon. Kill me if you want me to sit over there.

We watched sunset in one of the point. I am not sure. I think this is Hopi Point at ~6.10pm. It was once in a lifetime opportunity, to watch sunset and Grand Canyon, one of US's national park.

I was exhausted from this trip because continuosly I slept only 4 hours everyday until the day after I reached Oregon. Anyway, a big thank you to Wee Meng for his generous time accompanying me.

I left Arizona!!!

After the rush trip from Penang to Arizona, at last I am settling down in Oregon for a short time. This is a place where I love to be. Chilly. I like seeing trees, grass and green more to rocks, sand and brown. But this is not for long. I will be back in 2 weeks time. Anyway, things are really crazy here and I missed lunch on the first day I was in Arizona, not forgetting about how I ate the melted polystrene foam for dinner. It was pathetic except for the golden opportunity to travel and the good friends I have when I landed in the stranger's land. Basically they are the best people I met when I first landed.

Thanks for picking me up from airport, the help to solve my rental car issue, sending me to my flight at 5am in the morning, home cooked lunch, company for dinner and 3 days of feeling home when I was there.

Gonna sleep soon, lack of sleep lately.