May 2020

HAWAII CANCELS ITS “ALOHA!” WELCOME

By Dick Jordan | May 21, 2020

(Updated July 13, 2020)

Follow this five-step plan and you, too can “win” a one-year stay on Hawaii with “free room and board.”

First, Pick an island, any island that normally welcomes tourists.

Second, book a flight to and a hotel room on that island.

Third, take the flight.

Fourth, check into the hotel and go to your room.

Fifth, and the most important step: Ignore the mandatory 14-day quarantine, leave your room, get arrested, get fined, go to jail (without passing “Go” and collecting $200) for an entire year.

If you think I’m joking, read on.

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THE DAY MOUNT ST. HELENS BLEW ITS TOP

By Dick Jordan | May 18, 2020

Forty years before, almost to the minute, that this article was posted on Tales Told From The Road, Mount St. Helens, a “dormant” volcano in Southwest Washington, blew its top.

If, like my best friend, Bill, I had still been residing in or around my old hometown of Seattle, perhaps I might have heard the sound as the mountain exploded 100 miles to the south.

If I had been 200 miles to the east of Mount St. Helens in Spokane, Washington, where Bill’s wife hails from, I might have seen the sky turn from day to night at midday as ash from the eruption obscured the sun.

But living 700 road miles to the south in the San Francisco Bay Area the only clue I had that the mountain had been forever altered came from news reports.

I wouldn’t see the carnage to the landscape surrounding Mount St. Helens until years later.

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Oregon Begins To “Reopen”

By Dick Jordan | May 16, 2020

As elsewhere in the U.S., Oregon has been subject to coronavirus “Stay-At-Home” orders and restrictions on travel, closure of restaurants and bars, and very importantly for Oregonians, access to its state parks.

Beginning on Friday, May 15, 2020, Oregon Governor Brown approved the applications of 31 of the state’s 36 counties to enter “Phase I” of “reopening.”

Counties surrounding or near Portland did not apply to “reopen” (presumably because none believed they could meet the criteria to ease the coronavirus restrictions) and ironically, Marin County where Salem, the state capitol is located, did not have its application approved yet.

Oregonians (at least those living in urban areas) are encouraged to limit travel to no more than 50 miles from home but that means at least for some, visiting state parks is now possible, including at least some in the state’s popular coastal areas.

And others may venture into state parks east of the Cascades, such as Smith Rock State Park, especially if they reside in cities like Bend or Sisters.

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