At its height, Latourell was a working timber town and had five saloons and a well-known brass band. Large scale commercial logging did not arrive until the 1880s. Before that, many Columbia River Gorge residents cut and delivered cordwood to Columbia River steamships. Today, the former vibrant community of Latourell is quiet; there are no business establishments, and there are fewer than fifty residents compared to its earlier years.

Bodie, California, is a town frozen in time and preserved by California State Parks in a state of “arrested decay.” Bodie became a State Historic Park in 1962and maintains the buildings just as they were found when the State took over the town. They do not restore the buildings; instead, they choose to preserve them in their aged and weathered 1880s appearance.

At its peak, Virginia City was a thriving, vibrant metropolis of 25,000 residents. Located about 35 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada. Silver and gold were buried deep beneath the streets, and men and women traveled from around the world to live and work. Miners pulled millions of dollars from shafts and tunnels 3,000 feet beneath the thriving town.

Deep in the woods near Damascus, Oregon, sits the Temple of Oculus Anubis. This sinister place is shrouded in mystery and has been rumored to be a cult gathering site (among a lot of other unsavory things). Many Oregonians have even gone so far as to call it the creepiest place in Oregon!

In the town of Boring, Oregon, there is a museum called the North American Bigfoot Center. The museum features a gift store and free information center, as well as an admission area featuring dozens of exhibits. The Gift Store sells hundreds of bigfoot/crypto-themed items, including books, clothing, footprint casts, stickers, housewares, toys, and more. The Information Center showcases free exhibits, artifacts, and art for your enjoyment and learning.

Pacific Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King features six giant hand-built troll sculptures by Danish environmental artist Thomas Dambo. The publicly accessible sculptures are located around the Pacific Northwest (Washington and Oregon), where each whimsical troll sculpture is part of an underlying environmental story.

When you think of coffee, the thought of Seattle, Washington usually comes to mind. However, Portland, Oregon, is known as the Coffee Roaster Capital of the United States, with over eighty coffee roasters. With all that choice, it’s challenging to know just who the best coffee roasters in Portland are.