I am sorry for the bland title, but I have learned if I put details in the title it will be hit by many Muggles that I do not want to share this blog.

Pat and I just came back from 2017 Explore Oregon Miata run.  Run is such a difficult title but think of it as a convention of Miata owners of our age meeting together to participate in some drives on interesting roads to interesting locations.

We love these events in Oregon and Washington states because they have such fascinating topography.  This trip was typical.  We were centered in Pendleton Oregon which is a small city on the prairie of eastern Oregon surrounded by wheat fields and rolling hills.  But with short drives you can be in deep canyons and forests.

Unlike most of north america where the foundation is either granite or sedimentary rocks, eastern Oregon, Washington and parts of Idaho are built on lava fields.  In fact the largest area of lava field in the world.  Approximately 160,000 square miles of lava flows.  The volcanos are long since gone and moved west to Mount St Helens and Mount Baker.  Millions of years of lava layers built  up to where it is over a kilometer thick.

Makes for interesting landscape.  Long before man stood upright, the Columbia river started to drain from Canada through this lava field to the ocean with lots of feeder streams.  With the addition of some glaciers and you have a deep valley cut to the ocean.

The first picture is a bluff that shows millions of years of lava layers.   That bluff is about 400 meters high.  The water in the foreground is the Columbia river about 40 km west of Walla Walla Washington.  Shows the many layers of basalt.

Nearby are lava flows that are much more recent.  The second picture shows a field of lava from the last 1000 years (ie a recent event)

We love the drives in this part of Oregon and Washington.