Tom McCall Waterfront Park, Fall Leaves, Mt. Hood

Tom McCall Waterfront Park: This park was, until the 1970's, a four-lane highway. When I-5 and I-405 were built as a loop around downtown Portland, highway 99W became unnecessary, so the highway was turned into the present waterfront park, which has become the site of numerous summer festivals as well as year-round recreation. There was also an effort to clean up the Willamette River in the 1970's to coincide with this re-bonding of downtown Portland with the river, but the river's cleaner profile didn't last long and has since become hopelessly polluted again. The park has still become an essential part of the city.

Mt. Hood: Mt. Hood, in the Cascade Mountain range, was named after British Admiral Samuel Hood in 1792. Aside from being a popular skiing destination an hour from Portland and an eye-catching backdrop in the Portland skyline, Mt. Hood is in fact an active volcano, as all of the major peaks of the Cascades are. Of course, Hood's sister to the north, Mt. St. Helens, had its most recent major eruption in 1980. Geologists monitor all the cascades including Mt. Hood for volcanic activity. Someday, maybe not in our lifetimes, Mt. Hood will erupt again, but who knows when?