2010 Census Data for Oregon


I’m in the process of working with the 2010 Census Data, trying to find ways to bring that amazing content into our Online Highways Travel site at OHWY.com.

Below is the state profile which should appear in an iframe but can’t because WordPress is removing it.  That can be fixed via a plugin but I probably won’t hassle with that here since the embeds will be at websites.

I’m a little disappointed that they haven’t made it super easy to incorporate city by city data into websites (or maybe I just have not found that), but ultimately that might be good for our travel site since fewer sites will be willing to reprocess the billions of bytes we’ll be downloading from the Census.

Ideally I want to incorporate OLD census information as well, allowing folks to do some geographical geneaology via our US History, Travel, US Retirement, and Oregon Coast Travel websites.

http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/embedstate.html?state=OR

Oregon Coast – Brookings, Oregon


Lone Ranch Beach is four miles north of Brookings, Oregon on the fabulous Oregon Coast.   This is a pretty secluded beach a few miles north of Brookings’ very popular hiking and camping area and state park called “Harris Beach”.   Winter is my favorite time to visit the Oregon Coast because the wave action is almost always spectacular.     On this trip we also examined some of the tsunami damage to the docks and boats in Brookings Harbor, and heard from locals about the evacuation and somewhat anticlimactic tsunami –  a series of water surges in the harbor – from the Japan earthquake

Oregon Coast – Brookings, Oregon 067

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

History of the Oregon Coast


* Note below why part of this post is NOT about “History of the Oregon Coast”.

We’ve got a brief treatment of “History of the Oregon Coast” over at the site Oregon Coast Travel.

Here is that History of the Oregon Coast from the Oregon Coast Travel website, along with some relevant wikipedia entries and other Oregon Coast link references:

Homo Sapiens first arrived on the Oregon coast approximately 400 generations ago, to subsist in the coast’s generous waters and forests. They fashioned canoes to paddle along the coastline, estuaries, and rivers, where they pursued salmon, seals, and ducks. They also gathered such seafood as clams. Inland, they hunted for game and gathered such foods as roots. On the whole, it was successful subsistence living. That was their lifeway for thousands of years, and as generations came and went, bands coalesced into tribes. The Oregon coast’s principal tribes were the Siletz and Tillamook on the north coast, Alsea and Siuslaw, central coast, and Coquille and Coos on the south coast, among others. The cultures of those tribes were similar.

European exploration of the Oregon coast emerged in the 18th century when Spanish mariners sailed north from Mexico to explore and eventually stake claims to the region. The British soon followed, and the years 1774-1795 in particular became a period of sharp contention between the Spanish and the British for claims to the northwest coast. However, neither side was able to successfully gain hegemony over the region.

In the meantime, Captain Robert Gray, an American, visited the Oregon coast by sea in 1788 and 1792, and returned with fur pelts. Following the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark reached the Oregon Coast in 1804 and laid claim to the territory for the U.S. They also returned with furs, and that prompted one John Jacob Astor to establish the first permanent white trading post in Oregon. The post, Astoria, lay at the mouth of the Columbia River. However, the venture did not prove as successful as Astor had hoped, and the British North West Company bought out Astoria. Both Britain and the United States continued to claim the territory.

On a voyage commissioned by the U.S. Congress, Charles Wilkes landed on the coast in 1838 and planted the American flag. Later, a flood of Americans arriving on the Oregon Trail established de facto the United States’ claim to the land.

From: History of the Oregon Coast

* We interrupted this blog for yet another in our ongoing series of search optimization experiments, trying to figure out what the heck the Google algorithm likes to see, so we can do Google’s bidding.

Of course the great folks at Google always say  “The search algorithm likes to see user-centric, quality content” and that’s true to some extent, but not true enough to make online publishing an easy living.   If that WERE true the search landscape would change dramatically, and you’d see good stuff where you now see fair to poor stuff, which we admit with some shame is some of … our stuff … even though we do have really good stuff sometimes.

Oregon Coast Bird Watching


This post falls squarely in the “SEO Experiments” category. We’ve had an informative but “plain jane” Oregon Coast website up for some time based on Oregon Coast magazine which is published by Northwest Travel Magazines.

The site has historically ranked poorly for “Oregon Coast” and related terms, probably in part because we had never done much to optimize it for search engines, and (I think) partly because quite ironically Google now struggles to properly optimize websites that have extensive internal cross linking. Ironic because extensive linking was a cornerstone of early web quality but fell out of ranking fashion as Google sought to kill off auto-generated websites that used that technique to boost their pagerank and thereby their Google rank for optimized query terms. This became a spam signal because it is so easy to create large database driven websites, but in the case of many sites it is also a good *quality signal* because the site may be very info rich, covering basically every mile of the Oregon Coast Highway 101 in good, objective detail. Google recognizes they’ve created a lot of collateral damage in this way but frankly they have not done much to fix the problem, basically feeling that there is enough “good content” that ranks well. This is wrong and unfortunate, and in travel it has led to a lot of mediocre results when better search would give detailed blog and website references to pages spawned, for example, by people who live in the place getting described and have extensive insider detail.

One part of the optimization has been to rename the site OregonCoastTravel.net and 301 redirect the old pages at 101MilebyMile.com to the new name, hoping to rank better for “Oregon Coast” and “Oregon Coast Travel” as we should.

I’m linking here to the Oregon Coast birding page because it is a straggler that has been 301 redirected to OregonCoastTravel.net but remains listed by Google at the old site. Also, it is an excellent resource page for that topic of Oregon Coast Birding. I want to see how fast this page will now be correctly reindexed.

Oregon Coast Travel


The Oregon Coast is our state’s most recognizable travel destination.   Highway 101 – a National Scenic Byway – winds 363 miles from the Washington state border in the north to the California Border in the south.

At our Oregon Coast Travel website we have a mile by mile guide to Highway 101 that covers ever mile of the journey and the cities and attractions along the way.

This list is NOT all inclusive yet – I’ll be adding more over time… also feel free to leave any  travel or relevant information in the comments.

Astoria to Seaside

Near Astoria is Fort Clatsop where Lewis and Clark spent the winter after their incredible journey across the US as part of Jefferson’s expedition to explore the newly aquired Louisiana Territory.     Seaside remains a popular hotspot for visits to Oregon Coast beaches.

Cannon Beach to Manzanita

Cannon Beach is a very popular beach destination.

Manzanita to Tillamook

Popular attractions in this area include the Tillamook lighthouse and Tillamook Cheese Factory which offer a fun and educational factory tour.    The Cheese Factory is an excellent family attraction and located right off of Highway 101.

Tillamook to Lincoln City

Lincoln City to Newport

Newport to Yachats

In Newport you’ll want to visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium, a world class facility that was once home to Keiko the Whale.    Be sure to check out the Jellyfish exhibits where these amazing and beautiful creatures float in special lighting, and the walk through shark tank.    Allow at least several hours at the Aquarium.   If you are on a very tight budget and don’t have kids (who will love the aquarium!) the Mark O. Hatfield Marine Science Center is nearby and I think it still offers free tours of this Oregon Coast and sea life research facility.

Yachats to Florence

For many the central Oregon Coast offers the most spectacular scenery and the most sublime of the many great Oregon Coast Experiences.   Devils Churn at Cape Perpetua is an amazing sea feature where water rushes into a narrow channel several hundred feet long.   From a short hike you can stand right atop this combination of surf and a collapsed volcanic lava tube to watch the massive surges of water rush in.    Above Devil’s Churn is Cape Perpetua Visitor Center which excellent hikes and interpretive exhibits.

Florence to North Bend

Florence’s “Old Town” is a very popular Oregon Coast destination for dining and shopping with charming shops and several excellent restaurants all within a few blocks of beautifully remodelled buildings that formerly were at the heart of the fishing industry here.

North Bend to Reedsport

Coos Bay to Port Orford

Coos Bay along highway 101 remains a major shipping point from Oregon but thanks to an extensive urban renewal project along the waterfront and the Mill Casino Coos Bay now offers attractive tourist features right off the highway.

Here, 101 diverges from the coast until Port Orford, so if you have time head west on the Cape Arago highway to Shore Acres State Park with some excellent coastal scenery and wonderful coastal gardens.

Port Orford to Brookings to California

Port Orford’s Battle Rock Park is right off of the Highway and the view is spectacular.   There’s an excellent information center here as well with helpful staff.

Brookings is a very popular coastal destination for Oregon’s heading to the beach from Medford and inland Southern Oregon.

Oregon’s Multnomah Falls in the Columbia Gorge


Multnomah Falls, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Columbia-Gorge-2008 146
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

Hey, I’m kind of temporarily tired of blogging about technology and politics and even blogging about the Oregon Coast, so how about an Oregon waterfall?  This shot of Oregon’s iconic falls – Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge – from our trip last month to Northern Oregon.

Multnomah Falls is under an hour east of Porland on Interstate 84 where the easy access makes this one of Oregon’s most visited attractions and a tourism destination for over 100 years.   The area is home to some wonderful hikes and great scenery along the gorge.  Portland, charming  Hood River, the Bonneville Dam, and The Dalles are all nearby.   We had a great stay at the historic Columbia Gorge Hotel atop a waterfall on the cliffs above the Gorge near Hood River.

Oregon Coast


The rumors are true.  There’s a detailed Oregon Coast website at OregonCoastTravel.net, which is the official website of the Oregon Coast Mile by Mile guide that showcases the entire Oregon Coast from California to Washington.   Highway 101 is the spectacular 363 mile National Scenic Byway and the only road along Oregon’s Coast.   Oregon Coast Travel has a feature where you can see the mileage for every point of interest along the entire Coast highway which is how the Oregon Coast Mile by Mile printed guide is designed.   You can also search the coast by city from Brookings to Astoria, including small cities as well as the tourism “hot spots” of Bandon, Lincoln City, Newport, Gold Beach, Canon Beach, and more.

Cannon Beach on Oregon’s Coast
Originally uploaded by keepitsurreal