Geography

This is Oregon.


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Highway 20 crosses the Coast Range from Willamette Valley to Lincoln County and the modern-day villages at the edge of the West.


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This is Lincoln County. I was born and raised here, from Siletz (pop. 1,133) to Toledo (3,472) to Newport (9,989). Now I live in New York City.


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This is Siletz. Such a spooky little geographical jewel. Look how beautifully it sits in that perfect kink in the Siletz River. If you follow the river down, North on 229, the tree-tunnel highway will spit you out on the coast near Lincoln City. If you go up the river, East on Logsden Road, you'll be like where the fuck am I?


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That is to say, you'll be in Logsden, an unincorporated community in the middle of beautiful nowhere.


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Some people who leave home for long find themselves recalling and enshrining some particular place back in the old country that might never have seemed extraordinary if it hadn't been left behind. My grandfather's house was in Logsden, and my childhood memories of four-wheeling up old logging roads, picking sour grass and fishing way up in the gorge sound like some wild fucking dreams when I share them anywhere else.


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My grandfather's house was across this bridge and down a gravel road, and we can't get that far with Google Street View.