With new construction of the State Trail on the horizon, and the new research coming in from Kirk Poole's awesome Past and Present Views Along the Columbia River Highway Facebook Group, it is time to return this much appreciated resource to a usable state.
Originally, I built this site while I was a stay-at-home father and had a lot of time to work on it, but now it is a very part time job and, at the current rate, documenting new research and repairing the old pages, it will take about two years to complete this work.
Because of this, I've decided to try a bit of crowdfunding to speed the job up. My day job work is very slow right now, and this would be an ideal time for me to work full time on the website for several weeks.
So, my fundraiser is going to be for covering time and expenses for full time work on the website, and to help fund some new research. How much I can get done and how quickly will depend on the response to the campaign.
If fully funded, I plan on getting the site fully restored by the end of March. However, any contributions will help.
Overall, this project has been a seven-year labor of love and I have resisted seeking donations in the past, but as circumstances change, I am realizing that I need some help to get this work done.
Once the site is rebuilt, I will also be able to focus more on research and video production, on new content instead of just repairing old content. While I am not sure if a feature length documentary and book are still in the works, time will tell, I do want to resume producing video shorts and fleshing out the history of the highway in more detail on the website.
If you have appreciated the content on the website, the associated Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/RecreatingTheHCRH), and/or the YouTube Channel in the past, I'd ask you to consider contributing to this fundraiser. Any amount will help, and I thank you for taking the time to consider helping with this cause.
One way or the other, work will continue on the site and I look forwards to continue sharing the history of the highway with everyone!
Columbia River West to Ruthton Point
Ruthton Park. Hood River, Oregon.
April 25, 2013
It's Saturday, I've been down with the flu for a week and a half, and I've got a lot on my plate that I want to accomplish today with the HCRH project, but before diving in I wanted to do a quick overall project update (mostly to help sort out my own thoughts on how to move ahead).
Looking back at the videos from 2015 (a half-decade ago!), you'll see that there were ambitions for this project that were clearly never met. Without going into detail, let's just say a lot of life happened right as I was gearing up for production on the feature-length documentary in late 2015 and those next few years were difficult years, to say the least...
Very little creative work on anything was possible during that time, and there were a lot of setbacks involving the work already completed on the film. Data loss on the website, requiring the rebuild I am currently working on, lost footage and stills, which may be recovered in the future, the fate of those hard drives is still undetermined... Heartbreaking, since a lot of that material is irreplaceable due to construction of the HCRH State Trail in the Gorge and to the general passage of time. There was also a significant loss of gear and equipment that made further progress on the film impossible at the time...
Anyway, life is much better now and, while I was unable to meet the 2016 goal for the movie and the 2018 goal for a book, I did get a book out in 2019! It just had nothing to do with the highway, was fiction, and was written by someone else! That work took almost all of 2019 to complete, further delaying this project, but it is work that I am very proud of.
Upon publication of The Yellow Painted Manlast year, after a brief break, it is now time to return to the highway. This return has been further motivated by the excellent work Kirk J. Pool and several other folks have been doing recently documenting the Lower Highway (including the first decent explorations of the Bagby Loops that I know of!). Their work can be followed on the US 30 Remnants from Astoria to Eastern Oregongroup on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/483015922488601). It is an excellent group and definitely worth joining if you enjoy the exploring the history of the highway.
So, now it is 2020 and I've started rebuilding the website. For now, that is going to be my primary goal. Movies, books, whatever... It all needs to start with getting the site back up and running, so that is all that I am going to worry about at the moment. After that, we'll see what life holds.
I will say, this project started with researching a planned short film on the original route of the highway (filming on that was mostly completed by the end of 2015), and I really do hope that is where this leads in the end. Whether or not that happens may depend on if the old footage is recovered along with several other factors. Losing that footage is not necessarily a deal breaker, though. Any hesitation I have at this point in declaring the film alive (or, at least, undead) really comes from being a bit gun shy after the setbacks a few years ago.
As for a book, well, that might actually come before the movie now. We'll see how things go. But, as I said, first things first: it all starts with rebuilding the website, a pretty significant project all on its own.
The first stage will be reformatting for the new platform while rebuilding the dead photo links. That, in and of itself, will be a fairly sizable project. I had to do that once before and it took about six weeks of eight hour days to complete. Today, the site is much larger and more complex than it was then and my "free" time to work on this labor of love is much reduced, so just completing this stage of the work may take months.
While rebuilding, I will also be updating the site with new material as it comes up, so there will be some forward motion this year, it all won't just be rebuilding what's been lost.
The second stage, surely occurring, to some degree, concurrently with the first step, will be filling in gaps in my research and "completing" the site per my original goals for it.
After that, we'll find out what seems to be the best way to proceed.
This project has always been a fun adventure, and I look forward to moving ahead with it, whatever the future may hold!
Life is messy and strange, and this year has been more messy
and strange than most...
As most people who follow this project have probably
noticed, things have been on hold for about a year now. This project is a labor of love, done in my
free time, funded out of my own pocket, and, this year, I could make very
little progress. Clearly, the
documentary will not be completed this year, and even the shorts and website have
been on hold. I did film several of the
Centennial events, but outside of this, other than sharing relevant posts on
Facebook, I was not able to accomplish much this year.
This is a bit more of a personal post than I usually make
with this project. However, I know some
folks have some questions, and I do want to assure everyone interested in the
history of the highway that I am far from being done with this endeavor. I am not quitting or giving up.
I still look forward to completing the film, to fleshing out
the history on the website, and to documenting the completion of the state trail,
but these goals are pushed back a bit due to the complexities of life… 2016 has been a difficult year filled with
major changes in my life.
So, where do we go from here?
Over the next few months, I do hope to start releasing some
new “web series” shorts and to flesh out the website a bit more. I’ve got a lot of research and photos waiting
go up online. And there are still some
places out on the upper and lower highways that beg for further
exploration. I hope to complete most of
that work in early 2017.
After that, I hope to return to work on the
documentary. I’ve not spoken much about
this, but the origin of this whole project started with the desire to create a
short film exploring the original route of the highway. Of course, over the years, it has grown into
much more. But the film still is the
heart of the project to me. And I’ve
learned so much about the craft of film since this started, and I am so
grateful that I’ve had the time to grow in that craft before releasing much video
that I’d regret later...
Which also touches on another goal with this film; I truly
want this to be a project based in microbudget, Filmmaking 2.0 principals. Sure, with a ton of money and crew, this film
could be made quickly. And I am sure it
would look great and hopefully it would be worth watching. But when I started this, I decided that I
wanted to make this film in a different way, to show what can be accomplished
in the medium with non-existent budgets and “prosumer” level gear.
There have been times when I have been tempted to move back
towards a more traditional model on this project, but then I remember what my
artistic goals for this film are. This
is not saying that I shun collaboration or help, in fact anyone who wants to help
with this is more than welcome, but there is no money to be paid, it’s
volunteer work on a labor of love. So
far, I haven’t found many others with the film skills required and a passion
for the old highway who’s willing to jump in.
Of course, I haven’t looked that hard, either. The time I've spent on this project so far has mostly been out shooting and exploring, or researching and website building.
Staying true to these goals, though, means that making this
film is a very slow process. A lot, more
than a lot, of filming has been done.
Many interviews still need to be done.
And, eventually, in late 2017 or 2018, it all will be done.
Thank you so much to everyone who follows the Facebook page,
to everyone who has offered all sorts of help since this all got started back
in 2013, and to everyone who comes along in the future. Things have been a bit slow recently, but
will be picking up again eventually, and I hope we can all have a great time
together as we see how everything comes together in the end, both for the state
trail and for this documentary project.
