Duck the Photographer, who previously crossed the continent and who has been exploring the East Coast, recently went on another adventure – a 7-day West Coast road trip, from Portland, OR to San Fransisco, CA along the Pacific Ocean.
Perfect start of the trip in Portland, OR. Left: with a box of famous Voodoo Donuts and a trusted road atlas. Right: with locals next to Pioneer Courthouse Square.
The trip was all about the ocean – endless beaches, dramatic coastal views, lighthouses.
Duck also got to see, for the very first time in his life, the famous ancient Californian redwoods. They made quite an impression on him – next year, he may just take a dedicated trip to the Redwoods themselves (after all, a much-recommended Avenue of the Giants Marathon is held right there).
In Humboldt Redwoods State Park, next to the Avenue of the Giants.
As always, the trip ended too soon – and, as always, Duck is already looking forward to more adventures!
In the trip’s end point, San Fransisco, Duck went up Mount Tamalpais East Peak hoping to see the dramatic views that the peak affords. Alas, San Fransisco was fully covered by the fog. But at least Duck got to bask in the glow of the setting West Coast sun one last time before heading back home to New York.
About Maria Gorlatova
Dr. Maria Gorlatova is the Sternberg Family Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University. Her research centers on pervasive computing technologies, with a focus on spatial computing and next-generation augmented reality. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University and her M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees (Summa Cum Laude) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ottawa, Canada. She spent two years at Princeton University’s Electrical Engineering Department as an Associate Research Scholar and Associate Director of the Princeton University EDGE Lab. Dr. Gorlatova was named one of the N2Women Rising Stars and has received multiple awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, the DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA), the DARPA Director’s Fellowship, the IEEE ISMAR 2025 Best Paper Award, the IEEE Communications Society Award for Advances in Communications, and research awards from Meta, Cisco, and IBM. She served as the TPC Co-chair of ACM/IEEE IPSN 2023, the General Co-Chair of the 2025 NSF Workshop on Networking and Systems Challenges in Immersive Computing, and the TPC Co-chair of ACM/IEEE SenSys 2025.
In the trip’s end point, San Fransisco, Duck went up Mount Tamalpais East Peak hoping to see the dramatic views that the peak affords. Alas, San Fransisco was fully covered by the fog. But at least Duck got to bask in the glow of the setting West Coast sun one last time before heading back home to New York.