Milepost 5141 – Portland ORJul 20, 2011
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Our only photo of Mt St Helens. Lame!
Pioneer Courthouse Square
Noon concert
| We just spent a week in the Portland OR area. On the way down to Portland from Randle, we drove up the west side of Mt St Helens to the Johnston Ridge Observatory visitors’ center. It was partly cloudy day, with only patches of clearings to give us glimpses of the eruption site as we drove up. When we got to the observatory, it looked like we were going to be rewarded with a pretty good view period. We went in to see the park video and the set up was the same as for the Grand Tetons—a big viewing curtain-covered window with a screen in front. The video was good and when they raised the screen and removed the curtains, we were able to see . . . nothing! During the 21-minute video, a cloud had rolled in and settled over the whole viewing area, adding heavy rain to the experience. A chance to get a photo then or at any time driving back down? Not happening. Our stop in the Portland area was very nice, despite the fact that I was sick as a dog for a few days of it. Even so, we got out and about. We went into downtown Portland three times. The first time was as much an orientation as anything. The people at the visitors center in Pioneer Courthouse Square were very helpful and directed us for a pretty nice walk through the downtown and an along the waterfront. Dotty certainly enjoyed getting out again and particularly liked the waterfront park. We had lunch at Rock Bottom microbrewery—very nice, and wonderfully one of many microbrewer/restaurants. In fact, we’re told that Portland has the largest number of microbrewers in the United States. Now that’s appealing. I’ll save our second visit to last, but on our final visit, we took the Big Pink bus tour by all the major attractions of the city—as always, we loved the narrative for the information we got about the place. It doesn’t look it at first glance, being on two rivers, but Portland is one hilly place, making for some interesting bike rides and creative traffic management. For instance, the city’s hospital is built on the side of the mountain that has limited acreage for parking, so they built a parking garage down near the waterfront and a cable car to take all but a few to the area of the hospital—transportation at $4 for those who need it and a scenic view of the cities who desired it. In the downtown area, there are train tracks crisscrossing everywhere providing free train access in town and reasonably priced access to downtown from the suburbs. But Portland, at least the downtown area, seems to be a walking town, with shops, pubs, and bistros all around and many events along the waterfront and at various parks. On the day we took the Big Pink, we caught a noon hour concert at the Pioneer Courthouse Square. Hundreds of people sitting out with their lunch, enjoying the weather and the music. That brings me to the lunch experience we had for the concert. One of the interesting phenomena, I think unique to Portland, are the food cart pods. In several place throughout the city, there are city block parking lots, with the outside row of slots filled with food carts/trailers/vans. People circle the various pods, looking for the lunch that appeals to them that day, then carrying their lunches either back to the office, to one of the neighborhood parks, or to an event, like the concert we saw. There is even a webpage rating the best pods for food selections—we picked 9th and Alder for its rating and Lysa had Polish and I had Cuban. But there was German, Italian, Greek, BBQ, Chicago-style hotdogs, Thai, Korean….you get the idea. Oh, there was even a booth offering Lithuanian salad. A fun lunch adventure and you would only have yourself to blame for a boring lunch. That was a lot of fun, but not the best unique thing about Portland. On our second visit, we took the advice of the visitors’ center lady and came in to town for the earlier of the two happy hours (4-7pm and 10pm-1am). What a hoot! Dozens, if not hundreds of bars, bistros and restaurants offering discounted drinks AND food. And I’m not talking about nachos or wings. Most of the places make what are essentially small plate portions of their main dining entrees. We started off with truffle fries and pate at a French brassiere, followed by dirt cheap conveyor built served sushi and a Japanese bistro, and finished with manicotti and calamari at an Italian restaurant. All were delightful mini-meals, paired with nice wines or locally-made beer, at inexpensive prices. We left Portland with a very good feeling about it. Funky, you bet—lots of young backpackers, old street vets, and business people and tourist mingling among them. And Portlanders seem genuinely happy. It rained on us pretty good one day, but as we rode around, people just went on about their way (umbrellas optional), smiling and seemingly impervious to the weather. Perhaps you have to be that way in a place that only gets 60-something clear days a year. But we felt the city had a charm to it that might adequately compensate for whatever gloom there might be. We did hit a national park during our week stay in Portland. To the northwest is the Lewis and Clark National Historic Park. It’s actually a former National Monument (Ft Clatsop) and several state parks and recreational areas pulled together to tell the story of Lewis and Clark’s wintering along the Pacific in 1805-06. We visited Ft Clatsop that the expedition built for the winter of ’05—hardly a fort by any stereotype standard, but clearly functional—and watched an exhibition of black powder weapons. Besides that, the drive took us along the Pacific coast again and afforded us a nice seaside community stop for a late lunch. A successful week’s visit of recovery, exploration and indulgence. |
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