Woman in the Middle

Portland, Oregon, was an interesting place. As Californians, it did not feel completely foreign, which is probably very distressing for those in Portland to hear. I am sure they want Californians to stop moving to Portland. On the other hand, unlike all of the cities near me, Portland had a real downtown, with lots of tall buildings, and that felt different.

We went on the Best of Portland Walking Tour. David was our tour guide and we enjoyed him. We had a fairly large group, in spite of the fact that it was a Wednesday in September. Because it takes a bit more time to move large groups of people, the tour lasted 2 1/2 hours, instead of the 2 hours and 15 minutes that had been mentioned. The tour did not include any stairs and was mostly flat. It was a very interesting tour which talked about Portland history but also Portland today, its politics, how they revived downtown and its public transit system. I expected the history but the other stuff was a surprise. I am on my city’s planning commission so I was very interested in all that stuff, but just wanted every one to know, for good or bad, it was not 2+ hours of history.

Portland has a lot of public art and that was fun to see. Oregon passed a law which requires any project over $100,000 to put 1% of its cost towards a public art installation such as a mural, a mosaic, or a statue. I think it really does something for a city to have so much public art. Here are a few of the things that we saw:

Portland is home to the world’s smallest park, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Here is it, in the middle of the street. Below is a photo looking at it from above.

Our favorite thing to do on vacation, besides sleep and eat, it to go to a used book store. Well, Portland has an amazing one by the name of Powell’s. Seriously. Amazing. We went there two different times while we were on vacation because once was not enough. We spent about five hours in Powell’s over those two visits. We bought way too many books and then had to figure out how to get them into our carry on luggage (because I refuse to pay to check bags if I can avoid it). Outside the main entrance to Powell’s there is a column that has a different saying in Latin on each side.

I am assuming this one means “Seize the Books.” If anyone knows Latin and I am wrong on this, let me know. But what ever it says, we certainly did seize the books!

We just got back from a little vacation. We flew to Seattle and, for the first time ever for all four of us, drove south and visited the great state of Oregon. Our visit was mainly to Portland. Since we had never been there before we had plenty to see just in and around that city. We were also there for just three days, so there was only so much we could do. In comparison to the desert where I live, Oregon was very green, which was a refreshing change for us. It was also nice and cool, compared to the 106 F it was the weekend before we left home. Finally, and craziest of all, they had two rivers in town and both had lots and lots of water in them! We have a river, too, but it is almost dry most of the time. It takes a considerable rain fall for anything more than a little bitty stream to run down our river. But there, why there were actual boats of a considerable size on the Columbia and the Willamette.

We rented a small SUV for the trip. We ended up with a Nissan Pathfinder, after they tried to get us to take a bus, I mean a Town and Country (not so ) minivan.  I am sure I have mentioned before that I have a very funny family. Well, we jumped in that Nissan and off we went, and then Eldest Daughter found a Fruit Loop in one of her cup holders. It wasn’t just any Fruit Loop, it was a blue one. Well her riffs on blue Fruit Loops kept us laughing for several miles.

Another thing that kept us laughing was the button I found on the radio/dashboard of our rental SUV. It was great for cat lovers like us. Here is a photo. Can you spot it?

Yes, the Pathfinder has the unique feature of being able to find cats for you. Well, the button said “Seek Cat!” But no matter how many times we pushed it, all we seemed to see were dogs. There was a beagle, a standard poodle, a pit bull puppy, and many more. But, until we got to our friend’s house in Seattle the second to last day of our vacation, we didn’t see a single cat! They have two cats, so that helped make up for the total failure of the “Seek Cat” button.

As I upload my photos and think back on our trip, I will tell you more about what we saw in and around Portland. Until then, I hope the rest of your weekend is a good one!!!