Portland

Portland Food Carts.

  

Portland Chinese Garden.

Portland Japanese Garden. We were surprised to learn when we arrived and tried to pay for our entrance to the Japanese Garden that it was a Bank of America Customer day.  Since we tried to pay with a BoA credit card, we got free entry.  The gardens, however, were really busy and there were too many people.  It was a beautiful space, just too many people - and too many people trying to take elaborate photographs.  It was an extra $5 fee to bring in a tripod.  I think they should have been dis-allowed.

One example of many many many roses in Portland's International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park.  Washington Park was an immense park.  We took the Max train from downtown.  The Washington Park stop was way under ground.  The stop requires taking an elevator up over 200 feet to ground level.

These pictures are from the Pearl District of Portland.  We loved this area! A lot of the stores and restaurants are in old warehouses on narrow streets.

This is a photograph from the Portland Saturday (Sunday) Market.

Powell's Bookstore on a Saturday evening was way too overwhelming to me.  The main bookstore is an entire city block - and 4 floors of books.  Even with that much space it was very crowded.  A small well curated bookstore is now my favorite thing.  

Voodoo Doughnuts was our first breakfast in Portland.  It is kind of in a rough neighborhood near China Town.  We went to the shop at around 9am and still stood in line for about 20 minutes.  I got a voodoo doll.  Other options included doughnuts with bacon on top, Captain Crunch, and Fruitloops.  Joel had a Raspberry Romeo and a vanilla filled chocolate.

 

 While we were in Portland we watched the first season of Portlandia.  We loved watching it in Portland.  The tv show explained so much.  Keep Portland Weird.  Portland - where young people go to retire.....

Some things I loved about the laws of Oregon.... no smoking in public spaces, right turn on red at stop signs is sometimes allowed, pedestrians have the right of way and traffic must stop, no sales tax on food and goods.

Cannon Beach

This is a detailed picture of the sea creatures living on the rocks.  We were standing near them at low tide, but the rocks at different times of the day are surrounded and/or covered in water.

This is a picture of our hotel from the beach, the Tolovana Inn.

Astoria

We wen to the Maritime Museum in Astoria.  We learned about the dangers of the merging of the ocean and the Columbia River.  There was a great display on the way the river is run and how different pilots pilot ships over the bar and another set pilot the ships down the river.  There were also exhibits on the things the Coast Guard does to save lives and property.
 

These are Astoria knitting projects.  These are part of the Astoria Visual Arts yarn Bomb.

Fort Stevens

These are pictures from the Fort Stevens State Park area. The picture below is of the Peter Iredale, a ship that wrecked on the beach in 1906 and it is still rusting away on the beach today.

This is a ship we watched go around the point of the Fort Stevens State Park - the Saga.

This is the Saga going though the jetty at the mouth of the Columbia River.
 

Ecola State Park

The hike we took at Ecola State Park was one of the most amazing hikes ever. Not only were we walking in an ancient rainforest, but we had a nearly constant view of the ocean. The hike was fun.  Really steep in some places and as we got closer to the end near Indian Beach, the trail became really slippery. 

The lighthouse behind us is Tillamook Rock Lighthouse.

Cape Mears Lighthouse

Tillamook Air Museum

We hadn't planned to go to this air museum, but as we were driving by this building, we couldn't believe our mind - how big it was! So we drove over to it and went to the museum. The museum is undergoing some changes and isn't a great airplane museum, but the building is still amazing.  It was one of two blimp hangars on the property (the other one burned) and it was built to house 5 blimps.  The museum had a great film about the use of blimps by the US in WWII coast protection.