Out West, Part One

We'd never been to Oregon or Idaho, so for this year's summer vacation we scooted West for a major change of scenery.  We flew into Portland, Oregon and spent a few days getting to know this funky, surprisingly gritty city.  We stayed at the sleek Hotel Lucia downtown.  The lobby was filled with cool artwork.  The hallways and rooms had black and white photographs of many past notables.  One pic near our room had a paparazzi squatting by a swimming pool in which Gerald Ford was doing laps.  The frame in our bathroom was of a guy holding a boom mic over the cast of Seinfeld on set.

One day we drove West to visit Tillamook Forest. No cell service within.  We did a three plus mile round trip hike to a small waterfall, the Wilson waterfall.  We saw a small black snake along the narrow part of the trail, but he slithered off without incident. We ended the hike at a river, where families had pitched a tent and went swimming.  This pic is further up, much rockier.

Then we headed to the coast.  We saw the Tillamook Cheese factory (didn't do the tour; hear it is fun).   Made a stop at a the Nehelem Bay winery for a tasting.  Bought a bottle of Merlot. We later parked for a few minutes in Seaside, shown at the top of this posting.  Absolutely breathtaking.  We continued on Hwy 101 to our destination: Cannon Beach.  Lewis and Clark stopped here in the early nineteenth century.  Later in the 1800s a U.S. Navy schooner ran aground nearby and the ship's cannon was discovered in 1898.  It is now housed in a local museum   Here is the famous "haystack" rock:

We met a very friendly lesbian couple from the East Coast, preparing a bonfire as they settled in. We likewise wanted to see the sunset.  My wife was able to catch it after a great meal at an Irish restaurant across the street.  I made it out just in time to see the big ball sink into the Pacific.

Back in Portland, we hit a few must-see landmarks.  One was Powell's City of Books, a city block long and wide marvel.  I've never seen anything like it.  Only The Strand in NYC comes close, in my experience.  Every imaginable genre is represented.  In the Rare Books room -which requires a special pass- we met the overseer, a young lady who is the girlfriend of one of the store's managers, who is in fact a son of the pastor of our local church. We met the son later in the week on a second visit.  Very nice folks.  And that store! "Wow" is the only word.

Yes, it's touristy, but we made a trip to Voodoo Donuts in a rougher part of Portland, near Chinatown.  I was somewhat taken aback by how many homeless people were there (the entire city, really) but near the donut shop tents and sleeping bags piled along streets and on corners.  One of them made at scene at Voodoo, knocking the tip jar off the counter while she yelled obscenities and crashed into the velvet dividing rope.  The police were called, and they sported the same tired look as the cashier.  The woman was more than happy to take credit for her performance.  My wife offered to be a witness for the cops.  "No need," the cashier sighed, "Stuff like this happens every ten minutes."

We selected a half dozen crazy varieties.  There is a menu on the wall outside.  We did not partake of these cereal and maple laden goodies until we saw our friends in Idaho.

Next: A walk around and over the city's bridges, seven hours to Boise, and hot air balloons.