July 5-9 Portland

It was a beautiful ride into the city.  The road paralleled the Columbia River and ran down the gorge.  The water was so blue and the scenery was stunning all the way into Portland.  I had never seen a river that huge, looking more like a lake or bay.  The only problem was the significant wind up the gorge.  We made multiple stops for stretch brakes and arrived at our hotel around 3.  The next 4 days were very busy.  We stayed at the Paramount Hotel which was central to the city.  It was an easy walking city and we got a car to make trips outside of town.

If you go to Oregon you have to see some waterfalls.  We took the car out to see the famous one, Multnamaha, which was stunning.  We walked up to the bridge and a great site.  

We took an Uber to the International Rose Garden in the afternoon.  The roses were just past their prime but beautiful  just the same.  We chose to walk back to the hotel on the beautiful day.

On the 6th we went to the same area of Portland to see the Portland Japanese Garden which was very pretty.  That evening we had dinner with Pattie’s college roommate that we hadn’t seen since our wedding 45 years ago.  It was a great evening recalling all the memories.

The 7th was a visit to the Portland Zoo in the morning and since it was very hot we decided to take in a movie at the Regal cinema.  How I trained my Dragon was a little different from our usual viewing but a nice break on a hot day.

On the 8th, our last full day with the car, we drove to Cannon Beach to see the Pacific coast.  It was amazing how cold it was and windy so no swimming for us.  The scenery was stunning and the ride down the coast to Tillimuck was beautiful.

On our return to Portland we dropped the car and started packing for the trip home.  Pattie would fly on the 9th and I would be going to Provo, UT to Ray and Shauna’s home to pick up my hot weather gear for the trip across the center of the US.