West Coast trip - the Portland leg
I visited the west coast from 6/20-7/4 (yes, that would be TWO WEEKS - yay!). We traveled with our friends, Wayne & Linda, and then they and Rick flew home and I visited Mike in Portland. Linda emailed me after I got back to ask me about the Portland leg and I sent her the following email. (Just wanted to get this part of the trip down before I lost the email.) More to come about the trip, and I'll be posting trip pics very soon.
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I had a fantastic time in Portland! The first thing that happened was that Hertz gave me a red VW bug with a GPS unit for my rental! :) The GPS was helpful in getting to Mike’s house, and we used it a couple of times when we were out together, too. Mike lives in a quiet SE Portland neighborhood called Sunnyside which is a really cool place. There are a lot of hippies, low-income folks, and families around, and Mike and his neighbors have a shared garden/berries/medicinal herbs. They do a lot of cool things in the neighborhood like repainting the piazza, maintaining free porches (places where people can leave food and others who need it can take it), and mailboxes cemented into planters where people can leave or take books and zines.
I got to Mike’s house and he came running outside to greet me as soon as he heard my voice. :) He introduced me to the roommates who were home and showed me around his house, and then we went and had lunch at an Anarchist vegan café he likes, Red & Black Café. Since it was chilly & drizzly (and stayed that way most of the time I was there), we decided to go downtown to visit Powell’s. Wow, that place was overwhelming! But very cool. We stopped for a beer and headed back to Mike's place and just hung out for a bit. We went out for Vietnamese food, and the Chehalem Pinot Grigio was on the menu. That night we picked his friend Max & Carrie up at the airport; they were coming home from a 2-week camping trip in the desert outside Las Vegas.
The following day, we had breakfast at a great coffee shop and decided to take a bike ride through part of the Springwater Corridor, which is a multiuse trail that runs along the Willamette River. We first biked down to a local taqueria, Por Que No, and then rode around a neighborhood where Mike used to live. Biking around Portland was fun and interesting. The cars are closer, and the lanes (when they exist) are narrower, but everyone looks out for one another. I saw a couple of tall bikes while I was there and Mike was entertaining me with stories about the naked bike rides that take place in Portland - the 2010 one was held on 6/19.
That night we met Mike’s friends, Carrie & Max, for African food and went back to their place to drink wine & beer and look at the camping trip pictures. It was a fun, fun, evening.
The following day, Mike and I hiked Angel’s Rest in the Columbia River Gorge. Mike was a little fuzzy-headed from the previous night’s festivities, so he was pretty hungry by the time we finished, and we stopped at a great Lebanese restaurant for dinner. A little later, Carrie and Max biked over and we sat around and drank wine & beer again before deciding to go out. Mike wanted to stop at Mai Thai, a restaurant he likes, because they have a funny late night menu and Mike wanted designated meat tasters to tell him how the food was. Well, the food was delicious, authentic, and SPICY! Even spicier than the African food we’d had. I actually got the stewed chicken feet, just to see what it was like. It was good, but kind of creepy to eat a chicken claw. :) The broth was very spicy, too. Afterward, we went to a hookah bar for a couple of beers, and got back to the house about 1:30 a.m. west coast time. And the next morning I left! :(
Portland was very interesting to me. They are very tolerant of freaks and cyclists, but the city is not very racially diverse. There are some Asian people around, but very few Hispanic or black people. Max and Carrie actually live in a neighborhood that was formerly most black, but the place was renovated and most of the people could no longer afford to live there. The homeless problem is ridiculous and heartbreaking in the downtown area. And the people aren’t as friendly as those on the coast. The other thing that surprised me is that there aren’t many vegetarian options on most menus, unless you’re actually at a vegetarian/vegan restaurant.
So, that was Portland! Great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Everything is so lush and green (they had a rainy spring), and it seems like everyone grows things in their front yards or along the sidewalk, and there’s a shortcut farm, a garden built on land owned by OSALT (Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust). People get a CSA share in return for their work on the farm. The one I saw was across from Carrie & Max’s place. Everyone seems to be into bartering and trading and sharing. It’s pretty cool.
*******
I had a fantastic time in Portland! The first thing that happened was that Hertz gave me a red VW bug with a GPS unit for my rental! :) The GPS was helpful in getting to Mike’s house, and we used it a couple of times when we were out together, too. Mike lives in a quiet SE Portland neighborhood called Sunnyside which is a really cool place. There are a lot of hippies, low-income folks, and families around, and Mike and his neighbors have a shared garden/berries/medicinal herbs. They do a lot of cool things in the neighborhood like repainting the piazza, maintaining free porches (places where people can leave food and others who need it can take it), and mailboxes cemented into planters where people can leave or take books and zines.
I got to Mike’s house and he came running outside to greet me as soon as he heard my voice. :) He introduced me to the roommates who were home and showed me around his house, and then we went and had lunch at an Anarchist vegan café he likes, Red & Black Café. Since it was chilly & drizzly (and stayed that way most of the time I was there), we decided to go downtown to visit Powell’s. Wow, that place was overwhelming! But very cool. We stopped for a beer and headed back to Mike's place and just hung out for a bit. We went out for Vietnamese food, and the Chehalem Pinot Grigio was on the menu. That night we picked his friend Max & Carrie up at the airport; they were coming home from a 2-week camping trip in the desert outside Las Vegas.
The following day, we had breakfast at a great coffee shop and decided to take a bike ride through part of the Springwater Corridor, which is a multiuse trail that runs along the Willamette River. We first biked down to a local taqueria, Por Que No, and then rode around a neighborhood where Mike used to live. Biking around Portland was fun and interesting. The cars are closer, and the lanes (when they exist) are narrower, but everyone looks out for one another. I saw a couple of tall bikes while I was there and Mike was entertaining me with stories about the naked bike rides that take place in Portland - the 2010 one was held on 6/19.
That night we met Mike’s friends, Carrie & Max, for African food and went back to their place to drink wine & beer and look at the camping trip pictures. It was a fun, fun, evening.
The following day, Mike and I hiked Angel’s Rest in the Columbia River Gorge. Mike was a little fuzzy-headed from the previous night’s festivities, so he was pretty hungry by the time we finished, and we stopped at a great Lebanese restaurant for dinner. A little later, Carrie and Max biked over and we sat around and drank wine & beer again before deciding to go out. Mike wanted to stop at Mai Thai, a restaurant he likes, because they have a funny late night menu and Mike wanted designated meat tasters to tell him how the food was. Well, the food was delicious, authentic, and SPICY! Even spicier than the African food we’d had. I actually got the stewed chicken feet, just to see what it was like. It was good, but kind of creepy to eat a chicken claw. :) The broth was very spicy, too. Afterward, we went to a hookah bar for a couple of beers, and got back to the house about 1:30 a.m. west coast time. And the next morning I left! :(
Portland was very interesting to me. They are very tolerant of freaks and cyclists, but the city is not very racially diverse. There are some Asian people around, but very few Hispanic or black people. Max and Carrie actually live in a neighborhood that was formerly most black, but the place was renovated and most of the people could no longer afford to live there. The homeless problem is ridiculous and heartbreaking in the downtown area. And the people aren’t as friendly as those on the coast. The other thing that surprised me is that there aren’t many vegetarian options on most menus, unless you’re actually at a vegetarian/vegan restaurant.
So, that was Portland! Great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Everything is so lush and green (they had a rainy spring), and it seems like everyone grows things in their front yards or along the sidewalk, and there’s a shortcut farm, a garden built on land owned by OSALT (Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust). People get a CSA share in return for their work on the farm. The one I saw was across from Carrie & Max’s place. Everyone seems to be into bartering and trading and sharing. It’s pretty cool.