Joe

Maybe it’s because I had never been to the west coast, but as I boarded the plane in Newark I felt like a bona fide pioneer; a trailblazer…like I was channelling Lewis and Clark. While there may have been some minor differences between my journey and that of Lewis and Clark (it only took me 5 hours rather than 2 years, no one gave birth, I didn’t shoot a grizzly etc etc etc), I still felt like a pioneer.

Portland = awesome. So much to do there and two weeks just isn’t enough time. With 30 microbreweries within the city limits, beautiful wine country, the Blazers and the Rose Garden (with basketball, not roses), the waterfront, the movie theaters, the International Rose Garden (with actual roses, not basketball), the Japanese Gardens, Multnomah Falls, the douglas firs and all of the great food, you’d want to spend more than just a couple of weeks exploring. I can’t wait to get back out there in the summer when I can see some blue sky. 🙂 It rained almost everyday…to the point where you exclaim, “Wow, it’s a nice day” when there’s no precipitation and the cloud cover is higher than usual. All of this rain and cloudiness didn’t lend itself to great picture taking, but I managed to get some shots in when I could.

On top of hanging out in Portland and its surroundings, we got a chance to get up to Seattle and see some friends for a couple of days. It was a whirlwind tour that included Pike Place Market, an attempt to walk around the Olympic Sculpture Park, the Space Needle, Gasworks park and some great oysters.

One of the only times I saw Mount Hood…