The trip began inauspiciously as I hauled my luggage down to the bus stop at 5:30 a.m. to wait for a bus that was 20 minutes late; I ended up calling a cab that arrived at the same time as the bus.  Most of the country was under cloud cover, but as we approached Seattle, the weather cleared, and I could see Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, and, in the distance, Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood.  I didn't think I'd feel so nostalgic for the place where I spent some of the darkest times of my life, but as we flew past Mt. Rainier, I got a little teary.  The flight to Portland from Sea-Tac was very cool, in a little prop plane that flew almost directly above Mt. St. Helens; I wistfully traced the route I'd taken the last time I visited and noted that the area around the volcano looked as desolate as it had seven years ago.  We were served Detour Bars, which the flight attendant described as "kind of like a Snickers bar," made with "Designer Whey."  They did actually taste a bit like a Snickers and not really whey-ish, but they made my Coke taste like what I imagine non-designer whey tastes like.

We arrived to a gorgeous day in Portland (very different from the last time I was there, when I was driving in defeat from Seattle to Pennsylvania.  I stopped for lunch in Portland because I'd always wanted to see the city.  It was pouring rain and gusting wind, and it took me forever to find the downtown because there were no signs for it off the interstate.  When I finally found the downtown and parked, I stepped out of my car and opened my umbrella -- and the wind snapped it in half.  For some odd reason, I decided to walk around anyway, and I predictably was drenched and shivering.  Even finding the 24-Hour Church of Elvis -- since closed, I think -- didn't do much to lift my spirits).  Indulge my public-transit geekiness for a moment as I rave about how the MAX light-rail station is directly outside the terminal, closer even than parking.  I took the light rail into town and checked into my hotel, then went downtown to explore a little bit.  It was in the mid 70s, with a cloudless sky -- not exactly what you expect from the Pacific Northwest in October.

The walk along the waterfront park would have been a lot more pleasant had the view on the other side of the river been something other than a tangle of freeways.  Part of the park was fenced off for construction, which was annoying, especially since it contained the one attraction that I had specifically wanted to see, which of course I now can't remember, but I think it was a bunch of stones with interesting sayings written on them.  Okay, it sounded cooler than that in the article I read, really.

The downtown was pretty empty.  Various animal statues -- beavers, sea lions, deer, elk -- are scattered around the streets, along with omnipresent, sullenly lounging gangs of Goth teenagers.   I got bored pretty quickly, so I took a bus to Hawthorne St., an area with some cool shops and a cinema-drafthouse-type movie theater I wanted to go to.  On the way, I got sidetracked by Elvis.

Over the next three days, I was in a conference, and the weather changed from mild and pleasant to cold and rainy, just in time for my two days of free time.

Oh, these were pretty cool -- next to the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, there was a whole row of these "folly bollards," which were pretty cool:

And, at some point (I don't really remember when), I hit Portland's famed tiki bar, The Alibi.  Here's a photo of the outside; the inside was so dark that I had to stand inside the entryway for a few minutes to get my eyes to adjust.  I could barely read the menu.  Photos were out of the question (also, I was alone, the place was nearly empty except for some regulars drinking at the bar, and I felt self-conscious about snapping photos).  It's a fine tiki bar, the requisite tacky decor is splendid (as far as I could see), but the food sucks.

Next page:  The sightseeing begins
Return to Trips
Return to Megan’s Movies home page