Playgrounds to Powell's to Purple Roses

Portland served up another perfect day of sunny but cool weather for us to enjoy while we walked through city streets, park blocks, and Powell's aisles. When we got tired of walking, we just hopped on the light rail or bus, both of which are free within the downtown. When we took the light rail to Washington Park, we bought a ticket - which nobody ever actually checked. Does this entire city run on the honor system? Amazing!

In Washington Park, we were charmed by the International Rose Test Garden, which demonstrated - forcefully - why Portland deserves the title "City of Roses."

Powell's lived up to my expectations of it, though I was shocked to see a neighborhood Borders actually manages to keep its doors open. We ate lunch at the Portland City Grill, 30 floors above Portland, where we got to count and check out all the various unique bridges that earn Portland its second nickname ("Bridgetown"). We stayed close to home for dinner, choosing a restaurant called Mother's Bistro, that served up one of the best meals we've had on this trip in a warm and charming setting. At dinner, we reminisced about all of our "favorite" moments of the trip. All in all, it was a perfect final day of our vacation.

Except we have one more day left :) Today we explore Portland by car (since we're paying to have the rental car sit in a parking lot) and we will visit the World Forestry Discovery Center Museum, which sounds like anything but a garden variety museum (pun intended?) Apparently, we will be able to take a canopy lift to the top of the 50-foot ceiling for a different pespective on a Douglas fir -as well as try out a smoke-jumper training simulator - something that is taking on new significance for us as we watch images of the fire engulfing some of the woods we just visited over the past week :( Here's hoping our final day is as wonderful as yesterday was!

"Wow! It's just like HD!"

Had a Panasonic executive been standing near my darling son, when he uttered that shocked bit of praise, I have little doubt Daniel would be heading to Hollywood to star in a new advertising campaign.
We did lots of great things today, but as you can tell from the photos and from Daniel's comment, it was ALL about the lake. Crater Lake that is, in Crater Lake National Park. To get there from Ashland, we drove up to Medford, taking a brief detour to historic Jacksonville (which we were almost going to skip on this trip until learning from our waitress the evening before that Johnny Depp owns a home here.)

Jacksonville, the whole town dating back to 1851, is probably used as a movie set for lots of old westerns but our quick drive through town (with no Jack Sparrow in sight :( served us just fine.

Crater Lake is nestled in National Forest heaven; Rogue River Nat'l Forest is south of it, Umpqua is north of it. As we were driving from Ashland to Eugene (to check out University of Oregon - which had students instead of deer - therefore making it much less desirable to Maddie) before ultimately arriving in Portland, we got to drive through a bit of both of them. Let me say it again - this National Forest business is just brilliant! There is nothing like driving for miles and miles and miles and seeing nothing but trees and creeks and birds and mountains and snow (yup, even here, at the highest elevations, in little pockets here and there). That Teddy Roosevelt has a legacy of which we can all be proud and grateful.

The lake itself was formed nearly 8,000 years ago when Mt. Mazama, a 5000 foot mountain/volcano, erupted, then collapsed, creating the conditions for what would become the deepest (at 1,943 feet) and clearest lake in the United States (7th deepest in the world). Much has been written about the color of the lake, which is magnificent. What most impacted me, however, was how remote it is. In the little visitor center/museum that sits at the start of the 33 mile rim drive (which is only accessible from June - September), there are quotes from various people who came upon the lake over time. One of these expressed how essential it was that the lake remain pristine, untouched by whatever would come in the future. But for the Crater Lake Lodge, a structure completed in 1915, which actually adds to the overall effect, nothing man-made is anywhere on the rim of this lake. I admire the restraint exercised by all of those politicians over the years who insured the lake would remain just as it looked 7,000+ years ago.

This morning, we are off to Powell's City of Books and Washington Park. Our gorgeous hotel (another piece of history dating back to the early 1920's) is situated in a great spot in downtown Portland, the sight of which lit up Daniel's eyes as much as Crater Lake did. "I love a big city!" he exclaimed as the skyline came into view last night. Our vacation will conclude with a couple of days devoted to exploring this "big city" (quite big compared to Ketchikan, Alaska and Newport, Oregon).

Do Deer Attend SOU?

... was the main question on Maddie's mind, when we took a tour of Ashland's Southern Oregon University campus and found three deer wandering around the lovely grounds. While Maddie has demonstrated some interest in the colleges we have visited in the past year (in Nashville and Seattle), she has never been quite as enthusiastic as I saw her today at the prospect

of attending any school. However, it was difficult to imagine a better introduction to a city. We spent the morning on a self-guided audio tour that took us through the town square, into a wonderful park, where the kids played in the creek and the playground, then took us down a residential street of charming, historic homes (one priced at a mere $995,000 ;)

There was a delightful outdoor market, which weaved along the creek, where every cafe has outdoor seating (which we enjoyed for both lunch and dinner). After our walking tour, we headed for the car for a more thorough exploration of the city and of SOU. Here we found more deer (after encountering one on our walk in the park) and more charming neighborhoods.

However, since no day can seem to come without at least one misadventure, our casual attempt to take I-5 as an alternate route to get to another destination on our map found us instead driving towards California, with no exit immediately apparent. Luckily, Mt. Ashland, the winter playground of these parts (at an elevation of 3000 feet) offered us a chance to turn around about nine miles later. Unfortunately, just as we were doing so, Dana looked, for apparently the first time in a long time, at his gas gauge, which helpfully informed him that we had "0 miles to reach empty." Clay had wondered after my earlier post whether the Ford Fusion could be trusted; Thank goodness it cannot. We drove - or should I say coasted - down the very steep hills from Mt. Ashland to Ashland proper for a gut wrenching (but somewhat hilarious) 9 miles, only to find that the first exit to Ashland didn't offer a Shell station for another 3 miles. When we finally pulled into that station, greeted by our second full-service attendant, we were quite relieved (and still laughing).

With a full tank of gas, we explored a few more of Ashland's lovely neighborhoods, then returned to downtown for an evening stroll and dinner along the creek. Tomorrow, we have another full day of driving - with a couple of alternatives to take us to Portland, where we will spend our last three nights before heading home. However,

if Bambi has her way, we may be spending a lot more time in this part of the world just a few years from now.

And that would be perfectly fine with me :)

She Loves Oregon

Yesterday we drove down the Oregon coast, stopping to take a trek down to the "Devil's Churn," taking an elevator down to the Sea Lion cave, and stopping in lovely little Florence before heading away from the coast, through the lush Siuslaw forest, and finally arriving in Ashland, where we capped off the day with the musical "She Loves Me," which we all enjoyed tremendously. All in all, this was a day devised by the Oregon Chamber of Commerce to lure future residents to their fair state. This will be a short blog post, as we're heading out to explore Ashland and Jacksonville, a town which has been designated a historic place - the entire town that is. The weather here is perfect -sunny, clear and cool in the evening, and our beautiful historic hotel - The Ashland Springs Hotel - is just down the street from a classic old movie theater and the entire theater complex for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. In short, I fully expect to be a card carrying member of the "let's move to Ashland" fan club before the day is out....

A Barking Good Time

Another wonderful day in Oregon started off a bit less promising as we woke to a downpour in the hotel bathroom coming from the unit above us. It wasn't the most subtle wake up call I would have liked, but it did get us off to an early start for our day in Newport. San Francisco's male sea lions call the Newport pier home for several months each year, and it's easy to see why they choose it as a getaway pad (which locals dub "the bachelor pad" since the female sea lions stay put in San Fran). Newport is quite compact, with all of its attractions (shopping, restaurants, the aquarium, lovely little neighborhoods, historic Nye Beach, the Yaquina lighthouse -visible from our hotel balcony) just minutes from one another. Any walk up or down a steep hill (of which there are many) is rewarded with wild flowers grown along the embankment and stores such as "Made in Oregon" waiting for you to browse.

While Daniel was disappointed to learn that making a bonfire wasn't going to be as simple as he hoped (they discourage it, so you don't find driftwood and a pack of matches at the foot of the beach), he was more than happy to race Maddie up and down Nye Beach. The couple of hours we had just spent at the Oregon Coast Aquarium had more than satisfied everyone's yen to get up close with the sea life in these waters. Daniel spent the better part of an hour with a volunteer at the tide pool touch pool, who encouraged him to write everything he was learning down in a journal, then wow his teachers back at home when school started.

I say this each year, but once again I find that the "schooling" that takes places in venues such as these, on trips like this one, can't be duplicated. Our evening concluded with a late dinner in the cutest spot in Newport. Savory has game boards painted on each table along with a box of corresponding pieces if patrons actually want to play. We, of course, chose the Scrabble booth :) We could have also opted for Clue, Yahtzee, Checkers, Aggravation (though it seems "risk"y to sit down for a dining experience at a table named "Aggravation.") While we waited for our dinner, we passed the time with several rounds of Scrabble (the boys won); meanwhile, Dana plotted how we could open just such a restaurant in Hollywood Beach.

Today we leave the coast after a morning drive to Florence, then head a bit west to Ashland, where we have tickets to see She Loves Me, which is one of the featured shows in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (it somehow didn't seem right to make the kids sit through Hamlet ;)

With a five hour drive ahead of us, it's time I wrap up the blog and wake up the kids. Until tomorrow...

Did Lewis & Clark Ride the Tilt-a-Whirl?

Yesterday's journey down the Washigton and Oregon coast was filled with unexpected surprises, some wonderful (happening upon the location Lewis and Clark finally reached the Pacific), some less so (getting our car stuck on the sand on that same beach), but the day definitely epitomized the notion that the journey is the destination. In Long Beach, Washington, the kids got to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl and drive a go-kart, two activities I doubt Lewis and Clark could have envisioned would eventually occupy the space they "discovered" all those years ago.

After Long Beach, we took the bridge that separates Washington from Oregon, then stopped in Astoria, a wonderful little town in Oregon where the downtown has a J.C. Penny (which has been there since the 1920's), a couple of historic hotels, and is just as charming as can be. Next up - Cannon Beach, where the rich come to live and play. Designated (by Fodor's) as the Carmel of Oregon's coast, this is definitely a place to visit (though apparently everything costs more here). The one thing Cannon Beach seems to lack is a gas station, which was becoming increasingly necessary as our little rental Ford announced that we had 17 miles before the gas tank reached empty. The next tense (but gorgeous) 13 miles found us driving around the spectacular Neahkahnie Mountain where nary a gas station could be glimpsed.

When we finally reached the outskirts of Manzanita, we were thrilled to be greeted with the full-service treatment, as Oregon allows no self-serve in their gas stations. Finally, we drove through Tillamook, where cows and dairy farms abound, and Daniel developed a craving for cheese that would be fulfilled at dinner in Lincoln City, where he was assured by the hostess that the restaurant served Tillamook cheese. During dinner, we got to watch several people building a bonfire on the beach outside our windows. Others were looking through tide pools. This evening, we hope to do both. We arrived in our ocean front resort in Newport at 9:30 last night; today we are off to explore the aquarium and the town. The beach, of course, is quite chilly, leading Maddie to believe that it's better to live near an ocean you can actually enjoy rather than just view from a distance.