Portland

Well here we are in Portland.  We drove for about six and a half hours in rain yesterday, from the seaside village of Crescent City to the bustling Portland suburb of Clackamas.  Couldn’t be anywhere but America.

Our journey did not get off to a flying start.  We were ready to go nice and early as we wanted to be settled by mid-afternoon.  Sadly we quickly discovered that the GPS system rented to us by Fox Rentals only has maps for California loaded!!  The woman who encouraged us to hire it knew without question that we were driving up the West Coast – after all, we had to pay quite a bit extra to drop the car off in Seattle.  Anyway, nothing was to be gained by complaining.  We called Fox Rentals and they have made a note to refund us for the part of the hire where the device is useless.

Feeling slightly less confident, having come to rely on our GPS, we hit the road anyway.  We had spoken to the motelier the previous evening, and for a short detour we could have driven through a section of forest where they filmed the scenes with the Ewoks for Return of the Jedi.  Unfortunately, it was hosing with rain, and the Native Americans that own that area had closed the road – right after the entrance to their casino which is open 24/7.  As there were no cool trees to drive into this time, Grant kept himself entertained watching my white knuckles as I negotiated stretch after stretch of road similar in nature to the Manawatu Gorge.  I am not fond as heights, and even less do I like driving a car close to water.  Long drop-offs through the trees to raging (and okay, I admit it, very beautiful) rivers make me extremely anxious.  Luckily this stretch of road did not go on for much more than 90 minutes.  We stopped in a tiny town for petrol and coffee, before many more hours of driving through farmland.  This place sign on the Portland motorway sums it up quite well.

Don't go left!

Luckily the Google maps on our smart phones came to the rescue, and we made it to our motel without too many detours.  The downside of Google maps is that it can only respond at the speed of the available mobile network, and contrary to the reports of many ex-USA family and friends, that is pretty slow most of the time.

Our motel in Clackamas is right beside a huge shopping mall, so after a bit of internet research we went shopping for a GPS of our own.  We have decided we will use this quite a lot, and the cost of downloading maps for other countries is still less than the cost of hiring one.  We are slowly coming to terms with it – it isn’t the same brand as the one we hired.  The other big plus is that the state of Oregon does not have sales tax, so the price on the ticket is the price we paid.

We have found that upon crossing into Oregon, we have crossed from summer (although Californians say it is only spring) to winter (although Oregon folk argue that it is spring here too).  Today we woke to pouring rain, and when we drove into town at about 10am, the temperature was 8°C.  Thank you Yvonne for the unequivocal “Yes” when I asked if my down jacket would be useful at this time of year.

Still, we have only three days in Portland, and we are hardy Wellingtonians, so we were not going to let cold and rain stop us.  We started at the Rose Test Gardens.  These were created during World War II, as arborists were very concerned that the terrible bombing in Europe would cause rose species over there to be lost; they transported plants from Europe to be preserved here.  They have literally hundreds of species, and the gardens must be spectacular in summer.  Even on a cold wet day like today they look very pretty, and it is easy to imagine the promise of colour and perfume.

From here we headed into town in search of coffee and warmth.  We now had a Portland map which allowed us to get lost with style.  Instead of finding the Portland Aerial Tram, we walked in completely the wrong direction and ended up at Lan Su Chinese Garden just in time for a tour given by a local architect.  The gardens were beautiful, peaceful and grand, and Ken’s talk was both informative and interesting.  And it stopped raining, despite a forecast of thunderstorms.  While we toured the gardens, we had the extra treat of watching a pair of osprey circling.  It turns out they like hunting fish in Chinese Gardens!

Time to get warm again – this time we went to Deschutes Brewery, one of the many micro-brewing companies in and around Portland.  This one was very civilised and was able to provide me with hot tea while Grant enjoyed his tasting flight.  The aerial tram will have to wait until tomorrow.