Portland
And some clever
quip...
Portland
The trip brief was basically "Go to the Oregon Coast for 10
days". Following the brief strictly would mean we drive from
Vancouver straight to the coast and hang out for roughly 9
days. The actual brief had an additional clause of "oh, and I
want some shopping". We decided to stay in Portland for three
nights. Our first Portland day was in downtown - I street
parked close to Shemanski Park where there is a morning farmers
market. We picked up some fruit and a hot snack.
Our next goal was Powell's Books which is maybe a 10 minute walk,
but there is a lot of great things between the market and
bookstore. We stopped at Kiriko (Japanese Clothing) and Kokoro
PDX (Japanese Kitchen store) on the way there and stopped in at the
Pioneer Square Din Tai Fung (Taiwanese restaurant chain) and
Kinokuniya Bookstore on the way back.
We did visit other stores to buy chips you can't find in Canada
(Trader Joe's, QFC) and went out dinner close to the hotel.
The next day we had plans to go white water rafting in the afternoon
but it was a bit of drive to get out there. To break it up, we
reserved tickets to see Multnomah Falls. This is a big
waterfall that has a historic hotel at the base that was once a stop
on long trips.
We considered walking up to see the top of the waterfall but we made
some distance, did the calculation and realized we didn't have the
time to make it to the top and get to rafting.
Whitewater Rafting on the White Salmon River
Two years
ago we were in the rockies and I stumbled upon a whitewater rafting
company on the kicking horse river. Claira was 10 and Helen
just said no. Fast forward a year or so and I saw a
documentary about removing a dam on white Salmon River and how it
helped the whitewater rafting community. I put a whitewater
rafting trip on the agenda. I have to admit, I was a bit
aprehensive - the river is cold and I'm not an athlete, but the
rafting company took care of us.
We booked an afternoon rafting trip which was roughly 2.5
hours. We parked at the office, got our gear on (farmer John
style wet suit pants + a waterproof jacket. We took a short
bus ride to the launch point and broke out into groups. What
we didn't know is that the river is the roughest at the start so you
start with big drops and big splashes.
The rafting company has a few stops along the way. The first
stop was a nice rock where you could jump into the river. This
river starts as a glacier some 60km up river so it's cold, but the
kids did the jump.
The next stop is a rough section of the river where the guides take
the rafts down and we walked around and got back in.
A final stop was a spring at the side of the river where we
could stop and get a drink. We got out and I took some photos
of the plants.
Once the river gets out of the lava tub formations, it becomes
flatter and easier to ride.
All too quickly, we were at the haul out point and that was our
day. The kids had big smiles so perhaps we'll go white water
rafting another time.
Tags: tomatoes(2), market(2), columnar basalt(1), fern(1), stairs(1), bread(1)
People: Nara(3), Claira(3), Helen(1), John(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > Oregon Coast Road Trip > Portland
Last Modified Wednesday, September 18th, 2024 at 22:31:27 Edit
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