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Our second week in Portland was just as full of excitement as our first week. Good thing we were only there for two weeks, we couldn’t keep up that pace for long! On the other hand, if we had stayed longer maybe we would’ve spread things out more, maybe…

It was not all big and exciting though, as we have the same mundane household chores as anyone else. Laundry still has to be done, dishes washed, cats taken on walks, shelves painted, carpet vacuumed, you know, the usual. How we get things done is all that differs. Most RV parks have coin operated laundry facilities which we use about once a week. Since we have less stuff than a normal household (because of storage and weight issues) almost everything gets washed once a week.

The cats hate cleaning day (who doesn’t?) because of the vacuum, so they have to go outside. We are strict with them, no cat leaves our RV without a super-suit (also known as a harness). We no longer call them harnesses because when you harness something it implies that the thing you’ve harnessed will work for you. Clearly, our cats will do no such thing. So, we have resorted to calling them “super-suits” (anyone who has seen The Incredibles will understand). The great thing about cleaning our RV is that it’s small, I can do all the windows, dusting and vacuuming in about 20 minutes! Which leaves plenty of time for other things like…

...touring the Portland Art Museum. My friend Lisa and I had a “girl’s day out” since Lance met with a coworker at a cafe downtown to work. The Museum was very well done with some interesting exhibits. My favorites were the extensive Native American and the Oregon New Deal exhibits.

The Native American exhibit followed cultures through their art from pre-contact (a time which varied widely in the New World) to modern work. A very impressive collection.

The New Deal exhibit showcased art work created in Oregon as part of the Federal Art Projects, some of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s many programs aimed at helping the country recover from the Great Depression. While there were several different art programs during the 1930s all of them required three things. First, that the artist be an American citizen, second that the artist depict an American scene, and third, that the art be created for the public. Meaning the completed art belonged to the government for public display, like in post offices, schools or other public buildings. I fell in love with a couple paintings, Dakota Hotel by Dora Erikson and Buffalo Hunt by Lucia Wiley, a nun.

Lisa and I wandered the museum all afternoon and still didn’t see everything. It didn’t help that the museum layout was confusing. Apparently the museum occupies two separate buildings whose floors aren’t aligned. So Floor 2 in one building is different from Floor 2 in the other building. However, the same elevator runs between both buildings and you have to know which door to exit out of depending on which floor of which building you want to visit. It took the two of us (both college graduates, mind you) a while to figure it out. Subsequently the museum closed at 5pm before we’d finished. Oh well, we still enjoyed it!

On one of the bright sunny days I wandered around Portland, out along the Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park and downtown to Pioneer Courthouse Square. Art is scattered throughout the city, every time I turned a corner I discovered a sculpture or mural. The area around the historic Pioneer Courthouse was no exception as animal sculptures lined the sidewalk on all four sides of the building. I assume they represent species native to Oregon as there were ducks, beavers, bears and deer.

The Courthouse, though still active, is almost a museum in itself. Admission is free, although you do have to pass through a metal detector, and the fourth story cupola is open to the public. I explored all the floors, stopping to read the interpretive signs lining the walls but the cupola was the best part. At the top of the wide, historic stairs the cupola commands less of a view than it used to now that it is dwarfed by taller buildings. Old photographs of downtown, with prominent features explained, hang on the walls in between the large windows. It was fascinating to compare how much some things changed while others stayed the same. This National Historic Landmark is a relatively unexplored gem in the heart of Portland.

Of course, Pioneer Courthouse Square owes its name to the old Courthouse across the street but it is also known as “Portland’s living room.” There are tons of events held in the Square throughout the year but even on non-event days there is plenty to see. It is the central stop for buses and the MAX in downtown so there are always people milling around. Musicians play on the steps, children chase pigeons, tourists visit the information center and always, the homeless sleep on or beg from nearby benches.

We actually attended a free concert at the Square, I can’t remember who all played but I do remember that Shawn Mullins closed the show. We were all really impressed with him, I had heard a couple of his songs on the radio but I had no idea how talented he was. He seems more of a country type but some of his songs cross over, personally, I dug his lyrics.

We enjoyed several wonderful dinners while sitting around Lisa and Gino’s table but we were also able to sample some of Portland’s diverse culinary options. Most memorable were Eleni’s Greek Restaurant and Montage.

Eleni’s is a favorite of Lisa and Gino’s and we soon learned why: friendly service, excellent flavors, good prices and funky wine. We were introduced to Retsina wine at Eleni’s, truly a taste experience. It’s a Greek wine that is infused with pine resin. The flavor was the unintentional result of pine sap, used to seal wine bottles thousands of years ago, infusing the wine. Now it is intentionally made this way since people are accustomed to the flavor. We’re glad we tried it but we probably wouldn’t stock it in our cellar, if you know what I mean.

Montage is one of those places you won’t find unless someone takes you, trust me. We were to meet Lance’s friends Seth, Jacob and Terry there for dinner one evening and the directions Seth gave us were intriguing; wander through the warehouse district, under the Morrison Street Bridge and you’ll find it.

It was a beautiful evening so Lance and I walked from downtown along the Morrison Street Bridge that spans the Willamette River. When we ducked under the bridge we had our doubts. The weeds, vacant buildings and litter weren’t encouraging signs but we forged ahead. On an unsigned corner, still under Morrison, was a small nondescript building with a line of people waiting in front of it. We had found it! Montage has a crazy location, crazy hours (6pm to 4am) and crazy good food. It has family style seating and it is boisterous, but the Cajun food was garlicky, spicy and wonderful.

We also managed to squeeze in some micro-brewed beer, no trip to Portland would be complete without it! Since Portland has 28 breweries, more than any other US city, the Visitor Center is promoting the city as Beertopia. Happy hour at the BridgePort Brewpub was a great way to sample beer from the oldest craft brewery in Oregon. Occasionally we can buy bottles of their beer outside Oregon but its never as good as fresh out of the tap.

A new one for us was Lucky Labrador, which is doggie friendly! Luna (Lisa and Gino’s dog) loves the place, obviously the dog has good taste. The Lucky Lab offers water buckets and play areas for dogs, and pints of brew and good eats for people. Heck, the place even has its own song! If I lived here I’d have to get a dog just so I could take it to the brewery…

All book lovers must stop in at Powell’s City of Books. The store sells new and used books and has so many books (over 4 million) that it fills a four story building that takes up one full city block! It’s so big that they give you a map when you enter and we had to use our cell phones to find each other after we took off in separate directions. Kiss your budget goodbye because you will find all the books you’ve been looking for and you will be tempted to buy them. We escaped without buying too many books only because we didn’t have room for them in our RV, not because we have willpower! It was a productive visit, though, since Lance found some books he’d really been searching for.

I bought a used book of Robert Service poems, somehow being in the Pacific Northwest made me think of him. Probably because I stopped here after my trip to Alaska in 1999. Whatever the reason, it seemed right. My favorite poem is “The Cremation of Sam McGee”, its best if you read it out loud with a Scottish brogue like Service himself. If you’d rather listen to the poem, I recommend Johnny Cash’s (one of my favorite artists) version of it.

Strangest event of our last week was our Shanghai Tunnel tour. The four us (Gino, Lisa, Lance and I) went on the tour out of pure curiosity. I wanted to see these infamous tunnels. The tour was interesting, our leader, Michael, had collected a wealth of local lore about the tunnels over the years and he clearly enjoyed sharing it with us. It was dark, musty and dusty down there but the weirdest thing was what happened to Lisa.

First, you must know that Lisa is a well-educated, scientifically minded person. That said, it’s really strange that out of the whole tour Lisa is the only one who had an “encounter”. As she was winding through a narrow section of tunnel she felt a tug on her hair. Of course, there was no one nearby and nothing she could have snagged it on. Interesting, very interesting.

And as quick as that, our time in Portland was over and we were on our way east. Lance and I decided to sacrifice a visit to Seattle in hopes of spending time in Montana, one of my favorite places.

Photos: View all our Portland photos in our Portland album.

Dates: We stayed in Tualatin (Portland area) from 08/27/06 to 09/10/06.