City Life in Portland

We've been here in Beaverton, OR for the last 5 days, just west of Portland and such a great location for seeing this beautiful city. We are at the Beaverton Elk's Lodge with hook ups, friendly folks and close to the great Portland area transit system.  We walk about a block to catch the bus, then a 5 min ride and we're at the light rail train that takes us right into the heart of Portland. So easy!

The highway over from the coast was a beautiful ride, very forested before dropping down into the Willamette Valley wine country with over 100 vineyards. Just outside the town of McMinnville we stopped to tour the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum.

The museum is housed in 2 enormous hangars and is now the home of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose as well as a collection of more than 150 historic aircraft and spacecraft among them the world's fastest spy plane and a Titan II Missile.  But the neatest ones for me were the vintage planes and a passenger plane from the 1940s.
They also have a water park with a slide that is built from inside an airplane set atop a building several stores tall...we passed on that.

From there we went on into Beaverton and settled in at the Elk's Lodge RV parking lot, not quite the rural setting we've had at others but it's perfect for a place to be for a few days.  Tuesday morning we spent at the Portland Zoo in Washington Park, it was their $4 entrance fee day, such a deal we couldn't miss out on that.  It's a beautiful zoo, much like San Diego's. The weather was cool and perfect for walking all over. By noon we were ready to scoot over to Portland's Rose Test Gardens.

It's on beautiful hillside overlooking the city surrounded tall conifers.  The flowers were in full bloom and colors were stunning!

More than 8000 bushes are planted in three terraces. There was even a Shakespeare Garden; I could have stayed here all day!

A short walk up the hill from the rose garden is the very lovely Japanese Garden.

It is considered to be the most authentic Japanese garden outside of Japan and simply beautiful! Traditional buildings and architecture are beautifully designed in the 5 acres of gardens.








So peaceful and serene. Our favorite were the Zen Gardens.
Granite pebbles raked into meticulous patterns.

The harvest moon in September is the attraction that brings visitors back to the gardens for 3 nights of moon viewing.  I had so wanted to experience it but the tickets for all 3 evenings were sold out.  That's now on our list to do another time. From the photos on the brochure it looks like these gardens are lovely all year round.  With so many Japanese maples throughout, the colors will be beautiful in the next month or so, then in the spring the hundreds of azaleas and rhododendrons will be in full bloom, making a very striking look. How I would love to see it in all the seasons...even in snow!

We got back to the motor home late afternoon in time to change and head back in to the city for our big evening concert: Pink Martini performing with the Portland Symphony.  We have been fans of Pink Martini for several years now and have seen them in many different venues, but nothing compares with hearing them perform with a full orchestra behind them. It was the BEST!! Before the concert we had just enough time for a delicious dinner at South Park Restaurant, seemed like every one was dining and then hurrying off to attend the symphony. The performance was in the very ornate Arlene Schnitzer Hall which was actually a restored 1928 vaudeville house.  Our seats were in the very top balcony but the acoustics were terrific, guess we were just lucky to actually get tickets; all 3 evenings of the performance were sold out and the hall holds close to 2500!  The band originates from Portland so they're very well loved here. That evening the female vocalist performing with them was Storm LArge...great name! Also appearing with the band was Ari Shapiro, the NPR White House Correspondent who happens to have a fabulous voice.  What a night!!!! Even the conductor of the Symphony sang a duet with Storm, a fun surprise.  I think I had a huge grin on my face the whole evening.  AND...SLO friends...just want you to know that Pink Martini will be performing at the PAC this fall, I most highly recommend you get some tickets and enjoy these fantastic musicians.  You won't be disappointed, trust me.

So, Wednesday morning we were up early to catch the train into the city, I had a 9AM one to one lesson scheduled at the Apple Store. The one hour lesson turned into a 3 hour project of making personalized ring tones for my phone!!! It took me a while to learn the technique but I'm on my way to making individual song clips for each of you in my address book! Now I just have to make myself sit down and do it. But what fun that will be when it's all set up. We finished at noon in time to meet up with Nicci, a friend of Mandy's who moved here about a year and a half ago. We had a wonderful visit and delicious lunch at Habibi, a Mediterranean restaurant.  She rode up on her bicycle, like all good young Portlanders.

After lunch it was time for a walk through the beautiful Portland Art Museum. The museum was founded in 1892 and is internationally recognized for its permanent collection of 42,000 objects including French paintings, English silver, Native American art as well as modern and contemporary art.  But the collection we were so glad to see had been held over an extra week, the Allure of the Automobile, which showcased 16 of the world's most luxurious and rare automobiles designed between the 1930s and mid 1960s.  Amazing to see! Paul's standing next to a very rare 1937 Mercedes Benz 540 in this photo. Several years ago Paul had built a replica modeled after this car from a kit which we drove for several years, ours was red. So amazing to see the original car.

I loved seeing a 1948 Tucker, I'd only seen it in the film made several years ago.

 There was also the 1957 Jag Roadster once owned by Steve McQueen. The information included with each car gave the history of its design and ownership. Such a surprising display to be seen all with in 3 rooms.  Such a fun day...we're loving this city!