Multnomah Falls

Today our rambles took us to the Columbia River Gorge area. We hiked up a mile to the top of Multnomah Falls with 11 switchbacks along the way-- but hey, who's counting?! At about 620 feet, it is the highest waterfall in Oregon and the U.S. Forest Service lists it as the 2nd year round waterfall in the country. No matter what, it is stunning sight.

The day began with Voodoo...

...donuts, that is. This donut shop has crazy looking donuts. The toppings are outrageous! That being said, they were nothing special in the taste department. We got the feeling this was a stop geared toward tourists, but we were glad to have checked it out.

...and became downright Peculiar

We ventured to the Northwest District to visit The Freakybuttrue Peculiarium and Museum, or the Peculiarium, for short.  (www.peculiarium.com)  It is part Ripley's Believe It or Not and part art exhibition. It is all fun though, for sure!  One could admire a framed carpet piece in use at the Portland International Airport from 1987 to 2015. Or sit on the lap of the Krampus, the anti-Santa. For the brave hearted, one could try out the Buried Alive Simulator. None of us were that courageous!

Later, we stumbled upon Ruby Jewel, where we could order individualized ice cream sandwiches with homemade ice cream and cookies. YUM! Adelaide had caramelized coffee ice cream in a chocolate chip cookie. Isaac had double chocolate in a chocolate cookie and I had coconut with chocolate and candied cherries in a Portland cookie (the everything cookie). 5 stars for this unique ice cream stop.

Adelaide and I were adventurous in the late afternoon. We tested out the BikeTown rentals. I preloaded my app and easily unlocked a couple of bikes. Getting to the green space next to the Willamette was not as easy. Neither of us were too keen to ride in the city and we ended up walking through some dicier areas. The Old Town part of the city is definitely a bit more gritty. We managed to find our way there eventually and had a fun ride. It is a popular riding, walking, and running trail. We returned our bike as easily as we unlocked them. As soon as we put the ulock back through the docking station, it registered our completed ride. This service makes it very convenient and easy.

Taking Time to Smell the Roses...

and other explorations!

Yesterday was a visit to Powell's, the iconic full block bookstore here in Portland. It is a bibliophile's dream come true and we all left with treasures! Adelaide found a groovy vintage shop across the street and acquired even more gems. We traversed the city and stopped at Deadstock coffee roasters for late afternoon refreshment. They offer an iced drink of sweet tea and coffee. It is unusual, but strangely addicting. If we find ourselves back in that area during store hours, we would definitely repeat the experience. Dinner was on the patio (sidewalk) of Deschutes Brewery  Portland Public House. This place was hopping! They had a soup of the moment on the menu. John joked with the server and asked him a couple times what the soup was since the moment had passed. Isaac was not amused! It is hard to be a teen out with the parents sometimes!

We are staying at a Residence Inn and they have such an inviting space in their courtyard. I have been taking my breakfast out there in the mornings and it has been a relaxing and pleasant way to begin the day.  Today Adelaide and I tackled the TriMet public transportation. We bought a day pass which allowed us on both the downtown streetcars and the light rail. To my surprise, we never once had our ticket checked, nor did anyone else. We traveled to Washington Park where we spent a couple of hours at the International Rose Test Garden. The roses were simply spectacular. Some fragrant, some not. Some large and showy, and some small and dainty. The colors abounded. In the afternoon, I swapped children and Isaac and I made our way to Ground Kontrol, a good old fashioned video arcade! We partnered during an Alien inspired game and had great fun. We played a few Namco games, some Star Wars games, and pinball. I played a game similar to Pacman called Ladybug in which parts of the walls can be levered open and I got high score! Isaac thinks it is because no one ever plays it. Sigh. I think he is probably correct. Our day ended with takeout Chinese in the courtyard with an innovative game of Catan. The lack of mosquitos and mild temps make outdoor activities quite pleasurable.  

Aug. 4: A Day in Seattle

Of all the days, this was one of the craziest.  In fact it was 25 hours long and filled with lots of details, some of which are here:  We had gone to bed early knowing we would be crossing from Montana through Idaho to Spokane Washington at 2 am.  There we detrained from our sleeper car #2730 and walked our luggage up several cars to our new home,  car #0730, destined for Seattle. While we waited for our new berths to be made up,  we all walked in the cool night air around the station, looking for the bakery or donut shop we smelled.  Adelaide wanted to climb the stone sculptures near the station, and inadvertently caught the attention of one of the more colorful members of the homeless neighborhood.  After declining his company, we returned to our new sleeper car to resume a few more hours of sleep.  We traversed the longest train tunnel (8 miles) during breakfast and pulled into Seattle by about 10:45.  

We checked our bags through to Portland (3.5 hours departing at 6:10 pm).  The King Street station has apparently undergone some remodeling and looks terrific.  We walked in search of donuts finally finding a "daily dozen" offering made-before-our-eyes mini donuts.  There was a devoted crowd surrounding Pike's Place and the adjacent markets.  We saw many shops - fresh blueberries, books, turkish taffy, and LOTS of flowers.    There was also an alley with its walls covered in discarded chewing gum!!

We took the famous monorail to the space needle.  There we got to pass through the Chihoulli exhibit while we were there.  We finally got up the space needle and enjoyed the expansive views.  Puget sound is really a unique location.   While up high we were treated to some close fly-by of the Blue Angels who happened to be doing an air show just for us.

We sat outside at a local restaurant in the lovely temperate afternoon and feasted on all kinds of unhealthy snacks which tasted SO good to us. We all agreed that train fare is a stretch from 5 star dining. Our last rail travel was that evening on the Cascades line to Portland. We gamed and marveled at the view of Mt Rainier. Our hotel in Portland is conveniently located just a few minute walk from Union Station. A good thing because we all tumbled into bed after our full day.

Good Morning Washington State

After a 2 a.m. wake up and transfer of cars that will bring us to Seattle (track work put those bound to Portland in a bus...an event we wanted to forego), we still awoke early enough to take in the beautiful views as we traveled through the mountains. We went through the longest train tunnel in North America which is 8 miles long and took 15 minutes to traverse.

Yesterday we traveled through Glacier National Park. That area is just stunning! At East Glacier, we saw the restaurant we visited 10 years ago on our family vacation where the kids were thrilled to watch the trains go by. This time around, we were the ones on the train!

Death of the Telegraph

Today finds us making our way through North Dakota and Montana. Unlike our previous trip on the California Zephyr or even earlier on this trip on the Lakeshore Limited, here we are noticing that the telegraph posts and lines have been taken down. We can see individual posts sometimes laying in ditches, but more commonly, there are stacks of them somewhat removed from the tracks.

Throughout North Dakota we have all been struck by the wide open spaces of the prairies and rolling hills. Houses and farms seem miles from each other.  We saw many oil and gas sites, even some jets of burning gas. In some of the more populated areas, we also observed many old, rusting out cars.  Some were in private yards and some of the larger collections were in more industrial areas.  

Yesterday's travel took us through Wisconsin. It was surprising how much swampy land there is. The route followed the Mississippi for many miles so we afforded some nice views.