Greetings from Portland!

Well, not actually FROM Portland since we've been back for about a week now, but since this is a postcard, the title seemed appropriate.

A few details before we get started with the photos.  Portland is about a seven hour drive westish from Boise, and about 90 minutes from the coast.  It's a port city (imagine that) on the Willamette River, and I believe the population is somewhere around the 600,000 mark.  Add in the population in the surrounding area, and you're looking at about two million.  So quite a big bigger than Boise.


Also quite a bit wetter.  It's on the rainy side of the Cascade mountain range, and they get a LOT of rain, which means it's very green and lush.  Fortunately for us, our entire stay was sunny, if a little chilly on the first day, and dry.


We traveled with our friend Chris, and had a lovely few days.  I'd quite happily go back again. So on to some photos.  We took lots, so I'll try and keep it to the highlights.


Our first stop, on the way to Portland, was Multnomah Falls.  It's just off the highway and fabulously touristy, but for good reason:

 

It was windy, damp, and crowded, but still worth stopping for. After that, we dropped by the Full Sail brewery, which was a little further down the road, and took a free tour.  Portland has the most breweries of any city in the US (and possibly the world, I can't quite remember), so beer was unavoidable much to my dismay (not).

On Sunday, we visited a town called Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast.  Another very touristy place, but we went for a walk along the Pacific Ocean and took in some very spectacular scenery.  I must say it was BLOODY cold and windy.  We turned back to town just before our ears froze and fell off.

Cannon Beach itself was an awful lot like every other seaside tourist town I've been to, but it did have some nifty architecture:

Steidel's Art was just lovely, the building and the artwork it contained.  The artist, who must be at least a thousand years old, works mostly in watercolours and is a fantasy artist.  He's developed his own characters and stories, and I could have very easily walked out with all of his work.  His website really doesn't do him justice, but here it is if you're interested: http://www.steidelsart.com/index.htm

We drove further up the coast to a town called Astoria, which is a working port town on the mouth of the Columbia River.  I preferred it to Cannon Beach, especially the way the houses were all piled up on some really steep hillsides.  We found our way to something called the Astoria Monument, if memory serves, where we got some spectacular views over the river:

We took a drive around the river mouth for a bit, where we discovered a shipwreck, but you're going to have to wait for that.  I thought I could get this all done in one evening, but I'm afraid I've run out of time for now.   I'll leave you with a photo of Chris, and one of Daniel and I...