Sunday, August 3

There had been neither time nor energy to post during our first days on the road. On Wednesday we both woke at 3:30AM energized primarily by fear that we had yet to gain control of the move. Everything (well, nearly everything) was packed but there could have been plenty of loose ends and unexpected discoveries. Earlier crises surrounding coordination of the elevator and the loading dock at our building had been resolved. A quick survey showed that everything really, really was packed and account for, and we had a reasonably solid sense of how the day would proceed. And the movers arrived earlier than expected!

The routine now is to thoroughly pad and wrap everything, and that takes a while. But once everything was ready, the apartment emptied quickly. Quickly is a relative term - we did not get into the car and begin our journey until 4:00PM, just in time to join the crowds leaving the adjacent baseball game (the Giants beat the Pirates!) and the chaos of drivers who are San Francisco's regular rush hour. What should have been a three hour drive to Redding instead took 5 hours. And the temperatures rose from a comfortable and typical 63ºF in the city to 100ºF in the Central Valley. One was keenly aware of the drought. What we mainly saw were grove after grove of olive trees - and places offering olive oils and olive oil tastings.

The next day, Thursday, further impressed upon us the scarcity of water. Driving toward Mount Shasta, the second highest peak in the Cascade range, we saw very little snow on the upper slopes of the old volcano. Lake Shasta was even more depressing - it's waters are at 35% capacity and falling. It struck us that state borders must have been drawn based upon weather patterns, since crossing into Oregon marked a noticeable change: things were green and only got greener. The farmlands of the Willamette Valley were a far broader and more robust version of the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts. The place seemed capable of growing any and everything. Ken pointed out the endless hazelnut groves. Assuming cocoa harvests elsewhere remain solid, the outlook for candy bars looks very good indeed.

Mount Hood and downtown Portland from the Pittock mansion

Arriving in Portland we stayed at our favorite dog-friendly hotel chain and enjoyed a day of visiting and touring with our sister-in-law's parents, Don and Anne Frank. On Friday they took us to the Pittock mansion, built before the First World War by the newspaper magnate who catapulted ownership of the Oregonian into vaster timber and railroad holdings. The house is larger than it looks or feels: it is instead a surprisingly modern and comfortable house for an extended family. It was one of the few docent-guided house tours I've found delightful. And the views of downtown Portland and the surrounding neighborhoods of the city gave us our bearings.

Jake's Crawfish 1892

Lunch was at Jake's [1892] Crawfish, a landmark seafood restaurant in downtown Portland that was true to it's claim of offering outstanding fish. It was a remarkable immersion into an earlier era when people could relax and enjoy a feast of local bounty. Dessert would have rendered us immobile for the remainder of the day; instead we walked around the Pearl district and made a pilgrimage to Powell's Books (as vast as one would imagine), Pioneer Square, and the nearby hive of food trucks under the shading street trees where young chefs offered office workers and street artists a global culinary tour. We were amazed and almost, almost wished we'd had the capacity to sample some of the foods. There was even a food cart specializing in Transylvanian foods (no vampire blood sausages - instead a very appealing schnitzel in a lettuce wrap that seemed to be everyone's favorite) as well as the usual South and Central American vendors, the Pacific rim menu, and Middle Eastern, south Asian and Australian renditions of their classic street foods. Fortunately someone remembered French crêpes, too.

We left the food carts and the gobbling hordes and headed for the Willamette river and a boat cruise. The leisurely afternoon sail allowed us to deepen our sense of how the city was organized and see the extensive riverfront revitalization occurring still. Anne cooked a marvelous dinner that evening that underscored how fabulous the local bounty could be in the hands of a skilled chef. We ate very, very well.

On Saturday we left Portland and began the real journey back East in earnest. We allowed ourselves one brief but exceptionally worthwhile detour: Multnomah Falls. Not broad like Victoria or even Niagara Falls, Multnomah's claim is height and grace. The initial plunge of several hundred feet into a pool is graced by a second drop into a shaded pool in which enormous koi flourish. The falls are probably one of many smaller waters that feed the Columbia River Gorge. The Columbia itself was stunning - imagine a vaster Hudson river (near Bear Mountain) with mountains and outcrops on steroids. And green - unless the rocky faces were too steep, every inch was covered in dense green growth.

We continued east, entering the high desert of eastern Oregon and then cut up into Washington where the landscape slowly turned greener again and the evidence of large-scale agriculture was obvious. We drove through Spokane and have stopped in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for the night. Tomorrow: Billings, Montana.