Our Portland Vacation

We just came back from our mini-vacation to Portland, OR to see our son and his wife.

Our daughter joined us out there too and we all toured the area together.

We drove to Grand Rapids and flew out to Portland.  Our plane was late coming in so when we got to Chicago we missed our first connection.  Fortunately United Airlines re-booked us quickly onto American Airlines and we were off within the hour.  

My husband had the window seat and was taking pictures and caught some nice shots of Mt. Hood as we approached Portland. 

I know it can be boring to look at other people's photos so I decided to group things in a collage format.

The first day we toured along the Columbia River Gorge.  This is the Vista house along the historic Columbia River Highway that offers expansive views and was created as a comfort center to travelers as well as a memorial to the Oregon pioneers.

Next we visited Multnomah Falls.  Dan and Ryan worked their way up to the bridge and I stayed back taking pictures.  This is a 611 ft. waterfall drop.  It was fairly busy with a lot of visitors and there are trails you can follow along the mountainside.  Right off that bridge on the left is a path that people were taking.  It gives me the willies looking up there so I'm good on the ground!

On Sunday we went to The Grotto which is an outdoor shrine and Catholic sanctuary that we attended the morning service at. 

This is the International Rose Test Garden that we visited.  You just can't imagine how many roses there are.  Some of these roses measured a good 6 to 8 inches across- very stunning!

It was very hot while we visited and it hit 92 deg. that day so we did our best to see as much as we could but didn't see it all.  In hind sight we should have been there early in the morning.  At least they don't have very high humidity so that was great!

There are several mountains you can see if you are lucky while visiting Portland.  

We saw Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, and Mt. St. Helens at various times.  This particular afternoon we were trying to get a better picture of the mountain and found ourselves roaming the countryside when we came across this little winery.  I scoped out the scenery, flowers and the kids went in for some wine.  I think I heard Julie Andrews at some point!

We usually ate a late breakfast and an evening meal on the road.  The Black Bear Diner was a favorite and not too far away so we ate there several times.  One morning we ate at Helser's on Alberta.  (I saw it on a tv program on PBS) They offer a nice variety of unusual breakfast food.  Our favorite downtown restaurant we visited is called Deschutes Brewery- I highly recommend it! 

One evening we were all just too tired to go anywhere but when someone mentioned pasta our daughter in-law Angela jumped to the kitchen and went to work to make us a homemade spaghetti dinner.  As you can see she even made homemade pasta!  I've seen this attachment for the Kitchen Aid mixers but haven't ever seen it used.  They have a little garden area growing in a raised planter my son built so our salad greens came right from the garden!  My son is always "posing"- he's my funny guy! 

They had a new fire pit they wanted to try out so we helped them break it in on our last evening.  You can see part of the cedar planters and arbors my son built for their vegetable garden.  It's a fairly small yard and this works out nicely to give them a chance to grow some vegetables.  He's still in the process of finishing some hardscaping so we were sitting on gravel.    Dan is looking into making a quick trip back there to help him finish it.

On our return home Dan took more pictures out the window and caught three mountain rangers in the one picture!   

It seemed much easier going West and getting on board with their time zone than it was to come back home to ours! 

This is the first vacation we've taken in years and we need to do it more often!  Flying wasn't as bad as I anticipated although I have to admit we saved up extra to fly first class and that's the way to do it!

 

I want to give a plug for a new party called
Celebrate It Sunday
for celebrating your parties, your home decor, your recipes and your crafts