On Our Way to Portland Riding Down the Highway US 30

Wednesday
July 10, 2014

On Our Way to Portland Riding Down the Highway US 30
We spent a good part of the day driving today. We had such beautiful views as we entered Oregon. There were huge wind farms, apple orchard, grape vineyards, and of course all the other beautiful scenery.

We drove down the Columbia River on the Washington State side and got a beautiful view of the river. We saw many wind surfers when we passed through Hood, WA. The wind was really moving them along.

As we are going down the highway, we saw our first coyote. He ran across the road in front of us. He stopped on the hill and looked back. He had his lunch in his mouth.

We got our first glimpse of Mt. Hood as we drove down the river gorge. It was way off in the distance but, still was quite imposing.

George took us to a World War I memorial. It was really neat. It was created by one man and it is a true replica of the Stonehenge.

We visited some beautiful waterfalls, We then went up to an observation area in the park. You could see five snow capped volcanoes. Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood,  Mt. Adams, and  Mt. Jefferson. We were so high up we were looking down at the evergreen treetops below us. Spectacular view which made the hike to the top very worthwhile.

We got into Portland, OR around 4:00 PM. As with all large towns, there was road construction going on and of course our exit was blocked. Caroline came to the rescue again with her GPS on her phone.

We arrived in downtown Portland after trying to find our way. We stayed at the Mark Spencer Hotel. It had a concierge, who met us as we pulled up, asked our name and told their front desk that we had arrived. I felt like royalty. We parked in hotel parking deck and went to our room.t had a sitting room with a kitchen, flat screen TV and a huge bedroom with wonderful beds and TV. Country folk had come to the big city.
We were even offered wine in the lobby while we waited for information at the front desk.

We had dinner at Jake's Seafood per recommendation of Van Moore. It was delicious. We enjoyed peeled scrimp, calamari, and chicken wings.

Our first visit to Portland left us greatly impressed.