Welcome to Portland!

This is the view just a few blocks from us, looking North from the Willamette River.


The next few are of Wyoming, on our drive up. Southeastern Wyoming is gorgeous, but southewestern Wyoming is pretty boring and quite hard to get through.





Shortly after making it into Oregon, we saw one of the most amazing sunsets ever. It was a huge tapestry in front of us, as we came around the side of the mountain. The pictures don't do it justice and don't show the scale well, but you get the idea.


We stayed the night in Pendelton, OR and this photo is taken just outside that area the next morning.

One of the biggest grain elevators I've ever seen. Plus I like the photo...

Okay, this is just hilarious. How's that for unflattering angles?

The next three are of north-central Oregon, driving along the Columbia River. It's one of the top windsurfing and kitesurfing (which I will hopefully try soon) destinations in the world. As you can see, the water is choppy, which means strong winds.



And suddendly you're in forested mountains!


This is a view of Porltand from Forest Park, which is the largest in-city park in the US. It's an old-growth forest with plenty of hiking and biking trails, an arboretum, a Japanese garden, rose garden, and more. If you come to visit us, it will, by default, be one of the places we'll take you. In this photo, you can see Mt. Hood (which has year-round skiing) very faintly in the background on the right between two trees.

Portland is known as the City of Roses, and you'll see them everywhere. In Forest Park, they have the International Rose Test garden. It's pretty and smells good, but not as cool as the park itself, in my opinion.


This morning we went to the Sellwood Riverfront Park, just a few blocks from our house. Sammie obviously enjoyed it.



The riverfront park is on the Willamette River, and looking north you see the city center (first photo of the post) and looking south you see the Sellwood bridge, which our street, Tacoma, turns into going west.

Lots of cool stuff gets washed into the sand there.

This is Oaks Amusement Park, which is adjacent to the riverfront park that's a few blocks from our house. There's no entry fee, but you buy tickets for each ride you go on. There's always tons of kids there, and it's kind of cool to have an amusement park blocks away, in case you feel like doing one or two rollercoasters occasionally. We have yet to try it...