Portland, Oregon.
And away we go, to Portland, Oregon, to visit my buddy Drew…. and 300 miles later, from Washington to Oregon, and along the Columbia River Gorge, here I am. I’m actually in Drews’s place at the moment, having just arrived around 5 pm, waiting for him to get home from work, so I thought I’d get a little start here on the blog.
Not too much to say. Another day of mostly driving, although, again, a great drive, winding up entering and passing through the Columbia River Gorge into Portland, which technically starts about 80 miles east of Portland, around the City of the Dalles (pronounced “Dahls”), but really seems to start way before that. The Dalles, this section of the Columbia River, it turns out, was the name given by French traders as it flows through the rocky channels formed in the Cascade mountains, and, in French, dalles means slabs, flagstone. or tile.
Heading south from Ritzville, the road first intersects with the Columbia River around Pasco and Kennewick, Washington, and again at Plymouth, soon before intersecting with Interstate 84, which runs directly alongside the Columbia, right into Portland, about 140 miles west. By Arlington, Oregon, soon after picking up 84 west, the beginnings of the gorge become evident, but at this point almost looks like a very long and wide lake, again with that beautiful deep blue color. Very beautiful, but it’s not a lake. Instead, it’s the very wide Columbia river, 4000 feet deep at points, and once it starts running west, with Oregon on the south shore and Washington on the north, with the boundary line running through the center of the river, the river enters the gorge, just past the Dalles Dam.
As the road nears the damn, snow capped Mount Hood starts to rise in the distance, increasingly towering over the landscape.
It was actually difficult to get photos of the river flowing through the gorge as there are really no pull over spots on route 84, and the traffic is moving pretty fast, so all this great scenery, with the river running through the fabulous gorge, can be enjoyed from the road but not really easily photographed. I’ll try again tomorrow, as I’ll be heading back out this way to hike and view some local spots.
I stopped in the City of The Dalles, which is a lovely town, and drove through the main downtown streets, which are very nice and pretty contemporary looking, and then up into into the residential streets, which go higher and higher into the hills overlooking the gorge. Beautiful and elegant homes on lovely streets, and of course the higher into the hills the more beautiful the views. Dalles is an inland port city also, and docked there was a pretty big liner, I suppose a river cruise ship. It looked like a hotel planted in the water. Dalles is also the largest city along the Gorge, outside of Portland, and is about 90 miles east of Portland.
Then into the city for my final stretch of driving for the day. I’ve been to Portland several times in the past, and have enjoyed the city and its surrounding suburbs, but I’m not particularly interested in going into the city on this trip. I’ve felt similarly about other large cities I’ve visited on this trip, such as Denver and San Francisco, which I’ve been close to to but haven’t really been interested to visit. I arrived at Drew’s home, in a south western suburb of the city, and here I am.
Drew is another now long-time friend from my work life, part of that group, a few of of whom I’ve already visited on this trip, who have become more than close colleagues over the years, instead becoming good friends with whom I’ve maintained strong contact since stepping away from work. For a while, I wondered whether these relationships would fade as I disappeared from work life, and of course some have, but the strongest and most valued of these, built over a 20-year period, more-or-less, have not.
When he got back from work, Drew and I talked for a while, and then walked around this very nice neighborhood.
It was pretty warm out still, and had risen into the early 80s this afternoon, and we walked into Multnomah Village for some dinner, along with Oliver, Drew’s 14-year old dog. Had a great burger from John’s Market, and equally good fries from the French Quarter, a collection of food trucks just opposite
