PORTLAND, Charming, Livable City, with Art, Gardens, Nice People and Good Restaurants

We have loved Portland.  It's a pretty big city (about 1.5 million population), but is very easy to get around in with great public transportation.  And the narrow, treed streets in the downtown area make it attractive for walking, too, and there were lots of people on the streets.  There were more things to do and see than we had time for, but we visited the very good art museum, unique shops and good art galleries in the Pearl District, visited two of the many special gardens Portland is known for, ate in some excellent restaurants, and were lucky enough to see the Art in the Pearl Labor Day art show, considered to be one of the five best in the country. 

9th U.S. District Court of Appeals Court

The courtroom above, located in the historic Portland Courthouse dating from the early 1800s,  serves as the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals about once a month.  The rest of the time, the court convenes in San Francisco, Pasadena and Seattle.  Only three judges serve on the appeals court on an given occasion, but there are over 20 judges who serve on this appeals court for different cases or in the different court sites.

Good Restaurants

 We ate dinner one night at this restaurant, Pok Pok, rated #1 in popularity in Portland.  Harold said its rustic interior was typical of the Thai restaurants he visited in Thailand back in the 60s when he was serving in the Air Force at Korat Air Force Base.  The food didn't disappoint.

Portland International Rose Garden

This is only one of the great gardens maintained by the city of Portland.  There are 4.5 acres of roses and over 7000 different plants representing over 500 varieties. It was magnificent.  Such a wonderful gift of the city to its residents and visitors like us.

 Harold in the garden.

 Barbara on one of the many paths in the 4.5 acres.

Two exquisite examples of the roses in the garden.

Japanese Garden

 A large raked section of the garden, reflecting the Zen Buddhist influence on Japanese culture.

 Another lovely section of this serene park.  People tended to speak in whispers in this park, and there were a lot of visitors.

Colorful koi in a ponds along one of the paths in the park.

Art in the Pearl Art Show

 We agreed that this was perhaps the best art fair we had ever attended for the consistent high quality of work and the number of types of work that were different from anything we had ever seen.  We couldn't resist buying a couple of small pieces of art ourselves.

 Entertainment was also a part of the fair, including this troupe of belly dancers.  As you can see, not all of the women who danced were of the washboard abs variety.  Good for them!

We were lucky enough to hear this performer, Edna Vazquez, a Mexican torch singer who sang Mexican folk songs with soul.  For those of you who happen to know the singing of Luna Itzal, a famous Mexican singer, she sang in the same style, but perhaps even better!  If you are intrigued, you can hear some of her songs by visiting her web site, http://www.ednavazquez.com/.

One of our favorite activities while traveling are going to farmers' markets.  Here Barbara is learning from a vendor about a kind of cucumber she's never seen before.  The Portlanders are real foodies.  

Mount St. Helen's and Rainier National Park

Remembering the Mt. St. Helen's Eruption in May 1980

We first viewed Mt. St. Helen's from the Johnston Ridge Observatory, where, back in May 1980, a vulcanologist named Johnston was monitoring the bulge that had been building for many weeks on the north flank of Mt. St. Helen's.  An evacuation had already been ordered for much of the area around Mt. St. Helen's, including from many resorts and homes around Spirit Lake at the base of the mountain, in anticipation of the eruption within just a few days.  Johnston, alone on this ridge about 5 miles from the north flank of the mountain, along with some other 57 people who did not evacuate, were believed to be beyond the range that would be affected by the eruption.  Unfortunately, they were not.  The eruption, unexpectedly, did not explode vertically from the top of the mountain but rather laterally from the north flank.  The blast resulted in a super-heated debris-filled wind believed to be moving at 300-500 miles per hour moving toward in a northerly arc.  It was so powerful it destroyed everything in its path, and blowing down virtually EVERY tree in its path over an area of 230 square miles.  The avalanche traveled as far as 13 miles, and a mudflow caused by the instant melting of snow flowed down river valleys as far away as 75 miles.  The mountain lost about one third of its original 9600-ft. height in the blast.

Mt. St. Helen's before 1980 eruption viewed from Spirit Lake.

Mt. St. Helen's after the eruption from Spirit Lake.  Note that the surface of Spirit Lake permanently rose about 200 feet because of the avalanche debris that flowed into the lake.  A popular tourist destination with several resorts and vacation homes before the eruption, the lake's rise buried all of the developments around the lake, killed life within the lake, and left the lake full of blown-down tree trunks that fell into the lake.

View of part of the "blow-down" area soon after the 1980 eruption.  Note that the trees are lying uphill, indicating the direction of the blast from the volcano.

Some of the "blow-down" area as we saw it yesterday, more than 34 years later.

More of the blow-down area that we saw.

Mt. St. Helen's as we saw it last week and the devastation of the valley below from Johnston Ridge.  The crater is filled up somewhat, compared with the above image, because of several smaller eruptions that have taken place over the past 34 years bringing more material to the surface.  Notice that there is a small amount of vegetation now showing on what was previously just a mud plain.  Within the boundary of the St. Helen's National Monument, the forest service has not attempted to affect the recovery of the land, like planting trees, because they want to study the processes of natural recovery.

Spirit Lake as we saw it on a hike yesterday.  Note that the white-ish mass in the foreground of the photo are the blown-down tree trunk still floating on the lake.

Rainier National Park

Mount Rainier, above, at over 14,000 feet, towers over all other mountain peaks in the Cascades as well as the city of Seattle itself.  A currently dormant volcano, it has not erupted in 2500 years.  There are 25 major glaciers streaming down from the top of the mountain.  (This makes Glacier National Park in Montana, with no major glaciers left nowadays, look misnamed.)  What seems like snow  seen in this photo taken by us in August 2014, is actually several of those glaciers.

We took a hike on a trail in Rainier NP in what is called the Grove of the Patriarchs, site of an old-growth forest, within which were very old and huge trees, some more than 1000 years old!

One of the many giant trees in the grove.

Barbara, above, tries to hug one of the biggest, if not the biggest of the old-growth trees in the grove.  Gives you an idea of how big it really is.

Barbara with the root system of one of the old trees, now toppled.  We saw more than one amazing giant set of roots along the path in the grove.

On a lighter, less-educational note

 Everywhere we go, people - especially kids - always make a fuss over Pepe.  This typical scene, happened in Poulsbo, Washington, a cute little tourist port town we visited.

While in Port Townsend, we bought a work of art at a local art show called Two-Heart Shovel.  The gallery director insisted on taking this photo of us which she dubbed "American Gothic, circa 2014".

Catching up - Vancouver, Vancouver Island and Sequim and Port Townsend in Washington State

Port Townsend, Aug. 3-9

 This is the marina/RV park where we are staying in one of our favorite places, Port Townsend, Washington.  This is now a charming tourist town, transformed from being a "hippy town" back in 1995 when we first visited here (some of the old hippies are still visible on the streets), and transformed before that from being a major coastal port back in the late 1800s.  The longer-time residents of the place are not very happy with the touristy transformation and even less with retirees choosing to move here in recent years.  One long-time resident (here for over 30 years) expressed to Barbara, a little rudely, that she hoped that prospective retiree would not come here to live.  She said they tried to change the place too much, cutting down trees to build their houses and clamoring for a Walmart to move in.  So far they seem to have held off the big box chains.  The town is on the National Historic Registry.

 Rowing seems to be an attraction for a lot of residents.  We watched boaters nearby haul their boats to the water's edge, gingerly insert their long oars, and in very orderly and careful fashion climb in to row away. The participants were young and old, athletic and seemingly out of shape, too!

This is the marina that we faced in our motor home, just as the sun is coming up.  We walked along here every morning early with our coffee.  Several mornings it was very foggy, and one morning we watched several sea otters climb onto the docks, play a little, groom each other a little, climb onto a couple of boats and the plop back into the water to find some breakfast.

Sequim, Washington, July 27-August 3

Below is a photo of a beautiful weeping willow in our RV park, sitting right in front of our motor home, which suddenly split in two and fell onto the road while Harold watched open-mouthed! (That's Harold in the red shorts, talking with neighbors in the aftermath.) The good news is that neither people nor RVs nor cars were touched.  What luck.

Olympic National Park, Hurricane Ridge

Nearby Sequim (pronounced by locals as "Skwim") was very near Olympic National Park, very beautiful, mainly remote and inaccessible mountains covered by old evergreen forests.  Hard to capture a feel of the place with photos.

Off in the distance is Mount Hood, then the Strait of Juan de Fuca, then the town of Sequim, seen from the Hurricane Ridge parkway into the Olympic National Park.

Flattery Point, Washington

Farthest western point of both the state of Washington and the United States.

The day we were here it was foggy right on the point, just enough to make it moody and mysterious.  Spectacular views.

 The above was on the Strait of Juan de Fuca side of the point.  Note the lack of fog.  The fog was on the Pacific side.

 It was a great hiking path out to the point.  Note the rough wooden slabs that Harold is walking on (Pepe on his back.)

 Barbara at an overlook point along the path.

Another Pacific, foggy view.

Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, July 13-27 

Here we stayed at the Living Forest RV Park, a beautiful park overlooking the bay between Vancouver Island and Vancouver itself.  

Above is the view from our motor home.  It was a great site and a beautiful view. From here we watched the tide come in and out.  When it was out, the water you see here was mainly mud flats.  In the middle distance just beyond the trees you can see floating rafts of cut logs.  Logging and the export of wood is the main industry on Vancouver Island.

 Nanaimo has many traditions, among them the firing of the cannon every day at noon on a downtown plaza overlooking their port, accompanied by a bagpiper.

While in Nanaimo, they celebrated the Bathtub Races Festival, including this parade.  Unfortunately we didn't get to see the bathtub race itself.  Below is one of the bathtub boats which was to be racing the next day. 

 

Harold and Pepe on a walk along the wharf in Nanaimo.

 The marina downtown Nanaimo.

Tofino and the Pacific Rim National Park, Vancouver Island

The Pacific Rim National Park is on the Western side of Vancouver Island, on the Pacific.  It is known for spectacular shoreline views and world-class surfing.  

 This old boat offshore from the small town of Tofino, just outside the park, was salvaged by an islander and turned into his home, attached to the island alongside, which was also owned by the same family.

 Huge, near-empty beaches were typical of the park.  It was overcast and somewhat rainy the two days we were there.

 Here is a surfer contemplating the surf, getting ready to launch one late afternoon.  The surfers as a group were really good.

As a side story, we struck up an conversation on this beach with a friendly young man who, it turned out, was experiencing just his second day of surfing.  His story was that he was traveling across the country, "couch surfing" - that is, sleeping on the couch of anyone who would offer him a place to stay for the night.  He found these people by going to Craig's list online.  He was also driving a car he had personally converted to drive using used cooking oil.  He said he just stopped by restaurants in the towns he passed through and asked them for any used cooking oil they were throwing out, then poured it directly into his tank after straining it!  So far, he had traveled all the way from North Carolina (on his way to a seasonal job in Alaska) without spending a dime for fuel!  It's a different world for adventurous young people out there these days.

P.S.  The young man wasn't an irresponsible drifter.  He had just left a career as a mechanical engineer with a plan to start up an organic farm with his parents and brother in North Carolina when he returned from Alaska.

 The beaches in the park were surrounded by old-growth forests, which, because of the incredible amount of humidity and wet winds coming off the Pacific, were full of all kinds of mosses that covered the tree trunks and limbs, the forest floor, and any surface left untended for any length of time.

 Another scene along the shore.

 This young woman, Giselle, was a member of a local Indian tribe who was giving tours to tourists on the cultural aspects of Vancouver Island in general and the Pacific Rim National Park in particular.  She was an excellent guide, explaining the history of First Nation tribes in the area, including her own and their close relationship to the land we were seeing.  You would have thought, hearing her, that she was a college graduate specializing in natural history or forestry, but in fact she was a high school graduate who had a strong interest and learned everything she knew from tribal elders.

Another scene along the shore of the Park.

Chemainus, Vancouver Island - Town of Murals

Side Trip from Nanaimo

Chemainus is a small town on the Eastern side of Vancouver Island that since 1975 has been commissioning professional artists to paint murals depicting the town's history.  There are now over 40 murals on all kinds of buildings all over town, including grocery stores, the post office, private homes, pharmacies, etc.  The images below depict only three of the murals.  A remarkable town.

Sand Sculptures at Parksville

Just north of where we were staying in Nanaimo, in Parksville, was this Sand Sculpting Competition.  These are just three of the 30+ sculptures at the exhibit.  Pretty amazing.

Victoria, Pedder Bay RV Resort, and Butchart Gardens, July 8 -13

 Famous Empress Hotel downtown Victoria, facing the harbor, where high tea is $50 per person.  (No, we didn't have tea here.)

 Victoria Harbor

 Along the rose garden at Butchart Gardens, a not-to-be-missed attraction near Victoria.

 We stayed at Pedder Bay Marina and RV Park about 30 minutes west of Victoria.  We went out on a fishing trip with a guide where Harold, with the help of the guide, landed this 6-7-lb. salmon.  Mmmm.  Great grilling.

 View of the Marina at Pedder Bay

 When we left Vancouver Island to go to Port Angeles, Washington, we had to spend the night in our motor home on the wharf in Victoria, from which our ferry left the next morning at 6:10 a.m.

Vancouver, July 1 - 8

Vancouver, as a major city, had a lot to offer.  Below is an image of the marina at Granville Island, a cool place to visit with nice shops and a wonderful food market.

Barbara and Pepe on a walk around the famous seawall around Stanley Park.

We also visited the Vancouver Museum of Art and the historic Gastown area and rode the Sky Train.

We also did a lovely hike in the Burnaby Cariboo park near our motor home park with this view of the downtown.