Monday, June 13, 2011

Portland and Canon Beach Oregon

Went to visit my granddaughter who lives in Portland Oregon.  Arrived in Portland at 12PM and picked up  Ashley and rental car and went immediately to Canon Beach Oregon.  We stayed at a wonderful hotel right on the beach called the  Tolovana Inn.  Booked this through Orbitz for $60/night.  The room was small but about 30 steps from the beach.

  Thirty years ago I lived in Astoria Oregon and was familiar with the area but Ashley had never been to the Oregon coast.  The next morning we walked on Canon Beach for 3 miles and found a wonderful bakery called The Waves Of Grain.  Five pounds later we ate our way through the bakery, yum.


We went to The Astoria Column.  Ashley walked up the spiral staircase 164 steps up and down.  Good thing she is young, I could not have done it.

The view from the top of the column was awesome, overlooks the whole Willamette valley and the mouth of the Columbia River.
On the way back to Portland on Highway 26, we saw the most unusual sight.  A guy was on a skateboard in the fast lane of the highway on a stretch of road that was downhill for about 5 miles.  He was kneeling on the board with only a helmet for protection.  He was followed by a car to keep people from running him down.  He really has a death wish as far as I'm concerned.  If he hit a pebble with the board he would be thrown into the oncoming traffic, would not be a pretty sight.
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We  arrived back in Portland and while Ashley was working I decided to go to a movie.  I discovered the Living Room Theater in Portland.  It actually is a restaurant and theater combined.  You order your dinner and they deliver it in the theater along with a glass of wine, very civilized.  I ordered a pizza which was $8.00 (less than a bag of popcorn in a California theater).      Somebody needs to start up a chain of these theaters in California, I'm sure they would go over big.  The next day we took a road trip to the scenic highway up the Columbia gorge towards the Bonneville Dam.  Every few miles we would come to an wonderful waterfall.


We ended up at the Fish hatchery where they had huge sturgeons and trout in breeding ponds.  The sturgeon were so big I couldn't get them in one picture.

After that we ended up at Edgefield Hotel.  This hotel was originally the "Poor House" years ago and they converted it into a truly original hotel, complete with golf course, distillery, Brewery and wine tasting room.

  This hotel is part of the chain of restaurants and hotels owned by "McMennamins".  Ashley works at a McMennamin restaurant so we got to wine taste for free and after much wine tasting decided to spend the night at the hotel .

  Very unusual paintings on the walls and lots of picures of Jerry Garcia of "Grateful Dead" fame.  Every hotel room door was an original painting.

The spa was a moat around an Island, very unusual.
My only bad comment about Portland would be driving the downtown area.  It's a lot like San Francisco driving but worse.  All their streets are one way streets and even my GPS couldn't figure them out.  After the second red light I ran I decided to avoid the downtown area.  All and all it was a wonderful trip and I really had a great time with my granddaughter (miss her).