sprocket i/o

Portland Saturday Market: Old Town

Yesterday, I arrived in Portland, Oregon, my first foray into the great Pacific Northwest. Getting to the airport was not without drama due to some confusion with both the phone alarm and the fancy ‘smart alarm clock’ we have. The flight thankfully was uneventful, but amazing in it’s own way to fly over so much unfamiliar landscape. The Great Salt Lake in Utah was nothing short of purple-oddness. Much of the flight between Houston and Portland looked like wasteland until we hit the Cascade mountain range. It was so green, and felt so untouched from the air. Looking at a map, I soon realized that most of Oregon in some way or another is a protected natural area.

Portland had a different vibe than any other city I’ve been in. Driving between the Airport and the downtown, it felt like Stockholm. The cars were going slow by Atlanta standards (60mph), and the scenery felt familiar with random sets of industrial, rock outcrops, and evergreen trees.  I parked in the China-town area and walked through the Old Town, thankfully intersecting with the weekend market going on there. Much of the city reminded me of other Northern US cities I had been to, such as Boston, but with a San Francisco hippy flair. In my first ten minutes on the ground, I saw two VW busses and a car with an anarchy sticker on the rear window. There was a bit of a hipster feel, but more laid-back like Haight-Ashbury than Decatur.

After getting some fish & chips, I headed east toward The Dalles. I’ve never been to any mountainous areas west of the Appalachians, so the scenery felt quite surreal. There were some dramatic cliffs just off of I-84, with a few snowcapped mountains in the distance. Everything was very green for a while, and then it suddenly the landscape turns a parched brown. Across the Columbia River into Washington, much of the landscape looked like it belonged on Mars more than Earth. Deep inside I was regretting having rented a car instead of a motorcycle. I was surrounded by curvy roads begging to be explored on two wheels. It is worth noting that the traffic speeds on I-84 do pick up to a reasonable 75mph once you get outside of Portland.

Check-in time for my hotel was not until 4pm, so I still had some time to kill. Wanting to explore more of this alien country, I pushed further east. I had noted on the map that Richland, WA was only about two hours drive away from The Dalles. Richland is the city that my wife was born in, so I was curious what kind of place it was. I phoned my wife and asked if she could get me the address of the first house she lived in, which she managed to get from her mother. The hills of The Dalles soon faded into plains as far as the eye could see. I realized why her parents picked this part of the Northwest: it feels just like Texas.

I arrived into her neighborhood just after twilight, so none of the photos came out very well. I called my wife up to let her know I was calling from her house, which felt just a bit odd. I’ve now visited every house she’s lived in except for the one in Florida. Hopefully sometime in the coming years I will be able to take her to my birth-house in Skelleftea.

Having spent the previous 14 hours traveling, I felt in a hurry to check-in to my ‘hotel’ and crash. I did so in haste.