All Aboard!

Riding the rails in 2009

In talking with our friends, we figured out why the airfares leaving Portland were so much more expensive: schools in Oregon start their spring break this weekend. That's probably also why our train fares were less expensive departing on Thursday as opposed to Friday.

To get home, we took Amtrak's Coast Starlight, which runs between Seattle and Los Angeles with an overnight on the train. In 2009, we took the California Zephyr from Sacramento to Chicago, spending two nights on board, and the boys still rank that vacation as one of our best trips. So, they were very enthusiastic about taking the train from Portland on the condition that we get full-size berths and a private bathroom in the sleepers. (On the California Zephyr, we had a family room with smaller child berths and a shared bathroom down the hall.)

They barely fit back then!

Keep Portland Weird

Today was our last day in Portland. After breakfast this morning, we decided to walk over to Powell's City of Books. This bookstore is enormous - it takes up several floors on a whole city block!

Books galore!

Wonderful Waterfalls

As I was looking into things to do during our short time in Portland, a segway tour of the city sounded it could be really fun. But a segway tour of Portland in the cold and rain?

Not so much.

So, we moved on to Plan B for today: driving the scenic Historic Columbia River Highway. After finishing our breakfast this morning, we headed east on I-84 and took Exit 22 to make our way up to old US-30. Our first stop was the Portland Women's Forum State Scenic Viewpoint.

Change of Pace

This trip has been a departure from how we typically travel on vacation. That is to say, I didn't do as much planning ahead of time, and we have not constantly been on the move. Other than a lunch date at 1:00PM and a basketball game tonight, we had nothing else on our agenda for today. So, after finishing breakfast (the free hotel breakfast was actually served at the Denny's across the parking lot), we decided to check out the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville.

C Is For...

Cold coast.

After we checked out of our hotel, we headed over to Fort Stevens State Park to see the wreck of the "Peter Iredale," a cargo ship which ran aground in 1906. It was super windy and cold this morning so we didn't stay very long!

Hey, You Guys!

We were blessed with another day of sunshine today, so we decided to head down the coast this morning. First we stopped in Seaside to see the Salt Works. In order to make salt for their return journey, the Corps of Discovery boiled seawater here over a furnace, 24 hours a day, extracting about 3.5 bushels (or 28 gallons) of "excellent, fine, strong & white" salt.

Seaside, OR

Rain or Shine

When I asked the family where they wanted to go next, J immediately said, "Portland."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because Nike and Adidas are there. And there are a lot of food places that look good."

Fair enough.  So, when I found a cheap one-way airfare ($59) from LAX to PDX for spring break, we were set. But since the return flight was $340 (ouch!), we will be getting home another way. More on that later...