Day 13

I woke up this morning in Portland, Oregon and was excited to be here. I've heard great things about the city of Portland and there is at least one job opportunity here I might consider. Having never spent any significant length of time in Portland, I figured the best way to get a handle of the city was taking a walking tour. One particular company had rave reviews so I booked a downtown walking tour for 10 AM and grabbed a taxi to the starting place for the tour.

The tour took us all over downtown Portland and told us the history and some of the unique things that make the city such a great place to live. Walking around the city for a few hours I picked up several interesting facts:

The downtown area of Portland is beautiful and they made a conscious effort decades ago to make downtown a true destination not just a place where people go to work. They were thirty plus years ahead of many other cities including Houston in this regard.

One the first steps the city took when trying to revitalize downtown was make the Willamette river a prominent feature in the downtown area. The Willamette river cuts directly through the heart of Portland but originally there was a major six plus lane freeway that stood between the downtown district and the river. The City of Portland asked the department of transportation to tear down the freeway and rebuild it on the opposite side of the Willamette. Unsurprisingly the department of transportation didn't cooperate so they decided to do it themselves and raised taxes to do it. Now the river is clearly viewable from downtown and a beautiful park runs along the entire length of the river; parallel to downtown.

When you walk around the downtown region of Portland it's really different than most major downtown regions and there a couple reasons why. First, there is beautiful public art everywhere because Portland mandates that 2% of the cost of any new buildings or renovations is spent on public art. Second, the city does a great job of managing the streets, signage, sidewalks, etc. The city has mandated that you should be able to look any any direction and clearly see up several blocks. It's hard to describe how much a difference this makes but it's really dramatic compared to other American cities I've visited.

There is a great public transportation in Portland with trains, buses, and trolley cars that are all free within the downtown region. Portland really wants to discourage cars from coming downtown and the great public transport system does a great job.

Some pictures from my downtown tour are below:



Example of the 2% for Public Art and a famous statue in Portland. It's ironic because nobody wears a suit or carries an umbrella in this city.



Federal courthouse in downtown Portland, this is the most liberal courthouse in the nation and has more of it's decisions overturned by the supreme court than any other.



View of the wide streets, sidewalks, limited signage, and notice how far you can see.



The Willamette River and one of the many bridges that cross over it in Portland. A huge park / running trail runs along this side of the river where many events are held.

After the walking tour, I hit up the Saturday Market in Portland which is a sort of like a giant upscale flea market with all kinds of cool things for sale including some amazing street food. One of things Portland is famous for are these food carts that are spread all over the city. The Saturday market had dozens of booths selling all kinds of food and a lot of international fare which I thought was cool. One of the more popular booths was a Greek one selling lamb gyros which I had to try and they did not disappoint. After walking around the saturday market I decided to take advantage of the great public transportation system and grabbed a train back to my hotel for two dollars, a much better deal than the thirty dollar cab ride earlier. Great public transportation really makes life so much easier and really wish Houston can make some strides in this area.

I got back to my hotel and relaxed by watching the Texans win a thriller over the Washington Redskins and decided to check out the Colombia River Gorge which is supposed to a beautiful area less than an hour outside of Portland. I rented from Enterprise at the airport and started the drive out of Portland. I got the Colombia River Gorge area about an hour before sunset so I didn't have much time but decided to take a short hike up to Wahkeena falls. It's amazing how much water is flowing through out this entire region and as a result everything is so lush and green. Pictures are below:

Hiking up the trail to the falls:



Picture of Wahkeena Falls...The angle makes it look like these falls are not very high but the two levels combined are well over a couple hundred feet tall and quite beautiful.



Switchbacks on the hike back to my rental car.



After Wahkenna Falls there was a little bit of sunlight left so I went exploring further into the Colombia River Gorge and eventually reached Multanomah Falls which is one of the largest waterfalls in the nation, with the upper and lower sections combining to be around 2000 feet tall I think. There is a really nice bridge the park service has installed between the upper and lower section of the falls to get a great view point as well. Unfortunately, by the time I got to Multanomah Falls the light was non existent which made taking pictures difficult but here are a couple.





Once the light was gone it was time to head back to Portland and grab some sleep before a long day hiking the trails in Colombia River Gorge.

As always any questions / comments please post below or email me at chris@pricelessperspectives.com