Pretty Portland

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I was impressed with Portland, the traffic was surprisingly good, there were plenty of old beautiful historic buildings, one way streets everywhere and biking lanes. We checked out the international rose garden which boast many different variety of roses. I never knew there were that many! We also took a tour in the Japanese gardens which contained bonsai trees, sand gardens and very expensive fish. Basically Portland has lots of old buildings and gardens and the atmosphere is fairly relaxed. It’s also tax free as is Oregon State. I was tempted to buy a camera but in the end they didn’t have what I wanted in stock. The hostel we stayed at was pretty good also. People were friendly. We extended our stay for another night. Shopping at a organic supermarket called trader Joe’s was awesome. Healthy organic food for a great price! Rock on Portland. When not biking the city we were planning the next part of the trip and this was time consuming. I think things are looking confirmed right up until Las Vegas now. However the weather could be sketchy so we will have to plan as we go once in Arizona and Colorado.
I met a guy at the hostel who had biked from Boston (east USA). He’d traveled 6700 km’s on his bike in the last 3 months. He had some pretty good stories about bears and Indians. Being a city boy he had no idea about camping amongst the wildlife, so he'd had an encounter with a couple of black bears by leaving food lying around his tent. Fortunately he didn't panic and called 911 to get advise so the rangers showed up to bail him out of trouble. Man I’d love to cycle across the USA one day minus the bears and Indians!
Portland also has the Columbia river running through it and every 500m or less they have built a bridge which crosses over the river. So there are a mega amount of bridges in this city! There was a well placed cycle lane which ran downtown and crossed the river twice in a rectangle shape. We followed this around for a cruisy bike ride.

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Photos

Water Fountain
A center jet and outside jets make a interesting water fountain. Good in Summer!

Picking flowers
I plan to pick the roses at the international rose garden. Ok I didn't really it was a set up photo.

Sand Garden
Carefully planned raking of the sand produces this. In the Portland Japanese gardens.

Bonsai tree
This is a redwood which normally would grow up to 300m tall. But not in this case, its growth has been restricted so it is a miniature tree.

Japanese Garden fish
These fish are worth a lot of money!!!! I mean they are quite colourful but would you pay over $1000 for one?