One day in Portland

---

Due to the excessive heat in the forecast for the weekend, I decided to do all the things on my Portland list in one day. I ended up seeing everything I wanted to and I lucked out with the weather.

I headed out to find a TriMet station with parking. After a little searching, and a drive through the Nike campus, I found a park and ride at the Beaverton Creek stop. The TriMet consists of the Max train, buses and the Portland streetcars. $5 buys you an all day pass that is good on any of these, which is a great deal if you are going anywhere in the city. There are plenty of signs and each stop is clearly announced on the train. I took the blue line to the Washington Park stop to begin my day.

Washington Park is a really nice green area just outside the city center. There are lots of walking trails and several attractions, the Arboretum, children's museum, World Forestry Center, zoo, International Rose Test Garden and the Japanese Garden. Two are free, the arboretum and rose garden, while all the rest have an entrance fee. In the summer, there is also a free shuttle service that loops through the park, stopping at all the major sites, which is great if you are tired of walking. I headed to the Rose Garden first and decided to walk as it was a rather cool morning. The walk from the train station is 2 miles and there are no real steep inclines or declines on this route. You walk through portions of the arboretum and the woods of the park. It was a nice, quiet walk that I really enjoyed.

The International Rose Test Garden has tons of different kinds of rose bushes with some really interesting colors. You could spend a lot of time lingering here as the gardens are nicely laid out and easy to walk through. I enjoyed wandering down the paths and marveling at some of the vivid pinks and purples of the flowers. There are some limited views of the city and Mt Hood from here, but the better view in the park is at the Japanese Garden.

The Japanese Garden has an admission fee of $14.95, as well as a gift shop and small tea cafe. The gardens are quite peaceful and very green. There are little trickling fountains to listen to and statues to look at. It's very shady and quite nice to walk through. There is a good view of Portland and Mt Hood from the pavilion area. It was a little hazy, which I guess is mostly due to smoke from wildfires in the Crater Lake area, but I could still see the mountain.

I hopped on the free shuttle and headed back to the zoo. Westens like zoos and the Portland Zoo is pretty nice. I got a discount on the admission for taking public transportation so it only cost me $13.45 to get in. They have a relatively new elephant exhibit that I thought was very well done. There are several different areas within the exhibit and the elephants are free to choose where they want to spend there time. I was hoping at least one would be in the pool, but they seemed to like hanging out in the shade in one of the meadows. Maybe later in the day they would be more likely to get in the water. There was a video in the restaurant showing two of them splashing around having a great time. That really would have been something to see! I really enjoyed the natural feel to the exhibits here. There are lots of trees and some hillier spots. A lot of the animals weren't out but it was still a nice walk. And it still was relatively mild, which helped make it an enjoyable visit.

I headed back to the train and rode into downtown. I got off at Pioneer Square to hit the information center for a map so I could figure out how to get to Powell's City of Books. The easiest thing for me to do was to take the streetcar. A few stops later and I was at the largest bookstore in the world! Powell's takes up a whole city block and has several floors. I just wandered around trying to take it all in. They have a combination of new and used books and if you can't find what you are looking for, then you probably aren't looking hard enough. I guess if you don't like books, this wouldn't be on your list of places to see, but I love books and I loved this store!

I got back on a streetcar and headed down to the south waterfront to take the aerial tram and see if I could find a better view of Mt Hood. The tram is part of the OHSU campus and a way for students to get up and down a hill. But the public can ride to the top for a little over $4, down is free. I hate trams, but I do them when it's the best option for getting where I want to go. This one had a pre-recorded message right before the tower in the middle that said "Caution, tram will sway when passing the tower" and it wasn't wrong. There was quite a lot of swaying going on and I did not find that enjoyable at all. Once at the top, I was rewarded with a view of Mt Hood directly in front and Mount St Helens to the north. It was a little bit clearer than it was earlier in the day so that was nice. After some pictures, I headed back down on the stupid tram and then the streetcar back to the center and then the blue line back out to Beaverton.

I'm glad I was able to fit everything into one day and that the temperatures did not climb too high. Once I got off the train, I noticed it was a lot warmer here in Beaverton and my car said 94. I certainly wouldn't have done all that walking if it had been like that all day!

---