Portland, OR - Voodoo Donuts and Powells: into Portland

2 years ago we stayed in Portland and never got into Portland, the city. This year the plan was to go into the city. But we’ve spent several days in the Gorge and we have only one day left to see Portland. Today. On the Max, the public transportation system. Lots cheaper at @$10.00 a day for the two of us and lots easier than taking a car into the city. We expected to see the parking lot full and were worried that there might not be any spots for us but - holy schmoly - the lot was almost empty. Not like Washington DC, New York or Boston or Seattle. In fact the lot was actually fuller than the car we rode in on. Look at this - Gary is all alone on the car.

When we got into town and began to walk around, we again thought it was a ghost town. No one on the streets. We’re used to cities: no matter what the hour, there are hundreds of people out looking for food, taking a walk or heading to or from work. Cars honking, trucks and taxies maneuvering around. Cities are usually not quiet, sidewalks are not empty and streets usually are not bare. Cities are frantic, not tomb-like.

But our first goal was Voodoo Donuts, an iconic Portland tourist stop. A non-descript shop on a corner, who would guess that heavenly donuts were concocted inside? Here’s the 3-tier Lazy Susan with our choices on it.

Maybe I’ll just stand and drool over this selection. Of course, it took us a while to choose and we let others go ahead of us. And, then we made our choices: I took a chocolate old-fashioned and Gary got 2 long-johns. Sound familiar? Well, that’s what we always get. All these choices and we get what we always get. We follow the old Navy slogan: if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

We sat outside at one of the tables there. Soon a young man came to put up the umbrellas. We asked if he expected rain.

“Nope, these are sunbrellas and I’ve got to take them in when it rains. Hey, man this is Oregon, it always rains. Who wastes money on sunbrellas in Oregon?

Then some new tourists came and we invited them to sit with us. Fun talking with them. They’re out here for a wedding and decided to hit Portland on the way. You can see Gary welcoming them to our table.

Next was Powells’ City of Books, the largest independent chain of bookstores in America and this is its flagship store. Now, what is a person who lives in a motorhome and has an iPad with dozens of books on it, doing in a bookstore? Ask me why I still like to read the newspaper rather that the news in CNN or USAToday online. Well, as much as I use my iPad to read books and as little space as we have in our RV, I still like the feel of paper. I still like holding a book. in my hands. I still like the newspaper spread out before me on the table. Reading novels or non-fiction on the iPad is ok. But cookbooks, travel books - not so much. Not only difficult, but it is almost impossible to scan the pages to see what my choices are. Oh, well. Here we are in Powells.

It began in 1971 as a motley used book store in central Portland. Today it spans an entire city block and is not just one story tall. There are floors and mezanines and truly, one could get lost in it. They even have a map of the store with color coded sections. We quickly split up so Gary could peruse the computer books and I could look for a book in the cooking section. Funny, they did not have that book but they could order it for me. Nah, that’s ok. I’ll look some more. I then hit their computer to look for a book by Peter Stark, who wrote ‘Astoria’ which I thought was incredibly good. Nope, they didn’t have any other books by him. Hmm. I’m striking out here. Maybe the best way to ‘do’ Powells was to enter with no obective in mind and wander among the stacks to see what interests you. I found two and went to the coffee shop to meet Big Gar.

We then decided to walk to the end of the business district along the parks and then walk back to the light rail along the river. Very nice walk through the city. The streets began to fill up and the food trucks began to open. Colorful trucks and colorful food choices.

We also found the art museum but, by this time it was a bit too late to go in and explore. We did like this cool brass horse. Nope, it looks like drift wood but it is truly brass.

At the Univ of Portland we saw these magnificent rhododendron bushes. Of all colors.



We walked back along the riverand then I wanted to get a picture from higher up - and there was a stairway up to the bridge over the water. The view was not so amazing but the number of needles on the staircase was. Oh, my. Even country girl that I am, I knew what these needles meant and we left the bridge and headed back to town.

The light rail was much fuller on the way back to where we had started and there were even a few standees. We must have just missed the rush in the morning.

At the station was this memorial to all those Japanese who had been sent ot the relocation camps during WWII.

On the poles were silver newspaper front pages. This one says ‘ Portland to be First Jap-Free City.’

And, this one says:’ Next Tuesday to find Town Sans Nippos.’

An ugly and very unncessary part of our American history. An example when fear grabs common sense and wrestles it to the ground. An example for us all.