Portland, Oregon

September 2003

We spent 3 nights in Portland.  Stayed downtown which was perfect as all buses in that area are free!  It's a very clean city and they make all developers of new buildings put aside money for sculptures around the city.  We had a microbrewery next to the hotel and there are lots of seafood restaurants.  The Williamette river runs through the city and so there are lots of bridges.

We went to see a Danish band (The Ravonettes) and a Glasgow band (Mogwai) and can report that Portland is still the home of grunge music.

We then rented a car and drove along the Columbia Gorge, up to Mount Hood and then to the wine growing region 30 miles south of Portland.  We had unseasonable weather in the 90's so it was a perfect time.

Timberline is a hotel on Mount Hood and was built in the 1930's.  It was one of the hotels used in the film 'The Shining'.  It has a lovely rustic interior with many of the original furnishings.

McMinnville is only 1 hours southwest from Portland and is a wine growing area famous for the Pinot Noir grape.  Recently an air museum was built and last year the Spruce Goose was moved here and renovated.  It's a sea plan that was built by Howard Hughes just before the war finished and only flown once.  It was christened the Spruce Goose by the media as he was forced to use only wood in it's construction.  It is massive, especially seen side by side with normal planes. 

We stayed at a lovely old hotel, the Hotel Oregon which was renovated by the McMenamin brothers who use a group of artists to decorate all their historic hotels.

Bagdad Theatre, Portland	Portland	Columbia Gorge
Vista House, Columbia Gorge	Multomah Falls	Bridalveil Falls
Skamania Lodge		Mt Hood
Back of Timberline hotel	Mount Hood	Mt Hood from hotel
McMinnville Hotel	Mural, Portland	Dundee, Oregon
Spruce Goose, McMinnville	Rooftop bar, McMinnville