A list

Of awesome things

About the city of Portland:

-Public transportation (Combining use of trains, streetcars, buses, and a tram. Tickets are $2 for the day and are interchangeable between types. There’s even a free sector of town where you don’t have to pay to ride.)

-Plethora of microbreweries (Need I say more?)

-Great outdoors (Within about an hour of the city you can reach the coast, the mountains, the forest, the desert. There are so many shades of green that cover the terrain there, it’s like a box of specialty green Crayola crayons.)

-Farmers Markets (Every Saturday on the Portland State campus they set up several blocks of tents and stalls to sell various fruits and vegetables amongst the greenery and live music.)

-Layout (The city is divided into an easily accessible square of quadrants-NW, NE, SW, SE. The roads are in alphabetical order, and they intersect roads names by numbers.)

-Bike friendly (There are more bikes than cars!)

-Powell’s Used Book Store (The building covers a square city block. An entire square. Three stories tall. A better selection than any Barnes and Noble I’ve ever been in. It’s really cool when a town boasts a used bookstore as a tourist attraction.)

-Dog friendly (A lot of restaurants have canine menus. Seriously. Shops and stores keep doggie bowls for food and water just inside their doors. Seriously.)

-Tuckfields (Enough said.)

Another shout out to Kym and Cam for taking care of us during our stay, even paying for our (my) laundry and making sure the parking meter stayed full. We even got to see Daria (a recent PNW arrival) and Steve (up from Eugene). It was great to see all of you, now it’s your turn to hit the Midwest.

Shout-outs also to Jenny for letting us stay with her in Castle Rock as well as feed us a spectacular dinner, Sarah for bringing Hazel over to play and some delicious food to add to our spectacular dinner, and Mr. & Mrs. Bauska (Jenny's parents) for having us over for a wonderful breakfast accompanied with great stories of the past!

Thank you to ALL of you west coasters who made our trek up your side of the country so incredible! Words cannot explain how much we appreciate all of your hospitality!