Bayside Ramblings: A Quick Visit To Portland, OR

I spent a few days in Portland, Oregon in May and came away with an appreciation for the city. Though I like living in a fast-paced area like Washington DC, the city of Portland and its environs have a charming character and are nestled in still-significant swaths of forest. The journey over the bridges across the Williamette River at times reminded me of Pittsburgh.

Pittock Mansion
I started by making a quick trip to Pittock Mansion, which charges a fee of $7 to tour the house though the grounds are free. The mansion, now a park run by the City of Portland, was completed in 1914 for Henry Pittock, the publisher of the Weekly Oregonian newspaper, near the end of his long life.

Henry and Georgiana Pittock played a leading role in early Portland society, with Henry a member of the first group to climb Mt. Hood and Georgiana credited with starting Portland's Rose Festival.

The house was primarily designed and built by young craftsmen and contains a lot of the ornate touches common in turn-of-the-century buildings. Situated on a bluff over the Williamette River at the end of a long winding drive, the mansion's grounds include a point from which the iconic pictures of snow-capped Mt. Hood floating in the background above the city are often photographed.

Powell's Books
We next drove into the city and visited Powell's City of Books, the famed bookstore in the Pearl District that claims to have 1 million books on the shelves at any given time, both new and used.

The store is so large that it is broken up into multiple color-coded sections. If I lived in Portland I would probably visit periodically to see if any unusual books turned up, especially by authors whose work has largely gone out of print. For example, they had two dozen books by Gordon R. Dickson, including a couple I'd never even heard of.

Then again, you can buy from Powell's online either directly or via Amazon.com (as I've done before). And I've been surprised at how quickly I've converted to e-books since getting my iPhone. I haven't bought a physical book in months now.

Waterfalls
On Saturday, we took advantage of the gorgeous weather to range 30 minutes to the east of Portland to the Columbia River Gorge to view the many waterfalls, which are worth a post of their own. I wouldn't have thought to do this had it not been recommended by a local but it was a lot of fun.

Rose Festival Parade
Portland became associated with roses during World War I, when European blooms were brought to the city to preserve them from the bombing on that continent, and there are still large experimental gardens that I didn't have time to visit on this trip. The International Rose Test Garden is clustered at Washington Park along with the Portland Japanese Garden, the Oregon Zoo, and a couple of museums.

We were there during the annual Rose Festival, on the weekend of the illuminated Starlight Parade which had a surprisingly irreverent feel to it. Though it started at 8:30 PM as the sun was still fading in the sky my pictures are kind of blurry, but they give you a feel for the show. We only stayed for about an hour.