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(Note: This blog entry represents a combination of writings and pictures already posted about our Cool Change II, Land Yacht Adventures 2021 through Cindy via Facebook and Rick via email. So for some of you, the following posts may be duplicative, but for others, this is the first time you are seeing them. We are repeating them here to centralize the record and share our experiences more broadly.)
Cindy’s Facebook Post, June 27, 2021
Visiting our beautiful daughter Sarah Patrinellis and her handsome beau Justin in Portland. Fun fact: the menus for all the Portland restaurants we have visited are visible only by scanning a QR code attached to the table.
We drove up the coast for a while to get from Southern Oregon to Portland. Yachats is a very cute, brightly flowered, new-age-like coastal town – a little like Stinson Beach … and the weather was refreshingly cool. Then once we arrived in Portland, Justin’s home had the perfect spot for our trailer. To escape the heat, Sarah and Justin took us on a river float Saturday and to the ocean on Sunday, where Justin surfed, but not before Sarah treated Rick and me to a pedicure! We enjoyed the beach and then managed to squeeze in a late night dinner on the coast. Needless to say, we arrived back early this morning from our trek! And Portland itself reminds me so much of the Haight in San Francisco 45 years ago or so … it is so charming and bohemian in parts! All the gardens are overflowing, as are posters professing kindness, peace and love. Today we drove up to Bremerton near Seattle to see our boys … more to come …
RICK’S UPDATE ON PORTLAND
We left Florence on 6/25/21 headed for Vancouver Washington to visit with our daughter Sarah and her boyfriend Justin. We already had a nice introduction to Justin when they both came to visit us for a few days back home in Coloma, where we had a fun river trip as well as some special time together with Grandma Poppy.
Our daughter Sarah is a talented silk aerialist and we were hoping we might get to watch an impromptu performance or practice session while we were there. She has a portable aerial rig that she and Justin have set up in his backyard for her practice and workout sessions.
Justin works for the city of Longview as a Firefighter and EMT. His home is in a quiet, well established neighborhood minutes from Portland. Fortunately for us it has a nice graveled RV access to one side of the house where we were able to park the trailer. There was a power outlet close by that allowed us to connect to AC power for the refrigerator and battery charger, and there was plenty of room to park the the truck in the street in front of the house. The road to Justin’s home is on is a cul de sac so it has very little traffic. We stayed in the house while we were there, in a basement room that they have set up as an AirBnB. When we arrived, they had it all set up nicely for us and it felt very special.
Sarah was working in Portland on an aerial instructional class for kids. We decided to all meet her in Portland for dinner. We were going to go to a Thai restaurant for dinner, but as we had a little time before Sarah would be joining us, Justin took Cindy and I to an Oyster Bar that was close by. We ordered a couple of Rockefeller’s as well as some raw oysters and they were all great! After Sarah joined us, we moved on to the Thai restaurant just up the street. The restaurant was still transitioning from Covid operations and as such there was no inside seating. They had set up outside seating along the sidewalk with plastic sheeting over a wooden frame. They really tried hard to make it look nice, and it was, except that with the combination of spicy Thai food and the sun heating the space we were in, we were all ready to leave pretty quickly! This was one of the hotter days of the heatwave that had hit Portland. We went for a nice walk through some of the nearby streets, trying to stay in the shade, until we found a nice little restaurant/bar where we sat in the shade of the patio and had sundowners.
I always look forward to visiting Portland for its quirky atmosphere. I don’t know that there are many other places on the planet where you can go to a restaurant that not only welcomes dogs, but has a menu for them as well. But of course we saw one in Portland! While we were walking around, we passed many interesting houses, including one with an second dwelling unit that looked sort of like a gypsy wagon home only it was built in a tree! There were beautiful gardens in front of many of the houses. Black Lives Matter and All Are Welcome signs were abundant.
The next morning Sarah & Justin treated us to an awesome homemade breakfast to start off our day. It was going to be record-breaking hot but Justin & Sarah had a plan to beat the heat. We were going to go tubing on the Clackamas river. Justin had some river tubes in his garage and fortunately he thought to check them before we took off. The inner tubes did not hold air, but no worries, Justin ran out to the local tire store and bought some regular tire inner tubes. We were going to do this trip the old school way just like I remember tubing as a kid!
Parking Zen
Remember for a minute that this was in the middle of the worst heat wave on record for the Portland area. What that meant was that a good portion of the local population all had the same idea that we did: to head for the river with tubes and all manner of river toys. We did not realize this until we arrived at the takeout to set shuttle. The large parking area was completely filled and out on the road, cars were lined up for 1/4 mile in each direction. Cindy and I were the designated takeout vehicle so we took a chance and pulled into the parking lot and made a circle of it as many other cars were doing. Cindy spotted a couple of women walking that looked like they were headed for their car so she jumped out and followed them to where there car was and we were able to move into their space. Justin and Sarah then swooped in and picked us up and we headed for the put in. When we got there, it was worse than the situation at take out. Cars were lined up on both sides of the road for at least a half mile. This was outside of a county park that had put out signs saying they were full. Justin pulled in anyway thinking he would drive in and drop us off if the park people would allow it. We got to the gate and they let us through. Then when we got all the way down to the put in, it looked like they were just opening up a new area to accommodate more cars and we were on it!
We inflated our tubes and got into the water. The section of river we were going to do was about 6 miles long and the current was pretty slow, meaning we would be on the water for several hours. And there was no better place to be during that time! At the end of the day, when we got to the takeout we were all pretty exhausted.
Justin and I loaded the tubes into the back of the truck and we set out to pick up his car and head back home. We had cam straps securing all but one of the tubes, thinking it was sandwiched in pretty well so we were not concerned that it might fly out of the truck bed. Wrong! As we were driving down the road with a long line of cars behind us, I saw the one untethered tube go airborne and land on the side of the road. For about a millisecond I considered stopping and collecting the wayward tube but there was just too much traffic. Besides, we knew that someone would stop and grab it and put it to good use another day.
On our last day with the heatwave still full on, we decided to spend a day at the beach. So we loaded up and headed off on Hwy 101 looking for some ocean breezes. Our first stop was Short Beach where we walked the length of the beach and had some lunch. Later we continued along the north coast to Cannon Beach. There was a very nice walk of about 1/2 mile from the parking lot to the beach that winds through a forest and along a stream. Justin is a surfer and had brought his board so he went out for a surf while the rest of us explored the beach. On our way home we stopped in a seaside town to get some dinner. We found that there would be a wait of at least an hour so we hiked out to the beach and watched the sunset. We finally got in for dinner about 9pm. By the time we got back home it was late, real late, about 2am. The good thing was that it was finally was cool outside and the house had cooled down too so all was well with our world.
The next day Sarah had a surprise for us. She said we had an appointment in Portland at 11am but that was all she would tell us. We arrived and found that Sarah had booked us a nail spa appointment. What a treat! Cindy and I spent the next hour enjoying hand and foot treatments in a massage chair. Thank you Sarah, that was such a fun surprise! What an awesome visit we had with you both.
