Portland

by ajamess on 14.Nov.10

in Photos,Travel

The four of us are in Portland now, after a rainy day of driving through Tillamook and Western Oregon.  I awoke first to overcast skies at an ambitious time of 630, then gave up the ghost upon looking out the window at flat light on Cannon Beach.  The extra 2 hours of sleep didn't prevent me from sleeping much of the car ride there, but damn, did it feel good.  

Breakfast was steak and eggs at Pig'n Pancake, and was a wonderful chance to talk with my Mom about some of the stupid things her and I have done in our lives (getting bowled over by waves on Rialto, and being human lightning rods among them).  As we left, it started to rain, and we made our way up and out of Cannon Beach, ending up eventually in Tillamook, where we had the chance to visit "cheese hq," and eat some damn fine strawberry ice cream.  Haley was giddy, being in such close proximity to two of her favorite things: cows and cheese.

A few hours later, and we were snaking our way though Portland traffic to arrive at the wonderful Hotel Monaco smack in the center of Portland.  Less than 30 minutes after we arrived, we were treated to (apparently) the daily happy hour, in which it seemed the whole milieu of Portland was represented in a single room.  In fact, it was just a bunch of tourists and their dogs, but cool, nonetheless.  I had a delicious cosmopolitan, a drink I did not know I enjoyed.  Dinner was a wonderful steak (man, I'm really into cow these last two days) at the Red Star tavern, and our evening diversions included a much-awaited trip to Powell's Books, quickly becoming one of my favorite book stores anywhere, although Dawn Treader is right up there.  After stocking up on sci-fi and another Ansel book, we made our way back to our rooms, where I am now at once chatting with my friend Michael about video games in modern culture while pecking away at this post.  Of course, said post would not be complete without some pictures, so you can find a few below.

As an aside – getting focus right with the 35 wide open can be challenging, and AF doesn't seem to cut it in low light.  Need to work on my technique!  Also, for the chunk of the car ride for which I was awake, I was kept enthralled by an excellent paper on dynamic range, image noise, and the engineering behind digital imaging chips.

 

A Nice Place to Read

Dwarfed by Knowledge.

 

Turn Right

Waiting

 

Opening

 

Desire

 

Live long and prosper, friends.

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