Portland
Thursday, May 13, 2004 The Residence Inn, several blocks from downtown, provides a complimentary shuttle service. (Be sure to request a room on the city side of the hotel, or you'll have 18-wheelers speeding past your window on the triple-decked freeway a few feet away!) We reserve the 10am departure to take us to the Portland Art Museum. Another traveler, who lost her makeup kit enroute, is dropped off at Nordstroms to purchase some replacements.
The museum was founded way back in 1892. (This city looks so new, with constructions projects everywhere, and the realization that it was embracing culture over a century ago is amazing.) It occupies a grand building just two blocks off Broadway in the heart of downtown.
We are here specifically to see the Rau Collection, on loan through August -- a private collection of classic and impressionistic paintings available to the public for the first time. Some are life-size and full of drama. The innocent lad David, standing with Goliath's sword raised over the prone, armored giant with his bloody forehead, is a window on history. A collection of Monet paintings are fascinating - if you stand close, they are just meaningless daubs of color. Step back a few feet and the daubs become a seascape with water that, impossibly, seems to be moving!
After a break for a light lunch at the Museum Café, we work our way through the varied exhibits of Native American and Pacific Northwest art, including an interesting collection of WPA art sponsored by the Federal Government and depicting working men of the depression era.
Portland is at her best; it is 71 F. and sunny. Everyone is out enjoying the clear weather. We walk south through the verdant park that leads to Portland State University, enjoying the rhododendrons rioting in a wide variety of colors, then down Harrison Street and continuing to Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park on the Willamette River. There was once a freeway desecrating the Portland riverfront, and Gov. McCall was instrumental in having it removed and replaced by this park along the river. It is now a popular gathering place for Portland residents and visitors instead of a nightmare of speeding vehicles.
The Residence Inn is southern anchor of Waterfront Park, which goes no further than the Interstate 5 crossing of the Willamette River on a multilane double decked high bridge.
McCormick and Schmidt Harbourside Restaurant is a short stroll back along the waterfront where we have dinner. The restaurant overlooks a marina. Colorful dragonboats are zipping up and down the river. Immense versions of racing sculls, they are propelled by at least 20 amateur paddlers practicing for the annual dragonboat races in June. People of all ages and shapes walk by clutching their paddles when the practice sessions are finished.
We retire early, as Amtrak's Cascade leaves for Seattle tomorrow at 845am.
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