Portland OR, for the New Year

[Canyonlands]

Nancy (user ID: Noodle) and I (Ron) decided to spend a few days in Portland for the New Year.

We're thinking of moving there in a few years and wanted to see what the winter looks and feels like. Every time we've been to the Pacific NW it's been in the summer with glorious weather.

Here's some of what we did.

29TH
Flew into Portland and decided to ride the light rail (MAX) line into the city. It was cool to be able to walk right out of the airport and catch a train that would take us within a couple of blocks of our hotel. Cost was $4 and the ride was just over 40 minutes. We learned quickly that many of the passengers on this line pay nothing since no one ever seems to check. Dinner: Jake's Famous Crawfish.

30TH
Lots of walking/exploring, covering most of the city and tourist norms including a walk along the river.
Dinner: Pazzo Ristorante.

31ST
MAX line out to Washington Park and hiked around there for about 5 miles. Looks like a great place to go for a run.
Dinner: The restaurant in our hotel; the Red Star Tavern

New Years Eve.
We'd planned to run an organized 3 miler/5K at Midnight but I started feeling like I was in the early stages of a cold or something worse and decided not to risk it. Not having any other ideas I'd remembered seeing a marquee with a Pink Martini New Years Eve show so I looked that info up online. I knew PM was a band but knew nothing more about them or the venue. Turns out they were doing two shows, the last one starting at 1030PM. Perfect, we'd try to find tickets after our dinner.

The Arlene Schnitzer Hall was less than a ten minute walk from our hotel. When we got there the box office was still closed. Just as we walked up a nicely dressed guy in his 50s, (leaning against a light pole) said "I've got a couple of great tickets I'm selling for face value." Tickets were no longer available online and the box office was supposed to open two hours prior to the showing. This guy's tickets were on the sixth row from the stage and on the end of the left isle. This kind of seating is Nancy's favorite. While talking to the seller the Box Office opened and I took the tickets over to confirm their location. The person working there showed me the seating chart and warned me that we were taking a risk. There was no way for her to confirm the status of tickets and a chance existed that we'd enter the theater at 1030 only to be turned away if these were invalid (they scan/log each one at entry). However, the show was almost sold out and these seats were much better than what remained. We rolled the dice and handed over the $98 for the 6TH row tickets.

The show was a good time and lasted until 105AM. Carol Channing was a surprise opening act and this 86 year old was still on stage at 1 AM. That's way past Nancy's bedtime.

1ST
MAX line back to the airport and flew home.

We had a nice time in Portland. Apparently our luck wasn't good enough to experience the normal rainy winter weather there but we got the idea. So much to do, lots of nice people and many great places to eat. It stays on our list of possibilities and we might have to do a bike tour including Portland in the route one of these years.

Happy New Year!