Our Last Night in Portland

We had dinner last night at The Original, a retro-fusion-local diner/restaurant a few blocks north of our hotel. It was good. We ended up there again tonight (... thanks to the $120 restaurant gift card our hotel gave us - Thanks, The Nines. We appreciated it.) We ordered completely different stuff, and it was still very good.

They have very fresh, very good food in this town, cooked creatively. Love the restaurants, love the dozens of food carts all over the downtown core.

After dinner, we walked the couple blocks to where we could see the front of Voodoo Doughnut. Jinkies, the line was even *longer* than it was at lunchtime. Meh, forget the doughnuts. We had NikeTown to explore!

Two floors of mostly empty space and dramatically-used catwalks.

Nike is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, the suburb off to the west, so this is the "flagship" of their retail spaces. Well, it was very dramatic. And it had a lot of architectural elements going on.

We could be forgiven for thinking maybe there'd be something more interactive than trying to find the staircase to the second floor. Like a place to shoot hoops or try out the yoga gear or kick a soccer ball. Or somewhere to test new designs, or create your own apparel. And maybe it could have been bigger. Like a LOT bigger.

Maybe we're jaded with having the Mall of America at home - or having seen how retail is done when you mean it, like in Tokyo. I think the Nike people have been to those places, too. This was a Foot Locker with a much higher rent per square foot.

1. Wynn didn't want to look at anything in whatever spot we happened to be standing, rather she kept pointing at some distant place, urging me to take here "there."

2. We didn't buy anything. Not inspired...

We walked down to the river to try to see Mt. Hood, but the clouds were still not fully dispersed off to the east. Big points to the city for the redevelopment along the river, though. Clever floating walkways along the eastern shore - attached to pilings so they can float in place regardless of how high the water is. Lots of people jogging, biking, walking their dogs. No mountain view, though.

After Wynn had gone to bed, I went to the drugstore for a bottle of milk and then to the business center to check our tickets for tomorrow morning. This is the view from the front windows of our hotel. Imagine if you will a large volcanic mountain covered in fir trees behind this office building.

Maybe we'll catch a glimpse on our way to the airport...

Portland: come back again? Yes, but we'll set up base in a different neighborhood and rent a car for the next time.

Saturday Like the Locals

The Portland Saturday Market takes place year-round under the Burnside Bridge on the east end of Downtown. We walked over this morning when it opened at 10:00 and enjoyed browsing the 150+ vendors and food carts. Wynn got a hat that looks like a dragon's head, and Ann picked up a nice necklace.

We walked west a couple blocks to the famous Voodoo Doughnut - following our noses - and saw that the line stretched all the way around the corner. Yeah, no. Wynn was tired and a bit cranky - and strapped to my back; we weren't going to subject her to an hour standing in the sun. They're open 24 hours though, maybe after dinner tonight we'll try again?

After some more shopping and browsing in the Chinatown and Pearl neighborhoods, we ended up back at Pioneer Courthouse Square, having hot dogs from one of the food carts, listening to live music, and watching the people.

With some food in her, Wynn's mood picked up, and we goofed around at one of the many fountains in the square.

Taking a little mid-afternoon nap break before further adventures. The weather is really clearing up, and I see mountains out the hotel room window, so we'll need to try to find a place we can try to see Mt Hood!

A Shout to our Wells Fargo Followers

Before dinner we walked to the south side of downtown to the Wells Fargo tower, where we read we'd find a museum showing some of that company's early history. We told Wynn we'd show her where her "Molly" pony worked.

Inside the main lobby we found a very nicely curated exhibit featuring a stagecoach used by the company in the mid-1800s, artifacts and reproductions of items used in the Gold Rush and Pony Express, and a re-creation of an early office, with a working telegraph.

Wynn liked riding the stagecoach:

She also got to try out a saddle, and took a touchscreen quiz about riders for the Pony Express. (She can spot a touchscreen from a mile away, as we talked about in May's visit to the Shedd Aquarium...) We didn't see Molly, but we learned about another pony, Lightning.

Finally at bedtime, the sun decided it would make an appearance. Figured we should post a few shots of what Downtown looks like properly lit:

Exploring Portland Neighborhoods

The rain was coming down in buckets this morning after breakfast (not what the forecast had said,) but instead of trying to tough it out in the hotel room, we borrowed a couple umbrellas and jumped on the MAX and Portland Streetcar up to the Pearl neighborhood to the northwest of Downtown, home of the mighty Powell's Books. Wynn figured out there had to be a kids' section and soon we were picking books to read while the rain kept up its beat.

By 10:30 our tummies (still not on Pacific time) were telling us to find food, so we hiked east about seven blocks to the Chinatown neighborhood.

And had lunch at Ping, where we had absolutely delicious pork bao, grilled chicken skewers, rice, and toast with coconut jelly. We ordered seconds on the bao...

Wynn getting her groove on to some old-school James Brown

After lunch we spent time at the Lan Su Chinese Garden, built 10 years ago in cooperation with artisans from Suzhou, China. It is said to be the most authentic Chinese garden overseas. It takes up an entire city block and is utterly gorgeous.

Can NOT get Wynn to pose for a nice, proper picture anymore.

We are taking a breather now before heading back out for some afternoon adventuring. The clouds are beginning to break up, and there's still much to see.

First Class All the Way

Today we flew to Portland, OR for the first stop on our west coast summer vacation. Thanks to the fine folks at Delta, we were upgraded to first class, so Wynn is now officially spoiled in yet another way. She has already announced to Scott that she "... really likes sitting up front." The best part for us was the legroom (and the never-ending stream of snacks and meals that kept coming our way), but Wynn was mostly in love with the fact that she got her own great big breakfast tray. I think she spent about an hour proudly pouring the milk on her cereal, smearing butter on a bagel, and eating an entire container of cream cheese by licking it off her fingers. I don't know that she ate very much of the meal, but it sure kept her quietly occupied for a nice long time.

Scott and I both encouraged her to cuddle with her blanket and take a nap on the plane. No dice. She was well-behaved but definitely awake for the whole ride. The nap finally arrived as we rode the light rail from the airport to downtown.

We've gotten out and seen a bit of downtown Portland today. After having been in Chicago, we tend to look at a city map and see things as bigger than they are; our experience so far in Portland has been that everything we want to see is easily walkable from our hotel. That said, my pedometer did register about 10,600 steps today, so we've gotten our fair share of exercise.

There's a lot of public art to be seen in downtown Portland, and Wynn is charmed by all the fountains. Scott gave her a penny to toss in one and explained the concept of making a wish. Her wish was for a hug from Shadow. Her favorite artworks are the bronze animal statues across the street from our hotel. She jumped up and down with glee and giggled as she saw each one.

For dinner tonight we somehow managed to step back in time and found an old-school Chinese restaurant; seriously, it was straight out of the 60's. It had that funky old decor, and the dishes themselves looked like antique store finds. It was in an older building that you could tell had been something else at some point, but we're guessing this part of it has been a Chinese restaurant for at least fifty years. The food was quite good (as Scott calls it "Chinese-Chinese, not American-Chinese").

Wynn, who is going through a picky phase, rejected all but the outside of the dumplings and the noodles from my soup. The fortune cookie was, of course, to her liking.

Surgeon Says ...

Wynn does not need to have surgery this summer! :-)

Both the speech therapist and surgeon were very impressed with the progress Wynn has made since February. She's picked up a few new sounds and is using a predictable sound-substitution pattern for the ones she's still working on. All good news.

Everyone was quite impressed with her recently-acquired ability to drink through a straw. (Which Wynn LOVES doing. She gets such a thrill from being able to drink from a juice box - just like the other kids.) From the prize basket at the end of her successful visit to the doctor, she chose a bright red silly straw as her reward. She's now happily using it to drink apple juice with her lunch.

Grandma and I have both told her how proud we are of her for all her hard work at speech. She's such a determined (and stubborn) little person, and that's helped her keep at it in speech therapy.

She's not out of the woods yet. There are still sounds to work on, but, for now, we can sign up for more fun things to do and enjoy the rest of our summer. Theatre camp, anyone?

(In other news: When Wynn and I got home from the doctor, we were greeted by Shadow, covered in blue painter's tape. He had it stuck to his paws, his chest, the sofa, the living room floor, the coffee table, and his stuffed squirrel. When I laughed and asked Wynn what she thought Shadow had been doing while we were away, she replied, "Um, I think he found the tape.") Yep. Good guess.

Happy Camper

Last week Wynn went to theatre arts camp at the Children's Theatre Company. In short, she had a blast. It was an absolute duck-to-water situation as she and her fellow campers took classic children's songs and acted them out. We've always known that she's an adept mimic and a bit of a goofball; theatre camp was a place where someone with this particular skill set can shine. And shine she did.

Each class ended with a ten-minute performance for the parents. By week's end, every man, woman, and child in that room knew what animal Wynn was going to choose to be, no matter the song: a gecko.

She'd come home each day and act out highlights of that day for her Baba, always taking a deep and sincere bow at the end - and waiting for the applause to subside before standing up.

My favorite thing from the week was when they taught her the three tools people in the theatre have in their toolbox: the body, the voice, and the imagination. Of course, she has a fantastically-elaborate way of explaining this concept, complete with gestures and dramatic shifts of intonation. I just love seeing this little cleft-palate, speech-therapy girl talking with such enthusiasm about the importance of her voice. Beyond the sheer fun and confidence-building of the week, I think camp really added another layer to her motivation to keep working hard on her articulation.

One happy consequence of theatre camp was that, due to its late-afternoon dismissal time, it forced Wynn and me to go out for dinner every night last week. We started out small with a McDonald's Happy Meal, but things improved greatly as the week ran its course. Wynn had a yummy sandwich at the cafe in the Institute of Arts, tried some sushi (thanks to Uncle Paul) at Obento-ya, and downed half a mango smoothie at the ChinDian Cafe. By Friday, she was thoroughly spoiled and responded to my suggestion that we just grab some tacos with a whiny, "Awww, I want to go to a real restaurant." We may have created a monster here, but at least it's one with good taste.

There are other camps at the Children's Theatre this summer, and Wynn has told me, "Sign me up," but we have to wait to hear from her surgeon whether or not she'll need an operation this summer before we can sign her up for anything fun. We go in tomorrow morning for another camera-up-the-nose assessment. Fingers crossed.