Portland Oregon

[[AK]Nuts]

I'm going to Portland, OR for a few days next week for work. Anyone familiar with the area? Anything to see or do while I'm there? Recommended restaurants?

[[AK]Palooka]

There are many good places to eat in Portland. One of my favorites is Rock Bottom Brewery on 2nd St. (I think). If you like good food and great beer, you can't lose there. One of my other favorites is Jake's Famous Crawfish Restaurant on 12th Ave. Few restaurants in Portland offer better seafood.

As far as attractions go, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (http://www.omsi.edu/) is a lot of fun. If gardens are your thing, Portland has some of the best in the world, including the International Rose Test Garden (http://www.portlandparks.org/gardens...testgarden.htm), the Japanese Garden (http://www.japanesegarden.com/), which is right next door, and the famous Butchart Gardens (http://www.butchartgardens.com/main.php). For viewing animals in captivity, the Oregon Zoo (http://www.oregonzoo.org/) is supposed to be pretty good (I haven't seen much of it), and the Oregon Coast Aquarium (http://www.aquarium.org/) in Newport, about two hours west of Portland, is almost on par with the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was also the home of Keiko the movie orca for a few years. If you go to Newport, don't miss out on the great seafood offered there. Mo's Restaurant has world-famous clam chowder, and the Whale's Tale Restaurant is excellent.

[Widowmaker]

Omsi and the aquarium mentioned above are great attractions.

The only reason I ever go to portland is Powel's book store (http://www.powells.com/) which is huge (it has its own indoor parking garage, a small one... but hey, it's a bookstore) and very well stocked with new and used books.

Here are some of its features from the website:

68,000 square feet packed with books
we buy 3,000 used books over the counter every day
approximately 3,000 people walk in and buy something every day
another 3,000 people just browse and drink coffee
our parking garage provides space for 40 cars (ok, so there are bigger parking garages)
we stock 122 major subject areas and more than 3,500 subsections
you'll find more than 1,000,000 volumes on our shelves
approximately 40,000 book lovers browse the City's shelves every day, in Portland and via the Internet. So is our mothership the world's largest bookstore? Heck, it may be bigger than your whole town

All I know is I completed my collection of Doc Savage novels there many years ago and fell in love with the place.

[[AK]Palooka]

I can't believe I forgot about the bookstore. I think it's the biggest in the nation. Stock up while you're there; remember, there's no sales tax.

[Widowmaker]

If they had all the Doc Savage novels they'll have ANYTHING!!!

I mean, who in their right mind would stock Doc Savage?

Even stranger are the weirdo's that would buy them!

[[AK]Nuts]

I remember my dad always had a copy of Doc Savage laying around the house and that he hated the stupid movie

[Widowmaker]

The movie was so bad it made me sad. I mean Doc Savage was corny and all but damn, the movie took it to a whole new level and to a Sousa march soundtrack no less!

Very bad, they never should have made a movie. Some things are fun in print and should stay that way.

Speaking of which I almost wept when I saw the trailer to the movie Sahara. Clive Cussler has always been a favorite mindless series for me but that movie looks to be a bad farce of the books. The guy they got to play Al is just wrong on all kinds of levels. Plus Dirk doesn't look or act a damn thing like Dirk.

[[AK]Clay]

Portland is one of my favorite US cities. It's incredibly beautiful. If you can swing it, take a river boat dinner cruise - the topography is fantastic. Also, Mt. St. Helens is not far, worth the side trip if you have time. Be sure to get out of the car and walk around some in town - it's good excersize and a really nice place. I remember I just walked into a local radio station there, said hey I've never seen a radio station - so how about a tour. So they gave me a 30 minute tour.

Have fun.

-Clay

[[AK]Kidd]

Your getting closer to god's country buddy. ya have the noth direction down, now travel east a few states!!!! Portland is beautiful. Enjoy it.
-kidd

[[AK]Nuts]

Here I sit at the Portland Airport. I arrived yesterday morning at 7am, drove straight to the yard and worked till 1am. Got up at 6 and worked until 10. I'm flying home in another hour and I'm bummed that I didn't get to check out the book store or the restaurant recommendation. At least the airport has free wireless Internet. Other than that, it's rainy... in a typical Pacific Northwest fashion. I should be back in a few months and will try to get around a bit more.

EDIT: Portland Airport is 1.2mbps Download, 1.3mbps upload. Very nice. Way to go Portland!

[[AK]Clay]

Here I sit at the Portland Airport. I arrived yesterday morning at 7am, drove straight to the yard and worked till 1am. Got up at 6 and worked until 10. I'm flying home in another hour and I'm bummed that I didn't get to check out the book store or the restaurant recommendation. At least the airport has free wireless Internet. Other than that, it's rainy... in a typical Pacific Northwest fashion. I should be back in a few months and will try to get around a bit more.

EDIT: Portland Airport is 1.2mbps Download, 1.3mbps upload. Very nice. Way to go Portland!

This is the difference between ooh, work travel is so cool and man I hate this crap . When you work 6-8 hr days for 2 days, and are there for 4, it's awesome. But when you have to do it like you just did, it's absolute Hell. Often the choice between the two is not ours to make.

[[AK]Rocks]

Jake's for crawfish. I used to travel to seaside to eat on the ocean too. Hay stack rock's to a good tourist site and others already mentioned. But listen, stay away from BigFoot, it's mating season.. There also was a place where if you eat a 52oz steak, you didn't have to pay, but that was years ago.

[[AK]Choozoo]

I always wanted to try one of those steak places..... just to see if I could.