So, this post – as the title suggests – was supposed to be up about four weeks ago, but I mysteriously disappeared from the interwebs.  No blogs, no Instagram, no Flickr, no nuttin’.  Those of you who should know, know why.  Those who don’t, shouldn’t.  But here’s what I would have said about our penultimate day in Oregon.

————————————————————————————————————–

If you’re like me, you assumed that Portland – like Vancouver and Seattle – was a port (1) at the ocean, or nearby in a bay of some sort. And like me, you would be wrong. Portland is actually about 80 miles inland on the Williamette River where it flows into the Columbia River. It is a port, but only a river port.

Since we had traveled east into the mountains yesterday, today we travelled west to the shore. Sally’s nephew took us on a grand tour, first taking some backroads (some on gravel) through the Tillamook State Forest out to Manzanita, and then along the coast to Tolovana.

..

…

…

…

And that’s the end of the tale of this trip.

…

---

(1) “Port”-land – get it?  It fooled me.

We had two more items on our list of potentials, both of which we accomplished today.

The first was the Seattle Art Museum,which is just three blocks (downhill) from our hotel. Honestly, it was never a “definite” on our list. In fact, it wasn’t until we got here and I was browsing the options that I decided it would be a nice thing to do. Interestingly, we’ve probably been to more museums on this trip than most of our past trips.

SAM exceeded our expectations.

While the exhibit space only covered two floors in the building, we found most of them very interesting (1). The Basquiat piece is phenomenal, IMHO. There was a major exhibit of photographs by Edward S. Curtis, who took on the task of documenting Native Americans and the West while running a photography business in Seattle. There was a large collection of contemporary sculptures by Native Americans (2).

There was a collection of Asian porcelain, some Australian Aboriginal art, some classical American art, renaissance Italian and Spanish art.

After spending more time than we had expected at the Museum, we Ubered over to Pioneer Square.

Pioneer Square is technically a small park at the edge of a district that has taken on its name. It’s billed as Seattle’s first neighborhood, but what we see now is not what was originally built there starting in 1852. Sadly, it all burned in the Great Fire of 1889. Many of the buildings, and most of the architectural styles, date from the rebuilding after the fire.

Seattle, like Vancouver, has a very visible homeless population. There was no section of the city that we were in that was free of them, but the small collection of tents pitched on the sidewalk in this area was notable.

We ended the day with dinner in the seafood restaurant in the hotel, as we had a credit from our travel agent to spend. It was very good, and almost everything Sally asked about was available garlic-free. And the credit was useful, as the salmon I had was $4,800 (3).

——————-

(1) That excludes, of course, the modern abstract art like a wooden box that played recordings of the box being made, or the painting of a square titled “Square”. Or the mostly black canvas with a white “X” going from corner to corner, which was described as showing the texture of darkness, and the separation created by the X.

(2) The term “Native Americans” is in some sense misleading – it somehow implies they originated in this country, while they actually migrated (from Asia) like everyone else. I like the Canadian nomenclature: First Peoples. It correctly connotes that they were (merely) the first here, not that they arose here spontaneously.

(3) Just kidding. But it was the most expensive item on the menu.

Seattle offers a discount booklet of admission vouchers for seven attractions, of which you can do five. We took a look, and thought we would do two and perhaps a third, so we passed on the booklet. We headed over this morning to take in the Chihuly Garden and Glass, and The Museum of Pop Culture. Turns out the hotel has a complimentary car service around central Seattle, so we opted for this for the 10 minute ride.

Dale Chihuly is a Washington Native who works extensively in very complex glass sculptures. His works and installations are big, and the technical diffulties in constructing his works are significant.

I’ll just let them speak for themselves. They all have names, but I don’t remember any of them.

Up next was the Museum of Popular Culture (MoPOP), which had a number of exhibits we looked at: fantasy in popular culture (movies, books, etc ), Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain. Both musicians were from Washington. We didn’t bother with the video game or Marvel characters exhibits.

From there we took the monorail back to downtown. The monorail and the entire Seattle Center, where these attractions along with the Space Needle and lots of other stuff, were built for the World’s Fair in 1962.

We tried to have lunch at PF Chang’s, which sounded encouraging when the waiter said they have a special menu of garlic-free items. If you’ve ever been in Chang’s, you know the menu is pretty long. So here’s the complete menu of garlic free items:

1. White rice

1. Brown rice

1. Tofu with asparagus, broccoli, shiitake and carrots
2. A number of deserts

Obviously that wasn’t going to work. But we found a great restaurant called the Yard House with 110 beers on tap. We only tried two. But the food was also good.

Later in the afternoon we went to an area called Ballard, where there are a couple of blocks of cute stores and restaurants. We saw them. We didn’t buy anything or eat anything. But on the way back, Sally found a chocolate store and bought something. They had a very cool piece of art, a larger-than-life portrait made out of different colored miniatures.