I have been fortunate enough to travel to Portland and Oregon many times in my life. The first time was back in the late 80’s. I will tell you a story about that trip later in this blog.
Portland has roughly two million residents in the surrounding area. Many people do not realize that the city is the third largest city in the Pacific Northwest. It’s a great place to visit with many activities to choose from. Portland is know as “The City of Roses” and they have the most beautiful rose gardens that sit on the side of a mountain looking over downtown with Mount Hood towering in the background. Just above the rose gardens is a Japanese Garden that is so beautiful to see.
The Columbia River is a monster river that divides Oregon and Washington State. You can’t imagine what Lewis and Clark must have thought when they explored the area.
My room looks out to Mount Hood and the weather this week has been spectacular. Blue skies not a raindrop. Each morning I have been able to watch the sun come up over Mount Hood. The view of Mount St. Helens has been just as clear as anyone could hope for.
Twenty plus years ago when I made my first trip to Portland it was with friends of mine that had moved from Oklahoma City to Seattle. We decided to take a weekend trip to Mount Hood and enjoy a weekend of snow skiing. At the time I was a novice at the sport (which is far better than I am today). I would ski on the Green and Blue runs which are the beginner and intermediate slopes.
My friends had never been snow skiing so I encouraged the four of them (all women) to take lessons. After the lessons which were half a day the three adults of my friends were smart enough to just pull up chairs and drink in front of the fireplace at the lodge. Then there was the teenager and me who didn’t give up quite so easily. I agreed to take her up on a green run and ski down with her.
On the ski run I was making better progress than the teenager (Kristi), so I would stop on level areas on the way down and take a break and wait on her to pass me. This continued many times and each time I’d pull to a stop using a technique of pointing my skis slightly up the hill until I came to a stop. Now this was not the way I was taught to stop, but it was the least effort on my part.
Well on one of those stops I pointed my ski’s too far up hill and started skiing backwards down the hill. Remembering back to my lessons I was told to never fall down hill because you would go head over heels. I thought if I fall going up-hill I’ll break my nose. In this flash that seemed like an eternity I never lost my balance and actually made it to the next level area and came gently to a stop. Kristi was very impressed at my skiing skills and how I could ski backwards and watch her. It was quite a let down when she found out it was not skill but luck.
So this ski trip is one of my many memories of the area. Since I will be here many times this year I will write blogs of things that I’ve seen in the area and hopefully you will feel like you have explored one of our great Pacific Northwest cities.
If you want to see more about Portland here is the link to the visitors web-site.
http://www.travelportland.com/visitors/
My room looks out to Mount Hood and the weather this week has been spectacular. Blue skies not a raindrop. Each morning I have been able to watch the sun come up over Mount Hood. The view of Mount St. Helens has been just as clear as anyone could hope for.
Twenty plus years ago when I made my first trip to Portland it was with friends of mine that had moved from Oklahoma City to Seattle. We decided to take a weekend trip to Mount Hood and enjoy a weekend of snow skiing. At the time I was a novice at the sport (which is far better than I am today). I would ski on the Green and Blue runs which are the beginner and intermediate slopes.
My friends had never been snow skiing so I encouraged the four of them (all women) to take lessons. After the lessons which were half a day the three adults of my friends were smart enough to just pull up chairs and drink in front of the fireplace at the lodge. Then there was the teenager and me who didn’t give up quite so easily. I agreed to take her up on a green run and ski down with her.
On the ski run I was making better progress than the teenager (Kristi), so I would stop on level areas on the way down and take a break and wait on her to pass me. This continued many times and each time I’d pull to a stop using a technique of pointing my skis slightly up the hill until I came to a stop. Now this was not the way I was taught to stop, but it was the least effort on my part.
Well on one of those stops I pointed my ski’s too far up hill and started skiing backwards down the hill. Remembering back to my lessons I was told to never fall down hill because you would go head over heels. I thought if I fall going up-hill I’ll break my nose. In this flash that seemed like an eternity I never lost my balance and actually made it to the next level area and came gently to a stop. Kristi was very impressed at my skiing skills and how I could ski backwards and watch her. It was quite a let down when she found out it was not skill but luck.
So this ski trip is one of my many memories of the area. Since I will be here many times this year I will write blogs of things that I’ve seen in the area and hopefully you will feel like you have explored one of our great Pacific Northwest cities.
If you want to see more about Portland here is the link to the visitors web-site.
http://www.travelportland.com/visitors/
2 comments:
I'm going to send this link to Jackie, who lives in Portland.
I've skied backwards too, there IS a little skill involved - called 'balance'.
I have a post from her on one of my other stories. She has a good blog I'm going to start reading. Might learn something about Portland that may come in handy.
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