The Great Portland Christmas Adventure

It was a dark and stormy night....actually it was 10 am when we landed in cold and snowy Portland but I had a sense of great foreboding.....the landscape was grim. Why did we do this? The answer, of course, is that Jon had to work all but Christmas Day and we didn't want him to be "home alone" at Christmas.

On the bus to the car rental agency we noticed that the streets were frozen and definitely not thawing, and that they were also not plowed. We immediately decided to upgrade to a 4 wheel drive. It cost a fortune, and ultimately was well worth it. We drove gingerly down an unplowed freeway to the Residence Inn where I had reserved a large room, really an apartment, with separate bedroom, kitchen, and fireplace. In my carry on I had a small spiral ham, cheese, sausages, and other goodies. We were very close to a large mall and shopping area, so we slid our way over to the Safeway to stock up. We knew that we would not be going out to dinner so I bought "sides" of green bean cassarole, fruit salad, mashed potatoes. Joe had to help push a young woman out of her parking place. Yes, she had chains but the snow was too deep.

Jon called at 3 pm to say that he had to work until at least 6 or so. At 5 I put the ham in the oven. At 6 I suggested that Joe drive to downtown Portland and hover outside of Macy's to wait for Jon, who otherwise would have had to wait in the dark and snow for the light rail. Unable to dig his car out for days, Jon had been taking the light rail or walking to and from work. When he finally called at 7 he was very happy to hear that all he had to do was walk outside and find Joe.

Christmas morning we had a jovial hot breakfast at the hotel, along with numerous other travelers, many of whom had been stranded by the weather. We decided to take the light rail to downtown Portland to the movie in Pioneer Square. Freezing rain had turned to big fat flakes by the time we got to the light rail station and I had to be very brave in jumping out of the SUV with my red umbrella to slog through the snow for a block or so. Driving through the snow in relative comfort on the train was beautiful, and Pioneer Square was just a few blocks from where we disembarked. We saw Marley and Me (Jon couldn't find anything more interesting in that time slot--we enjoyed it) Afterwards we went for a drink at 9, the new trendy hotel on top of Macy's. The other people in the bar were dressed in casual northwest style--different from California, distinctive in their difference. I reminded myself that Portland is the home of Nike and Columbia. I would see neither of their factory outlets on this trip.

Dinner at Jake's was excellent. This was Jake's grill, a relatively new restaurant spinoff from the very old Jakes Crawfish in Portland. It is housed in a historic building on a corner with multiple rooms, high ceilings, interesting architectural detail. I had stuffed salmon that was meltingly good. When we left the restaurant about 7:30, the snow had stopped and we were able to navigate to a light rail stop, board a train, and retrace our steps to the hotel with no problem. We finished the evening with a rematch of our rummy game of the night before.

As it turned out Jon did not have to work on the day after Christmas, so we hit Macy's bright and early. We bought him some jeans and shirts, and I bought sweaters. After that we took the leftover food over to Jon's place and took Jon and his friend Mike (from Washington & Lee U days) to lunch in a brew pub. Again the food was interesting and good, the beer excellent, and the wait staff very friendly.

The trip back was uneventful, but we later found they had another snowstorm in Portland that day, so we felt lucky to have kept to our schedule with no major problems. This was unlike any other Christmas, but we had a good time and look forward to more adventures.