The big 3-0: Day ten – To Portland!

Welcome back to yet another post in the “big 3-0” series. Can you believe we’re at day ten already! I feel like I packed so much in to the start of this trip and covered a lot of miles in a little over a week.

For those of you who haven’t been following the adventure, it was the summer of 2018 and I was celebrating my 30th birthday by spending 30 days in the USA!

On the previous day I’d attended the wedding of the year in Washington State. It was a wonderful day but that was the last of the fun in Washington for the timebeing, it was time to move on to yet another state on this trip!

From here on out my adventures would be accompanied by Haleigh, my girlfriend, as we explored the West Coast. We woke up in the small town of Poulsbo on Monday morning with the intention of reaching Portland before the end of the day.

Poulsbo was adorable, I’d really liked the area and I’m glad a wedding had brought us here. I don’t think I’d have visited for any other reason, I’d not even heard of it prior to planning this trip.

Haleigh hadn’t really seen any of it because of wedding duties so we had talked about possibly going “down town” and exploring before heading out but for whatever reason it didn’t really materialise. So it was a sweet and short goodbye to Poulsbo but a place I left with really fond memories of.

We hit the road and I was pretty excited. I had the inkling that Portland was going to be my kind of city. As soon as this trip came to fruition I knew it’d be on my list of places to visit so I was excited to see what the fuss was about.

I was also excited at having mine and Haleigh’s first real adventure together. It was my third time on the West Coast but this was going to be the longest amount of time we’d continuously spent together and we were visiting a number of new places over the course of the next three weeks so there was plenty to look forward to

Anyway, back to day ten! We left Poulsbo behind and started our drive down to Oregon. Before we’d got too far we decided it’d probably be a good idea to get some breakfast, it may even have been closer to brunch, and found ourselves a Denny’s just off of the i5 (highway / interstate).

Some of you might recall my Moses Lake post which dashed my childhood illusions of a “magical” Denny’s experience and wasn’t quite as spectacular as I remembered it being on family trips to Florida. Fortunately this experience was better and restored its reputation a little! More importantly it had served as a good place to fill our stomachs before getting back on the i5 and heading South.

Unfortunately there isn’t much to tell you about the next few hours. Both Washington and Oregon are beautiful states full of greenery and scenic views but it was something like a four hour drive to Portland with little to tell.

We admired the scenery, we spent time chatting, we sang along to music but it probably sounds a pretty boring day to the outsider (you!). On a personal note it was thoroughly enjoyable and I couldn’t have been happier with the company I had for the adventure but it doesn’t make for great story-telling. The reality is that it was an afternoon spent in the car.

A few hours later we arrived on the outskirts of the big city and what I could only think of as Portland’s own “Spaghetti junction”. The heavy traffic was moving in various directions with bridges and exits everywhere you looked. I don’t drive so maybe it looks more complex than it actually is but I don’t think Portland is a city I’d enjoy driving in to and I’d inevitably get lost along the way!

Fortunately we were following directions from what would become a familiar friend in ‘Karen’ (aka the Satnav!) over the next three weeks and she made sure we escaped the madness leading in to Portland.

We were actually staying in a place called ‘Milwaukie’ on the outskirts of Portland, effectively Portland in my eyes however I don’t want to upset the natives so I’ll stick with the idea that it is NOT Portland and a small little place just to the South of it.

We were staying with Haleigh’s Aunt Gina and Uncle Rob who’d kindly offered to put us up for a few nights. It was mid-afternoon by the time we’d arrived but fortunately Gina was working from home and ready to greet us after we’d parked up.

Inside were two other ‘greeters’ – Buster and Jeeves! Two little dogs that were instantly barking away and seemed to consider it a ‘hobby’ over the next few days. Jeeves settled quicker but Buster did not seem to want to be new best friends any time soon!

We brought our things inside and put them away in our room for the next few nights. We decided we’d quickly pop out for a store-run to pick up a couple of things before Rob came home.

It was then a pretty chilled first evening in Oregon. Every so often Buster would suddenly remember I was here and start yapping away at me to remind me he was still displeased with my company but it otherwise ended up being a nice evening.

We had dinner at ‘home’ with Gina and Rob and then after dinner we played some games which made for an enjoyable evening and it was a good opportunity for me to get to know Gina and Rob a little better as I’d not previously met them.

Eventually we called an end to the fun and made our way to bed. It had been a lovely first evening in Oregon, although things were soon to become a little more uncomfortable for us both!

I can’t recall what the exact temperature was but it was summertime here on the West Coast and that meant it was a typically warm day in August and an equally humid night in Portland Milwaukie.

Air conditioned homes are actually pretty rare in England so it’s a luxury I can live without. Most of the year it’s an unnecessary luxury too, there’s no real need for houses back home to have air-conditioning. You have to suffer the odd uncomfortable sleepless night but ultimately it’s a luxury I could live without.

However having had a week of air-conditioned hostels and hotels, that were perhaps even a little too cold on occasions, it’s surprising how quickly you grow to miss it when you’ve become accustomed to it.

Sadly we didn’t have the luxury of air-conditioning whilst we stayed here and it was certainly noticeable. We experienced warmer temperatures throughout the summer than we did in Portland but even with a small fan going and the windows open the heat was relentless.

Nevertheless, beggars can’t be choosers and it was free accommodation so despite the initial struggles getting to sleep it was something we lived with. Soon enough we’d both nodded off (I think, I certainly had) and were dreaming about the delights of Portland awaiting us.

More on that to come next time! Stay tuned!

Jason

P.S – if you’ve missed the other posts on this adventure, you can catch up below!

Day one – Chicago bound
Day two – exploring Chicago
Day three – Minneapolis
Day four – Why I visited Minneapolis!
Day five – New Orleans!
Day six – The real New Orleans!
Day seven – Goodbye New Orleans, Hello Washington
Day eight – Exploring Poulsbo!
Day nine – Wedding day!