Day 9 – Returning home

Looking Northeast over Portland

Our flight did not leave Portland until late afternoon so we had the morning to do a bit more sightseeing. 

Our host at the AirBnB was delightful and we spent some time talking to him before we left.  He is a journalist and has fully embraced living in Portland.  He bikes to work and does a lot tramping as well as cycling around the district.  He had lived in Southeast Asia and China so was quite well travelled. 

AirBnB we stayed in - the pinkish one done in the style of the area

He was happy for us to leave our bags at his place while we did some more exploration.  Breakfast wasn’t part of the package but he suggested a good café down the road.  It was indeed a nice place - the food was very good and there was not too much of it. 

During our cycle around the city a few days earlier, our guide had pointed out a good place to get an elevated view of the city.  A street-car took us close to an aerial tram which went to a viewpoint from a University training hospital.  On a good day we would have seen Mt Hood, a volcanic mountain about the same height as Aorangi, Mt Cook.  However the cloud did not permit that in the eight days we had been in Portland or thereabouts cloud just did not move to reveal the icon of Portland.  We spent some time there reading about a politician who supported what is essentially a state funded hospital although I suspect you still have to pay to go there.  It has lots of specialties including a funded Cancer Institute due to a $US500 million dollar donation by the founder of Nike, matched by the same amount from the State. 

Looking east from the hospital - my favourite bridge (for public transport, cyclists and pedestrians

Then it was time to leave. We took the Street-car back to our accommodation but it was very slow and time started running away on us.  I had planned that we take public transport to the airport, but Bev was a little anxious about arriving late for check-in, and insisted we take an Uber.  In my opinion there was still plenty of time to get there but good relationships are about compromise.  We were there in plenty of time,  got ourselves checked in and as we had not had time to eat earlier we found somewhere to do so.  It was then that I enquired about Bev’s seat number and I’m not sure why, but it turned out we were seated together.  That was a bit unfriendly I thought, so I went and found a person to enquire whether we could be seated together.  We were able to,  provided we went to the very back of the plane.  We weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere when we got to San Francisco so I took them.

As we were taxiing out to take off, I looked out the window and finally got to see Mt Hood.  It certainly was large and easy to see from the airport.  Once airborne we got more spectacular (sorry no photos) views of it, as well as Mt St Helens to the north, but Mt Hood was spectacular due to its relative symmetry.  There was no cloud below us as  we flew south revealing the green rolling countryside of Oregon, which did not seem very populated.   Then suddenly it was brown and I guessed that we were now in California.  We had superb views of San Francisco as we descended over the city to land. 

Getting out of the country was not as fraught as entering or, even, travelling domestically.  We were fairly quickly through security and then had time to sit in a lounge before boarding our flight home.  This time we sat together. 

We enjoyed our time away and it was interesting to go to another part of the US.  Oregon is a progressive state particularly its largest city, Portland.  Some of the country people are more conservative and you can tell that when you see some of the different billboards which are somewhat isolationist.

Christy was great in giving us some of her thoughts about the way the country operated.  She would be happy to be taxed more to get a health system like NZ or Australia or Canada.  The threat of economic ruin hangs over people such as herself if she or her family have a major medical issue.  

 We asked her about the Proud Boys demonstrating just prior to us visiting Portland .  She told has that they are a bunch of far right fanatics who don’t live in Oregon but travel around the more liberal states creating mayhem.  This time the citizens of Portland decided to make a mockery of these men so that they did not get the desired publicity. They mocked the so called Proud Boys by dressing up as bananas, carrots, unicorns and all sorts of characters and essentially had a picnic rather than engaging with them in potentially violent confrontation.  Apparently, they turned tail and fled as they really wanted confrontation which was not provided.  It gives  hope that sense of some sort will return to the US.  

This was outside the neighbours apartment at our Airbnb - other similar sentiments were elsewhere

On a building we went past

We found people there friendly and helpful for the most part.  Service was patchy with some of it great and some less so.  As  cyclists we generally found drivers courteous and careful around us and we loved the cycle paths around the city.  A great example for NZ and Australia.  It was a great trip.  Hardly restful though!