Photos taken by author

My blogs have been rather dark lately, so I am going to talk about a recent vacation instead. It was both an anniversary celebration and a fun “getaway” to Portland, a city that neither my husband and I had ever been to. Though I work hard to remain anonymous in this blog, I freely admit that this is not my city or even my state. Since there are 49 other states where I could be living, that bit of information will have negligible impact on finding out my actual location.

The pictures in this blog will even be my photos taken during the trip. I rarely post any picture that is actually mine; I prefer instead to use Google images that I credit when needed.

Prior to selling our business, our vacations of the past decade tended to be desperate attempts to rest and recuperate from the trials of small business ownership. We did few if any excursions, instead choosing to “zone out” in lounge chairs around a pool.

This vacation was different as my husband and I have been relatively un-stressed in our jobs for the past eighteen months. We had enough energy on this Portland trip to gleefully pack as much sightseeing and walking/hiking into our vacation days as we could.

We started our sightseeing adventures by visiting Portland’s downtown International Test Rose Garden. According to my Google search, there are over “10,000 rose bushes of approximately 650 varieties”. Being there in late May, we were slightly ahead of the peak viewing time but still had lovely views of thriving rose beds, blooming in a riot of color. I had a wonderful time taking pictures of the rose blossoms which varied in size, in color, in style; who knew there was so much variation between bright monochromatic colors versus variegated colors. Here are a couple of pictures from that excursion.

The next day we drove out to the coast and did a Tillamook Cheese Factory tour. It was fun to watch production then do a cheese tasting, from aged cheddars to more recent cheddar…much like a wine tasting. After the tour, we just “had to” have a grilled cheese, tomato and bacon sandwich (yes, that really is a thing) at their food court. Yum. Fabulous. And then…because we could…we went to the other side of the food court and had a sampler of three different types of ice cream. Yes, we ate all of that too.

Because I’m a bit dairy sensitive I tend to eat plant based dairy alternatives though I really prefer the “real thing”. I will eat real cheese when indulging in pizza hankerings or in this case a grilled cheese and ice cream hankering. I may or may not have had gastrointestinal issues for the next hour and a half after blitzing my digestive system with dairy. Ah well, it was worth it.

Multnomah Falls was the following day. Here is a picture of the Falls; they are as dramatic as they look here. Yes, we did hike up to the top of the Falls. After viewing the Falls, we ended up hiking about a mile further back as there were three other tiny falls that were also lovely to view. We had purposely collapsed down our hiking poles to fit into one checked bag when we flew out; we were glad to have them on this hike.

A third day was a hike to a lake through a forest (Mirror Lake, highly recommend it) and then a scenic drive around Mt Hood. We had stopped to take a picture of Mt Hood from the base of the mountain; however, the top was obscured by clouds. I was sorry that we could not see the peak. We got back in the car and continued driving around the base. All of a sudden, my husband made a startled sound. He had glimpsed a gorgeous, perfect view of  Mt Hood behind us in the car’s rear view mirror. We hurriedly stopped and took pictures. Here is one of the pictures. I love the way it just towers over the landscape and is perfectly visible without any of the previous cloud cover.

The last sightseeing day was a tour of an early 1900s mansion, owned by a newspaper magnate. We followed that up with a Pendleton Factory tour (the original factory). It was interesting but incredibly loud due to the heavy weaving machinery.

Of course, in between all of that walking, hiking and touring, we made time for plenty of food indulging, from a well-known “hole-in-the-wall-but-great-food” breakfast place to specialty pizza to doughnuts. Hopefully the walking balanced out the food intake.

Trip verdict – lots of fun and will go back again someday. The best part was being outside in nature so much. There is something about being immersed in breathtaking sights… of a majestic mountain, a towering waterfall, of tall trees canopied over a hiking trail… to add some perspective back to life. It all reminds me; I am more than the actions of my daughter. I am more than a mom who has a daughter in prison. I can allow myself to still enjoy hiking in nature and still enjoy celebrating an anniversary with my husband. Life does go on.