Tommy Says That Portland Is Great

Half the cool girls, yeah they look the same.

...If you were wondering, here is some context.

-Japanther, from Tut Tut, Now Shake Ya Butt (2009)

Today was swell. We left Missoula, and on our way out of the hotel we spotted this sweet little scene. These three were just walking, very slowly and noiselessly, along the Clark Fork River.

I was overjoyed to see this little girl eating ice cream at, like, 9:30 a.m.

On the way out of town there were a lot of remains of forest fires. My dad enlightened us about the smokejumpers who died in the Mann Gulch Fire, which was fascinating (a brief background is here). Though we weren't exactly at the site of the fire, it was moving to see the burned-out tree carcasses and reflect on what those men must have endured.

A view North from I-90, just West of Missoula.

After that, we drove through Idaho and stopped in Wallace for gas. It seemed like a pretty colorless town, although I did see a sign for a place called Polaris, which has to be a brighter place. Maybe. Here's the main downtown.

"Pre-Mix before you Re-Mix."

Leaving Wallace and weighing our options, we decided to make haste and head to Spokane. We didn't see much of the city itself, having stopped in what I think were the eastern suburbs, but we drove through and caught a glimpse of downtown, which reminded me a bit of Saint Joseph, Missouri or Manchester, New Hampshire. The buildings seemed fairly old and full of character, and I appreciated that a lot. There's something about the charm of the worn-in that never fails to appeal to me.

Again, a northern view of Spokane from I-90 West.

Continuing West, we stopped in Boardman to buy gas after getting stuck in a traffic jam (overturned trailer, belongings strewn all over the highway; attempted noun phrases to seem more like Nabokov or someone else way more talented than I) before ending up on I-84 to Portland. Maybe it was the lighting, or maybe it was the Columbia River, but man. It was easily the most scenic route we've driven so far.

I-84 West, overlooking the Columbia River and Washington state on the opposite shore.

Finally, after hours of driving, we finally arrived in Portland. The first thing we did was to drive to Reed College, which was where I almost went to school. After spending less than five minutes on their campus, I decided (maybe a bit snobbishly) that Wellesley's campus is infinitely prettier. For all its flaws, I'm happy I ended up there. But I digress. After getting settled in at our hotel, we drove across the Willamette and caught another view of Mount Hood in the distance.

This doesn't do it justice at all. I'll blame it on shooting from a moving vehicle.

As for our evening in Portland, we wandered around the Pearl District and visited Powell's Books. Go figure. I managed to come back to the hotel with only three items: The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore, Alturas de Macchu Picchu (The Heights of Macchu Picchu) by Pablo Neruda, and El Beso de la Mujer Araña (The Kiss of the Spider-Woman) by Manuel Puig. This means that I have a lot of reading to do before bed (which, for the record, I still feel a huge brain-eloquence disconnect, so I apologize if this is sloppy or hard to read or anything else undesirable). Until tomorrow!