September 26-28

After our return from Peru, we enjoyed a couple of trips close to home, including one to Oakland to see the kids and little Gemma, got caught up on our bike riding, and generally enjoyed being at home for a stretch.  Unfortunately, towards the end of August, I suffered the beginning of what would become a dislocated lens in my left eye, which would worsen over time, necessitate an operation, and put some of our future travel plans, including the big one planned for New Zealand and Australia at the beginning of 2024 in jeopardy.

As readers of this blog will recall, I get together with my long-time friends, JB, Doug (aka the Griz), Evan and when he can, Rendy, each year to celebrate our long association with each other and to commemorate the time the four of us drove both of my cars across the US to Charlotte in 44 hours in 2008 when Joanna and I moved there.  And repeated that journey again in 2019 when we moved back to Los Angeles.  Only that time we did it in a week. 

This year we decided to visit Portland for three nights and would be staying at the Sweeeeet Home Alberta 3BR/1BA Airbnb, located north of downtown and in easy driving distance from the airport.  It turned out to be a great location for us as it is in the neighborhood known as the Alberta Arts District.  We all arrived at the airport within an hour of each other and picked up our rental car, a repeat of a model I’ve rented during earlier trips, a Chrysler Pacifica Mini-Van, this one a plug in Hybrid.  Produced by Stellantis the Italian American conglomerate of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and the French PSA Group, It is the world’s fourth-largest automaker by sales, behind Toyota, Volkswagen Group, and Hyundai Motor Group.  They design, manufacture, and sell automobiles bearing its 14 brands: Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram, and Vauxhall.

I’ve enjoyed this car in the past for its size and usability, and we prize the ability to fold all the rear seats down to produce a completely flat loading surface in the rear which would be incredibly handy for our various needs.  I might consider buying one, perhaps the plug-in hybrid if the mechanical reliability of these cars wasn’t so consistently bad across their entire product line:

These are the 10 least-reliable brands this year, according to Consumer Reports:

1. Chrysler. The 2022 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan.
2. Mercedes-Benz. The 2023 Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV
3. Rivian. The Rivian R1T and R1S
4. Volkswagen. 2022 Volkswagen Taos
5. Jeep
6. Volvo
7. GMC
8. Lincoln
9. Ford
10. Dodge

So, that makes three out of ten for the Chrysler folks and two out of ten for Ford.  I’ll continue with wishful thinking and hope that Toyota expands their plug-in hybrid options for our next new car purchase. 

We checked into the Airbnb and to our delight, found a new Keurig Coffee maker with enough pods to last us through our visit, and soon thereafter headed out for dinner at McMenamin’s  Courtyard Restaurant At Kennedy School.  Not sure if I’ve written about this chain before, but we’ve been to many of their locations, some multiple times, founded by brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin, who opened Oregon’s first brewpub in the Southwest Portland neighborhood of Hillsdale in 1985.  

Their first theater pub was the Mission Theater & Pub in 1987 and they entered the broader hospitality business starting in 1990, when they converted a 74-acre site (that at one time served as the Multnomah County Poor Farm) into McMenamins Edgefield.  Many of their locations are in rehabilitated historical properties; at least nine are on the National Register of Historic Places.  According to the Brewers Association, McMenamins is one of the top 50 largest craft breweries in the United States.

Seated, I ordered the first of what would be several Old Fashion’s as we had plenty of beer back at the house and my usual pub favorite, the Ale-Battered Fish & Chips (wild Alaskan cod, fries, tartar sauce, and buttermilk coleslaw), both exactly what the doctor ordered, the fish mild with a light coating of crust, the fries skinny and just the way I like them. 

Returning to the house, we whiled away the evening cleaning out our supply of beer recalling the many events in our lives we have shared.  The next day we set out for breakfast at Pine State Biscuits which was not far from us.  Along with a good cup of coffee, I demolished a unique order of Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes, a triple stack made from scratch with local blueberries, served with butter & real maple syrup along with a single scrambled egg.  Light and yet filling, the pancakes were absolutely delicious. 

My plan for the morning was to head downtown and repeat a walking tour Joanna and I had performed back in 2016 with our friend Colleen (https://3jmann.com/2016/10/19/west-coast-tour-2016-portland-part-two/), that is to stop in at Powell’s Books for some browsing and perhaps buying, and then walk a few blocks to the Crystal Ballroom to see if they had any tours that day.  We spent an hour or more at Powell’s and I actually bought a book while also enjoying a nice cup of coffee in the café located on the ground floor of the building. 

We walked the short distance to the Crystal Ballroom and its adjacent bar, Ringlers Pub only to find that they were no longer giving tours, a minor disappointment in the overall scheme of things.  With a big block of time to kill, I suggested we head east out of town along the Columbia River for a visit to Multnomah Falls, the tallest waterfall in the state of Oregon at 620 feet in height.  The Multnomah Creek Bridge, built in 1914, crosses below the falls, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The falls drops in two major steps, split into an upper falls of 542 feet and a lower falls of 69 feet, with a gradual 9 foot drop in elevation between the two; The two drops are due to a zone of more easily eroded basalt at the base of the upper falls.  Underground springs from Larch Mountain are the year-round source of water for the waterfall, augmented by spring runoff from the mountain’s snowpack and rainwater during the other seasons.  This spring is the source of Multnomah Creek.With some more time to fill, we would head a little further east along the highway to Bonneville Dam, an impressive sight to behold.  I’ll cover that and the rest of our time in Portland in the next post. 

Links

Sweeeeet Home Alberta 3BR/1BA: https://www.airbnb.co.nz/trips/v1/84b7a155-899c-47bb-894c-5d3ee39d0c13/ro/RESERVATION2_CHECKIN/HMMP9NCCRC

Courtyard Restaurant At Kennedy School: https://www.mcmenamins.com/kennedy-school/courtyard-restaurant

Pine State Biscuits: https://pinestatebiscuits.com/

Multnomah Falls: https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/crgnsa/recarea/?recid=30026