Oregon Adventures: Greetings off an airplane wing

After close to six hours flying over Canada from Boston, our plane made the left turn, down through Washington and into Oregon.

As we were descending toward Portland, maybe about 13,000 feet up there it was … a mountain just off the wing.

Friends of mine thought it might have been Mount Hood, but regardless, that’s a pretty good welcome.

I’m not sure where this outbreak of common sense came from, but I liked it.

Our trip started with a small miracle.

Terminal C at Logan Airport in Boston is still a zoo, and the security still seems like they had a design contest, chose the 10 worst ideas as finalists and then combined them, but when we got to the front of the line, someone asked if we had to take our shoes off …

… and the guard said no.

“Belts?” I asked.

Nope, not unless they set off the alarm.

I’m not sure where this outbreak of common sense came from, but I liked it.

I should have known Portland was different when I saw a movie theater in the airport.

It shows short films from Oregon filmmakers.

We didn’t really have a plan for when we got to Portland, but we saw the waterfront as we were driving through the city on our way to the hotel, so we decided to head downtown and take a walk.

It was a good call. You couldn’t have picked a better day, and by the looks of it, it’s pretty much going to be like that all week.

Coincidentally, today was the second day of Pride Northwest.

Lots of people looked like they were having a good time, except for the young woman who we heard complain, “I got glitter in my %&*#ing eye” as we were leaving Ben & Jerry’s.

My wife Suzi and I were trying to come up with a comparison for Portland.

The waterfront scene was a little reminiscent of the South Bank in London. There was a little bit of Nashville, and the houses in the hillsides as we were driving out of town were a little bit like Los Angeles and Malibu.

But the scenery, the overall vibe took me back to Asheville, North Carolina, which only happens to be one of my favorite places.

It made for a good start.