Oregonians are friendly folks. The day begins, after a fashion, at the Portland welcome center where a local volunteer gave us reems of data about restaurants, wineries, parks etc, etc, for about 30 minutes. It was nice, but we’re only in town one and a half days, how much can one couple eat? We then proceeded to do the Pat and Jim speed tour of Portland, touching every significant quandrat of the city in about a 60-minute forced march, aided partly by the free downtown public transit. (Oriental Gate, check; Powell’s Books, saw it, didn’t go in.) We then decide, OK, we need to do the “must see” Japanese garden for the city view.

Here the vaunted public transit falters a bit. You are supposed to pay for going outside the downtown core, so we buy our tickets. No one, mind you, ever looks at said tickets so I guess Oregonians are honest. (They also wait for the walk/don’t walk signs to change, even when there is no car in sight. We East Coasters did what we do, we jaywalked.) We were advised as to where to get off the train by another friendly Portlander, this one via New Jersey. Yeah, we’re everywhere. Anyway, the transit system gets you to within a mile or two below the gardens. Needless to say, lacking proper hiking shoes we didn’t quite make it, but we might return on Saturday with the car. The weather was decent, despite what you might have heard on the national weather news; chilly but no rain all day. So we did get in a good walk through some trails that are part of the Hoyt Arboretum. Quite pleasant, all in all.

Our double-time morning tour did earn us a decent lunch and some beers at a McMennamin’s, which is a local brewery/restaurant chain that is prevalent in the Northwest. It fortified us for the real business of the day; wine sampling. Next stop, Willamette Valley.