Oregon USA

Arrived in Portland and booked into a very neat and tidy RV Park, that was a cross between a car park and a retirement village, which a lot of these RV parks seem to be. The next day was Adams last day with us. To farewell him we took ourselves out to lunch, at a lovely little restaurant on the river called the Deck.

We were looking forward to seeing Portland, because it is our USA address, and I was told by a reliable source that it was one of her favourite USA cities. First impression, lovely tree lined streets, bridges, plenty of parks and walkways. Second impressions not so favourable, the old town streets had an odour of urine, I am suspecting from all the homeless. What a disaster, these poor people living on the streets, parks or under overpasses, mostly muttering to themselves or chatting and yelling to some invisible friend or foe. However, the Powell Book shop that takes up a whole city square was great - Worlds largest independent book store. The girls didn’t want to leave, so we left them there while we had a walk around the old town.

We couldn’t extend our stay because the RV Park was full, gay pride and some match that was being held, so we moved onto Oregon City council, Clackamette campground. Completely different style of rv park, smaller, gravel, only water and power, no waste water dumping. We could only just fit in, first come first served, so no bookings taken. Right on the river, fishing, swimming, boating, ducks and on Saturday morning we woke up to a vintage car rally outside our camper window, fantastic. We stayed here because we were waiting for mail to arrive in Portland and wanted to visited gay pride and to give Portland another look.
OK, third impression of Portland, much more favourable; coffee shops, park gardens, uni, river, boating, cheap convenient public transport. This is why Lynette liked it, from a town planning view point it is a very liveable city. Gay pride – some interesting people watching.

Still waiting on mail, so we decided to have a look at Columbia Gorge and managed to get a couple of days at the state park campsite. Again, a different style of campground, and my favourite, full hook up if you want it or camping, basic showers, fire pits, walking trails. We don’t stay at these often because most of the time there is very little cell coverage for school, or we are too big to fit in.

We could only get two nights at the state campground so we had to move on again. Hoping mail would be here soon, this was getting monotonous. On to our fourth type of camping/rv park, Harvest Hosts. This one was a golf course. The idea is that you will have a round of golf, a meal or a drink at the bar. The other types of Harvest Hosts are wineries, cheese factories or farms. Most of the time we end up buying their product and spending more than a campsite would cost anyway but it is lovely to be in the country staying at a winery or cheese factory.
Mail arrived, Yay, picked up scooters and headed off to Washington State.