Trip to Portland, Oregon

I went to Portland Oregon on Apr 21 for a week. I had a meeting there. Portland is a very green city. I love the weather. It's humid, cold, and gloomy. The city looks very much like Manhattan. It's very clean. For some reasons, there are many hippies too. Also there are many homeless people and most of them are very young. Anyway ....

Seafood there is very cheap. Instead of shrimp, they call it prawn there. Yummy. razor clams and dungeness crabs are common dishes. I had seafood eveyday for 7 days. I was in like in heaven. The first day, I took the train to Washington Park. From there, I took a bus to go up the hill to the Rose Garden. It was a little disppointing because there's no rose flower blooming yet. But, I got to see a nice view of Portland with Mt Hood at the back. It was beautiful. There were ferns and Douglas Fur Pine growing everywhere in Portland.

On the fifth day, I took the grayline tour to the Oregon Coast. I was the only person in the bus!!! It was funny. I got to talk to the bus driver the whole time. His name was Steve. There are only 3.2 million people in the State of Oregon. What a state!! On the way to the coast, we passed thru berry farms and plant nurseries. We stopped by to see the world tallest Sitka Pine tree. Unfortunately the top part collapsed a few month ago because it was strucked by lightning. But i still got to see it :-). We got to the Canon Beach around 12. I had 2 hrs to walk around. It was nice and cold!!!! On the way back, the bus stopped at Tillamook Cheese factory. I got to sample free cheese :-)

The next day, I took another grayline tour to see Mt Hood and Columbia River Gorge. This time there were 2 other people in the bus :-). Columbia River Gorge was simply breathking. We stopped by at the Vista House. Vista House is like the gift shop for columbia river gorge. Later we went to see the waterfalls. The biggest one was Multomah Fall. It was gorgeous. We had lunch at the River Cascade. After lunch, we went to the fruit orchard. The apple tree flowers were blooming. Then we made our way up Mt Hood. It was beautiful. After Mt Hood. we headed back to Portland. At midnight, I flew back to DC.

I like Oregon a lot. It's quiet, green, nice weather and humid!! I can see myself living there.

Trip to Southern Virginia

I went to my friend's house for Easter Day. He lives in Grafton. Grafton is like 10min away from Newport News. It was a 2.5 hr drive from Washington DC. I saw York River (the jellyfish river) and the James River. On the way back, we took the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel It was a 4 hr detour but it was beautiful.

National Cherry Blossom Festival 07

On Apr 1, I went to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossom. They were in full bloom. It was pretty.

Day 8: Death Valley

The next morning, we went to the Death Valley. On the way, we stopped by at Parthrump. There were some giant saguaro cactus in front of the Terrible Casino. They were pretty and I took pic of them. Later we drove to the park. It was hot and dry there. That's a reason why they call it the Death Valley. We went up to the highest point of the park. The view was amazing. Then we went to Badwater. Badwater is the lowest point in the US and the hottest place in the world. It was so bright there (salt everywhere) that I could hardly open my eyes. After that we went to the tourist information center. Our last stop was the Great Sand Dunes. They were pretty. On the way back, we saw some wild flowers by the road. I heard that it's pretty rare to see flowers in the park. It was my turn to drive again. We drove back to Vegas. We were going to eat buffet but we didn't have time. So we ended up eating at the airport instead. Overall, it was an amazing trip !!!!