Mary Ann and I visited family in Portland in August, 2012. This post has a brief account of the trip, and some photographs.
We flew to Portland on Southwest Airlines on Thursday, 8/9. Our plane was delayed 3 hours. We visited Mom, and then drove to Bob and Terry’s.
On Friday the 10th we walked over to Ricci’s in the morning. We went to happy hour at Amadeus restaurant in the afternoon. Amadeus is a large four story home that was converted to a restaurant. It’s up on the hill and has a nice view. Mom would have had trouble with the stairs, so we ate out on the deck. That night we visited Jim and Felicia.
On the Saturday the 11th Bob and Terry took us for a hike to Cooper Mountain. A juvenile Cooper’s Hawk roosted right in front of us, which made for some good photos. We went to Mass at Ascension at 5 PM.
On Sunday the 12th I golfed with Bob at Colwood. In the afternoon we met at Flying Pie restaurant for a family gathering. All my siblings were there except for Jim. We stopped at Jim’s that evening and watched the closing ceremony of the Olympics. In my opinion, the closing ceremonies were very strange, and not very entertaining.
On Monday the 13th Bob took us on a hike to Tryon Creek State Park. Later we went with Mom to Jill and Mike’s for dinner. It’s the first time we’d seen their new condo. It has an amazing view overlooking the Willamette (which I didn’t take any pictures of :(). We saw an Osprey fishing in the river. The Osprey also landed on a beach and hung out there for a while. It was quite a distance away, and we thought it might be a duck, but when I looked at the picture later it was clearly the Osprey (though the picture wasn’t good enough to publish).
On Tuesday August 14th we drove out to Mom’s. Mary Ann stayed there and Bob and I went golfing at Heron Lakes golf course. It’s the first time that I’d golfed there. It was a nice course and we had a good time. It was a hot day though. Afterword we had dinner at Bob’s. It was Bob’s birthday. Mary Ann’s brother-in-law Stan Stuever is in Portland working a union job at the Intel plant, and he joined us for dinner. Bobby was also there. Later that night we all gathered at Jim’s for a family photo. I used my tripod and flash for the photos. They didn’t turn out great. The lighting wasn’t very good for my little built-in flash. I wanted to use a higher aperture and lower ISO than the ‘auto’ chose, so that I could get everybody in focus (higher aperture), and to reduce ‘graininess’ (lower ISO). The resulting shutter speed was, in hind sight, a little too slow. It was 1/3 sec, which I thought would be good enough when using the tripod. My test shots were OK, but in the actual photos people were moving more than I anticipated. Also, I used the remote to trigger the photo, so I couldn’t see the picture through the viewfinder, and there was a lot of commotion, so people weren’t looking at the camera. To get a better shot for a group photo like that I really need better lighting or a better flash. Also, next time I would reduce the aperture in order to get the shutter speed faster. I should have tried some shots on full auto just to see how they turned out. Despite all that, I think they turned out OK given the circumstances.
On Wednesday August 15 we went for a walk with Bob at PCC. We went to noon Mass for the feast of the Assumption at Ascension with Mom. We saw George and Arlene Brennfleck there. After Mass they served lunch in the old first grade class room, so we ate with George and Arlene. It was fun to see them. We hung out at Mom’s afterward and played cribbage. Mom beat me 2 games to 1 – she got some great hands 🙂 Then off to the airport and home. Patty Keough picked us up at the airport. Chief was home when we got there, and happy to see us!
It was a fun trip. Portland was experiencing a hot spell,and the temperatures were in the 90’s. But it cooled off nicely at night. We didn’t make any major ‘side trips’ to the beach or the river this time, so we had more time to hang out with Mom and just to visit family.
Here are the photos (click on a photo to enlarge; use the arrows or your arrow keys to navigate; click on the photo to return here):
