Portland, Oregon

We had a much shorter road trip to Portland than our first project. Portland is about 10 hours from Sacramento, CA, so we broke the trip up into two days. We spent our first night in Ashland, OR. Ashland is a small town in South Oregon…it’s well known for the Shakespeare Festival, unfortunately we stayed in Ashland just a week prior to the opening of the festival, so no shows for me. The town itself is wonderful, it’s a small quaint town with a bunch of little shops and restaurants, there is a college in the town, and mountains surrounding it. I definitely would have enjoyed a full afternoon of exploration (we had an hour or two).

The drive to Portland was gorgeous; there were mountains on all sides of us. The mountains reached to the sky and were covered by untouched snow; it truly was a sight to see. Throughout the ride we also passed over rivers, the rivers paired with the mountains essentially left me speechless, I only wish I was good with words so I could describe to you people how beautiful this really was…but I’m not…so you all will just have to experience it for yourself!

Ok, so we arrive in Portland, we get to our house. Now you can imagine how nervous I am, I am about to spend two months in a small house living with people that although I may feel like I have gotten to know very well, we still don’t know nearly as much as I think we like to think we do about one another…so this is going to be interesting, living on top of one another for two months…no privacy. Although I am still a bit nervous about how this will all pane out, I have high hopes for our living situation, it is really nice to be in a house. Let me take you for a visual tour of the house…get your imaginations ready!

You pull into our driveway, park in front of our garage door, walk to our front door, ring the door bell...WHY HELLO! Welcome to my humble abode! On your left you will see a half-bath, not too shabby and on your right you may notice our kitchen with an islandesq counter top, enough drawers and cabinets to keep us happy, a working stove, refrigerator, and microwave. As you exit the front of our kitchen you find yourself standing in the living room which has a couch on either wall and a fold-up table set up in the center of the room, you see computer chairs all over the room, realizing that there are 13 people who live in this house that often need to sit down after a long day of work. The sliding glass door into the back yard (which does not seem inviting due to a mess of a compost pile, a broken fish tank, and a torn up yard) is to the right of the fire place which only purpose seems to be to hold a TV from the 1960’s. Don’t bother turning the television on, you will see nothing but snow, however, if you desire you may watch a dvd or vhs later, but first you should finish your tour by heading up the stairs on the left of the fireplace. Once your reach the landing at the top of the stairs you are looking straight into a full bathroom, shower/tub, sink, toilet. How delightful you think! Turn left at the top of the stairs and you will see the master bedroom which houses five girls on cots, walk down the hallway you will see the second girls bedroom which holds three girls, and finally at the end of the hallway is the boys spacious (because they know how to organize their things) room. You may wonder why you do not see clothes in the last two bedrooms hanging out in the open, well that is because those bedrooms have closets, while the first bedroom (where I live) only has a rod and shelf that spans the length of the longest wall for clothing to be hung. Well, that is about it, I hope you enjoyed the tour!

In terms of the City, I have not seen much of it, we have only been here for two nights, but it seems like a great city. We are walking distance from bars, restaurants, and shops. I have not been downtown yet, I will keep you all posted on that stuff.

We had our first day of work today, it seems like SOLV is a great company, and they are very organized and very happy to have us here, so I am looking forward to working with them.


I suppose you people should keep your eyes out for an update on the work and the City of Portland, because it will not be long before I have experienced both enough to write about them!

Sometimes I get the feeling that the only people reading this are my parents and maybe my grandparents…anyone else out there?