Written by Johno, with edits from Wen!
I was excited to have Portland as a destination.
After a drizzly morning at Newport it was good to be on the road. After 20 minutes the drizzle left and another sunny day accompanied us for the trip, climbing up into pine and spruce forested ranges we came into a small place, Corvallis, where Wendy spotted a thrift shop (good for extra warm clothes to take to Alaska and then leave at the next thrift shop) so we stopped for a while….
Continuing on the journey we passed through the serious wine producing area of the Oregon where there are an amazing number of wineries and the assorted styles of architecture of their tasting facilities. The traffic became heavier as we approached Salem, the capital of Oregon……
This is “I 5” Interstate highway 5 - the main road north from California running all the way to Canada etc. so trucks are the order of the day, and I mean TRUCKS, racing along at high speeds on the six lanes jostling for the clear passage. So here we are, tootling along in “Freddy” our 27’ old RV, totally intimidated by it all, WOW.
However we do not succumb to the situation but battle through and approach Portland with undamaged enthusiasm then KAPOW!!! Our first real freeway traffic jam extending from well south of the city to the north….six lanes travelling at 5mph on a Friday afternoon delayed our arrival time (according to Jill, the GPS) of 1 ½ hours. Prayer, cold water, and a patient wife help me to find enough tolerance to get through the four hour endurance till our exit appeared. PHEW!!
On the ‘up’ side, along the way we were able to observe Portland. What a city of infrastructure built along a river, they love building bridges and the freeways are an amazing three tiers of six lanes, one-north, one-south, and one local traffic……. I thought Brisbane worked their riverbanks well but this is mind-boggling. Some really good planning and engineering makes it all flow together, and it include an excellent pubic transport system.
We booked into the RV Park at Jantzen Beach to be told that we would have to pack up and move to a different site in 2 days as they messed up bookings. Ah-What does it matter – we are here now. There is a shopping centre across the road and an outlet centre as well so we re-supplied the pantry from Target, which has groceries over here and bunkered down with an evening meal and de-stressed.
What a difference a night makes? The office informed us that we can stay on the one site, yea; and there is public transport to downtown Portland available at shopping centre across the road. So we go to Portland to get our bearings for the next four days at the Waterfront Blues Festival only to find the bus can drop us just about the entry to the festival and take us home every night up til 1.00pm for less than $3.00 per day. So with all our accommodation, travel and festival arrangements taken care of we did as all happy women do, we shopped, found the parks in the city, checked out some beautiful historic buildings and enjoyed some tourist time.
Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival - This is a great spot for a music festival. The venue sits in a natural basin on banks of Williamette River with the two main stages set at either end allowing performances in sequence. There is another smaller stage set up under trees, mostly used for highlight acts, workshops and harmonica blow offs, etc.
Under the Hawthorn Bridge and a little further away, the Zydeco stage pumped all day.
The thing that amazed me that the total festival was a fundraiser for the Oregon Food Bank in so much that all proceeds from ticket sales, beverage sales and merchandise sales go to the Food Bank. We had bought our tickets in Australia beforehand but watched the locals hand over $10.00 plus 2 cans of food to gain entry each day. That got me thinking about how they are able to make any profit, given the prices of tickets to festival back home. After making enquiries I discovered that even the performers do this gig GRATIS. The sponsored ones are paid by the sponsoring companies e.g. Boeing, Miller Brewing plus others. All artists are flown free by airlines and accommodated by local hotels. The amount raised was something in the order of $900,000.00 and collected about 1,000 pounds of food. To me that was a blowout!
As well the usual crowd drawers like Buddy Guy, Robert Cray Band, Maceo Parker, and Lucinda Williams, there were plenty of artists to keep you in the mood; some I had heard of, many not. We caught up with an Aussie blues artist, Fiona Boyes whom we knew from our ramblings within Australia. Fiona, when she heard the ‘G,day from Byron Bay’ she almost fell over and greeted us with hugs. This was on the first day, and we continued to cross paths all festival which boosted our spirits. New talent discovered…Robbie Laws Band, Sonny Hess Band, Ty Curtis Band, Steve Riley & Mamou Playboys, Dietra Farr, Demetria Taylor, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
The natural amphitheatre on which we sat was nicely grassed and was taken up early, by those in the know, with blankets [all types] and chairs. Many brought along mini flagpoles to mark their spots, making for a quite colourful setting, and there was a big screen set in the middle so everyone could see the happenings of both stages. We looked down on the river which boasted a collection of watercraft anchored at riverside, from the most luxurious of yachts to speedboats, even dingies, canoes and jetski’s. There was plenty of food available from multitude of vendors from Italian, Creole, American, Mexican, which kept the hunger pangs at bay while the army of volunteers guided everything along smoothly [it takes 1500 to run the festival].
We were sitting in the sun chillin’ to the Blues all afternoon, then someone on a fancy catamaran launched a remote controlled helicopter and proceeded to entertain the crowd with an impressive acrobatic display-he/she is a very good operator. At 9.00pm, Robert Cray comes out for his set. As predicted I am impressed with a brilliant list of both new and old numbers. The sun sets about 9.30pm and guess what? the remote controlled helicopter re-emerges with fluoro lighting and zaps around for about thirty minutes. It’s an easy walk back to bustop and ride back to our base.
Next morning no time for leisurely start, Wendy has heard that there are markets on further down the waterfront so we’re off and running over Starbucks for coffee then on the bus and into downtown Portland. We stroll further along riverside to find markets. We are impressed by the fact that is an artisan market – really good quality, no Chinese imported rubbish. Some things really intrigued Wendy such as skirts made from recycled men’s shirts, bird feeders made from cups & saucers, lovely felted & hand stitched articles. She resisted purchasing because of her belief of finding better bargains further into the trip.
We had a beautiful meal at a very trendy restaurant called “Veritable Quandary” (worth a visit if you are ever in Portland) then headed to the festival mid afternoon and found our spot on the hill for the day, during a break I took a wander around market stalls--- found the “Blues Revue” and met the owner, made a friend. Turns out he will be aboard the ship on “Blues Cruise” in October with us. I ran into Fiona Boyes again, another chat. The music kept on rollin’, some good; some I could’ve left behind. Tonight the radio-control man introduced one of the space shuttles and blew it up mid-air. Wendy made friends with a lady named Carolyn who wanted us to visit her home for drinks. She just wanted ‘us Aussies’ to be made welcome in her country. We tried to meet up with her on the Monday but didn’t quite connect.
On the bus home we met our neighbors from the RV park - three guys from different places who were having a boys weekend at Bluesfest. Friendly fellows who really knew their blues – fodder for good conversations over the next couple of days. The next day, one of them gave me a harmonica and said I needed to learn how to play the ‘blues’. He plays the harp himself and wanted to share his enjoyment. Nice guy, hey?
Day 3 started leisurely. We went into the festival and bought tickets for a two hour on the cruise on the river. Many of the performers were from a local college for musicians with disability…really great – they are so talented and were supported by blues artists who were already on the Bluesfest lineup. It was a taster for what we will experience later on this year when we go on the Blues Cruise to Mexico – can’t wait.
For Wendy it was a bit like being back at Council and running an education program for the Waste Services.
Day 4….. 4th JULY - Armed with security passes to allow us entry to the RV Park on our return we headed in early and staked a claim to a good spot on the hill and settled in for the day. Good music, lovely sunshine. We should probably mention that it rains a lot in Portland and the locals were sun-worshipping while they enjoyed the festival. As the day wore on more and more families arrived with flags of stars and stripes and wearing patriotic shirts until the hill was packed sardine like. At about 10.00pm, they closed the festival with this big voiced African-American woman singing the national anthem….Every person (Man, Woman, and Child) stood up with hats off and hands on hearts and sang with her. It was very moving and Wendy had tears in her eyes. These people are fiercely proud and patriotic.
Then the FIREWORKS started. Several barges moored on other side of river just blasted the sky continuously for 30 – 40 minutes. It was so colourful and the crowds were really into it – noisy, happy, excited – a bit like our New Years but with a lot less alcohol and children very much included. This happened beside the triple deck freeway…. I would not like to be on that road while it was occurring. The traffic was brought to a standstill.
We thought we might have had a long wait for the bus, but not so – just walked up the street, waited for a few minutes, caught bus home and prepared to move on the next day.
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| Mount St Helens |
After leaving Portland we drove straight to Mount St Helens, a volcano which still likes to blow her top from time to time. The last eruption was in 1980 but there has been activity as recently as 2004 – It’s a very impressive site, even from a distance. We were on a tight timeframe so couldn’t venture too close, we have to get to Seattle to pack our bags for the Alaskan cruise.
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