Trip report part 2

Our second stop was Portland, Oregon. Man I love this city. I've said it once - I'll say it again..... if I had to move to any American city, this would be it. Whenever we go, we stay at this nice hotel at Riverplace. Riverplace is a nice collection of hotels, condos, shops, restaurants (with outdoor patios) and offices right along the Willamette River, adjacent to a huge waterfront park system. It's a few blocks removed from the action downtown, but we discovered that Portland built a streetcar system that now comes all the way to Riverplace. Best part - it's free in the core, so we didn't have to pay to get from our hotel to downtown. Portland's transit is magnificent. They even had the smarts to build a light rail line to their airport. Do you hear me Calgary?

While in Portland, I also had the chance to visit my Mecca - the first ever Dr Martens Air Wair shoe store. I've never seen such a fine collection of shoes and boots anywhere. I begged them to consider opening a store in Calgary...... we'll see. Darlene got a chance to visit her fave ladies-type store - Sephora. It's the ultimate store for makeup and stuff. Other things I saw (while shopping) that I thought were cool included a store that sells nothing but Lego and the Apple computer store. Apples sure are pretty.......

Stay tuned for part 3