GREETINGS FROM THE CITY OF ROSES
Last weekend we visited Portland, Oregon, for our granddaughter’s fourth birthday. This gave us the opportunity to come to her birthday party and spend a few days with her, our daughter and son-in-law. We’ve been to Portland many times; however, on our previous visits we stayed in hotels downtown. This time we chose to stay in a VRBO in a residential neighborhood, just a twelve-minute drive from our destination. It was a nice large basement apartment with free parking.
There was a bookshelf of books where I found “Portland is Weird”, written by Benjamin A. Zanol. It covered a weird event which happened every day in the city in 2015. For example, on February 11th was “World’s Largest Continual Chocolate Waterfall.” On March 14th was “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and on April 10th was “Oregon Ghost Conference”. On June 24th was “Music as Medicine”. You are getting the gist.
Of course, not all the events were considered weird. For example, from August 31 for a week, was the “Oregon Dahlia Festival”, which took place again this year. Though “Keep Portland Weird” is the official motto of this lovely city, it is a great place to live if you do not mind heat in the summer and the rain in the winter. The streets in the residential areas are lined with old trees including fruit trees covered with apples and many flowers, especially roses.
You can buy a house here with over 2000 square feet for about $700,000. Home insurance is still reasonable, as so are the property taxes. It’s a great place for young people to start a family, especially if they can work remotely.
Among the list of top ten nicknames for Portland is one which is most appealing for me – “The City of Roses”. Roses are everywhere. Some of them grow as large bushes covered with flowers. I could not stop photographing them. Among many other gifts for our granddaughter, I brought my latest book “42 Encounters with Illuminations”. Though she could not yet read my “Illuminations” poems, she checked each photograph. I guarantee that you will enjoy the book as well after you order it on Amazon.
Usually, I include three images to my Friday Stories, however, roses are so beautiful that I share one extra with you this time.
Enjoy and Share!