Portland2026.html

the Resendes Family Page

Sylvia & George
take a trip
to Portland, Oregon
May 2026

For her birthday, the best gift I could give Sylvia was a trip to Portland, Oregon to see her other daughter and family. Last year, I bought her a plane ticket but this year, I decided to join her on her trip!

Above, is a selfie of us on the plane. Being terrible at selfies, it took about 6 tries to get a halfway decent picture. The middle picture shows Sylvia having her first airport meal -- a brisket grilled cheese sandwich from the SMOKE SHACK BBQ restaurant in San Antonio. Delicious!
Unfortunately, due to delays in both our flights, we arrived in Portland after 11 p.m. Almost everyone was asleep in bed and after a brief moment of settling in, we crashed for the night, also. The next day was spent with the family. Sylvia and I took off to shop for some food and toiletries while everyone was at work/school. While driving, we bumped into the BISCUIT BAR restaurant for a delicious breakfast. Later, we dined on vegetarian chili and margaritas, and even though her birthday was a few days away, Sylvia got a birthday cake! You can see how excited she was as we sang the 'Happy Birthday' song to her.

The relaxing evening was filled with music and quiet conversation! The first picture is Alex and Gezelle cuddling on the sofa. Sylvia is flanked by her grandchildren, Vienna and Tristan in the middle. Gezelle and Monica (Alex's baby sister) are on the right.

The next day, we took off for the coast. In the distant past, Sylvia recalled a memorable trip to Depoe Bay with her mother and daughter. As part of the trip to Portland, I schedule a couple of days at Depoe Bay to rekindle those memories. The whole Portland family decided to join us.

The first picture is a postcard of the Christmas Store in Depoe bay. Our first meal was at Gracie's Sea Hag Restaurant. To my dismay, they did not have whole clams, but the fried scallops were great!

Later that day, we took off to watch the sunset over the Pacific beach! Although it was beautiful, the weather was windy and cool. We were glad we had jackets on for the viewing.

The next day, we had a Whale Watching Excursion scheduled. At the beginning of the scheduled boat ride, we watched a short (and somewhat gory) educational film about the life cycle of whales, and got to explore the small museum at the Whale Research Eco-excursion. All of it was fascinating!

Then it was time to 'suit up' in our life-jackets to get ready for the rough choppy sea waters of the apparently poorly named Pacific Ocean! We were fortunate in that we toured with Carrie Newell, the expert marine biologist at the center.

Below, is a group picture taken just before we shoved off for the excursion. Of note, Monica found a 'friend' sitting right there on the pier (last picture right).

I have to say that although the whole experience was a lot of fun and educational to boot, we only caught a brief glimpse of a couple of whales during the trip. Some days are like that and being 'early' in the year for whale watching, it was not too surprising. Still, despite this, we had a whale of a time (sorry, I had to use that pun somewhere). Note the sea lion having a lazy day on the buoy in the middle picture, below.

On the way back to the dock, we picked up speed and several of us got a lot of water sprayed at us. Sylvia and I were in the front seats and got more than our fair share!!

Later, we shopped for salt water taffy and funny-looking socks at the 'Knock Your Socks Off' store and had another great meal at the Chowder Bowl restaurant in Depoe Bay!

Left, Alex with Bodhi and Ruby It was their first time at the beach! To the right, Alex and Gezelle have a quiet moment together at the cottage!

We were planning on some activities at Depoe Bay before we left, but the weather wasn't having any of that. We had really beautiful weather for the first three days of our trip, but a wet, windy storm dropped in on us as we were heading back to Portland.

For the last 3 days of our Portland trip, Sylvia and I stayed in old town Portland to see some of the sights.

We stayed at the Paramount Hotel! Being fairly late in the day (we checked into the hotel at about 6 p.m.), we found an Italian restaurant, Pastini, just across the street from the hotel. After dining on Parmesan bread, meatballs, Fettuccine Alfredo and baked Ziti, we walked around downtown for several minutes!

Just across the street from our hotel was Director's Park, there was a small makeshift glass building with an exotic floral design and a variety of S'mores menu items. Sylvia had the hot chocolate drink and I had the s'mores dessert shown below.

At that point, being past 8 p.m. we discovered that many of the downtown stores were closing and headed to the hotel for the evening!

The next morning, we got up early for a half-day Columbia River Gorge Waterfalls Tour. The pick up place just "happened" to be in front of our hotel (the main reason I picked the hotel). It was an easy going, relaxing drive to a few of the waterfalls from the gorge! Norther, our tour guide, told us that there were actually about 400 waterfall areas so what we experienced was only a tiny fraction of the gorge's falls.

Fortunately, for us, the walking was minimal, even walking down a trail to the base of each waterfall!

Since we arrived back to the hotel with still most of the afternoon open, we walked uptown for the next couple of hours. Our targeted goal was Powell's Book store about 7 or 8 blocks north of the hotel. Along the way, we had several stops!

One pleasant stop was at St.Honore' Bakery, where we stopped for a coke (neither of us being big coffee drinkers) and dessert!

We also went through several shops, including the upscale Nordstrom's Department store downtown! Sylvia managed to find a blouse that she wore on our last day with the family! Sylvia even bought a huge burrito for supper at Maya's Taqueria! Who knew that we'd fly all the way to Portland, Oregon from San Antonio to find a great 'Mexican Restaurant' in the heart of the city!

On the day before we left Portland, we headed back to see Gezelle and the family one last time. Our morning started with brunch at McMenamins. Even more impressive than the minestrone soup or the Portland Dip turkey sandwiches that Tristan and I ordered, was the fact that they had original late 60's San Francisco Grateful Dead posters decorating their walls. I should have taken pictures of them while I was there.

Next, we went to pick up Alex at work to see the new house that Alex and Gezelle recently purchased.
Below are pictures of the new house in La Center, Washington -- a beautiful, expansive 5-acre property! Bodhi and Ruby are going to love it!!! They expect to move in the next couple of weeks. Note the waterfall structure, located in front of the house, in the second picture, below!

We stopped to buy several pastries at Sadie & Josie's Bakery on the way to the new house!
And as if she wasn't spoiled enough by her family while we were there, Sylvia got a second 'birthday' cake! We took a big hunk of it back to the hotel with us and devoured it that evening! The picture on the right shows Sylvia with her 'birthday' flowers from her daughter. Too bad we could not take them back with us!

It was a great trip for both of us! One regret: We did not get to Washington Park to see the Sacajawea Statue (left) commemorating the Lewis & Clark expedition as we had hoped! Oh, well, maybe next time!

To the left, Sylvia is enjoying our last meal in the Portland airport at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, another staple of Oregon founded in Tillamook, OR, a small town 72 miles west of Portland along the Oregon coast! It was a late flight and we got back home around midnight! Another wonderful trip for us!

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