Walk a mile in those shoes?!

One of the allures of Portland is the ability to detach yourself from your car. This is accomplished by having a more compact metropolitan area (see the first nerd post) and a mature mass transit system. Getting around town seems fairly easy, although I haven't hopped on a bus or a train yet. No, I've spent most of my time walking around.

I was fortunate enough to find an apartment that is only 0.6 miles away from work. Thus, I can walk to work and let my car not burn gas. Another positive side effect of walking is ... you guessed it... exercise! A walking site I found suggests that you should get 10,000 steps a day; 1,000 to 3,000 steps makes you sedentary :(. I wanted to find out if I was getting my recommended daily allowance of walking in Portland, but I also wanted to see how much more walking I was doing in Portland compared to OKC.

So, a week prior to leaving Oklahoma I wore a pedometer to count the number of steps I took each day. I rounded to the nearest 100 steps and took an average for 7 days. In OKC, taking into account walking around the house, to my car, and walking around at work, I averaged 5800 steps per day (hoary! not sedentary). On the other hand, in Portland I averaged 7100 steps per day.

I was kind of surprised that I only walked an additional 1/2 mile (approx.). I was walking to and from work, walking around town at lunch time, walking to stores, etc., but I still couldn't get my 10k steps (the closest I came was 9000 steps walking to and from the river). The other surprise was just how much I walked around at my old job, even though I drove to work. Working in a big building that required interaction with people in other parts of the building kept me out of the sedentary range.

I must say it is nice being able to walk around!

Stay tuned! In 3 weeks I will give an update on the other side of the equation - how much gas have I used since coming to Portland.

Oregon Votes!

Oregon is one of the later states to have a presidential primary. Oregonians also have primaries for other offices, referendums, etc. You see, they like to get things over with, and not have elections for one or two measures every few months. Thus, Tuesday May 20th is voting day. What is interesting about Oregon's election process is that you can mail in your ballot. So, from the comfort of your own home you can take the time to research issues and candidates, make an informed decision, and not have to wait in line to vote. One catch would be that you had to mail in your ballot by last weekend, or turn in your ballot in person. Since 1998, all Oregon elections have been Vote by Mail. In 2004, Oregon had the 3rd highest voter turnout and often has well over 50% turnout.

In case you didn't know, the Democratic Primary race is still plugging along. So, Sen. Barack Obama came to the Rose City on Sunday to drum up support from Oregon. Being that I am in Portland, I figured why not go. I am glad I did! Based on estimates from the Portland Fire Marshall, and the Obama campaign staff, there were around 75,000 people who, like me, thought it would be interesting to see what Sen. Obama had to say.


The "gates" were supposed to open at 12:30pm. I decided to leave my apartment at 10am to get there and not wait long. Well, it didn't matter much, because people had started to line up well before I even woke up on Sunday. The back of the line for me was 8 blocks from the entry! And I think I may have been in the first quarter of attendees.

The walk to the gate was much like a political gauntlet. Operatives from many different local campaigns were trying to hand out pamphlets about why you should vote for their candidate. Other groups representing certain viewpoints were also present. As I got closer to the gates the obstacle course quickly turned into a vender mine-field. People selling all kinds of Barack Obama inspired hats, shirts, buttons, and stickers. There was a strong sporting event/rock concert feeling for this rally, and the venders added to that effect. I didn't see anyone selling hot dogs, unfortunately.

I did get through the airport security style gates by 12:45pm, but Obama was not to speak until at least 2:30pm. Two thoughts came to mind: 1) I should have brought a snack 2) I should not have had so much water. Fortunately, the excitement of the event diverted my attention. There was even an opening act, The Decemberists, who noted that this was the biggest person/group they've ever opened for (for those of you that don't know, The Decemberists are an indie rock band from Portland). They played for 30-45 minutes and helped get people excited, and made fun of the press corps ("and the anchorperson on TV goes Laaa dee daa de da de da dedadeda").

An annoying lady and a congressman (not annoying) spoke before Sen. Obama gave his talk. I think it was a little before 3pm when Sen. Obama took the stage and the crowed when crazy! He was as charismatic in person as he is on TV. It was a very exciting time. All in all, walking the distance to the event, standing in line for about 2 hours, and standing in the sun for more hours was worth it for his 30 minute speech.


Based on reports, this was the biggest political rally in the history of Oregon, and the biggest rally for Sen. Obama to date. And I was a part of it!

Hot!

So, one of the reasons we decided to move to Portland was to avoid the Oklahoma heat. If you recall from the first nerd post, the average high in July is almost 80 deg F. Well, much to my dismay, the past few days in Portland have had RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES for May. Friday we set a record of 92 deg F. On Saturday, the high was 95 deg F (which destroyed the previous record of 89 deg F). This wouldn't be that big of a concern, except that my apartment DOES NOT HAVE AC!!! My four-legged friend and I were pretty miserable. To add insult to injury, the state I left because of the heat was unseasonably cool. The highs were in the 70s and 80s in OKC. Fortunately, the middle to end of this week will be seasonable (meaning rain and 60s) for Portland and OKC will be hot.

An interesting side effect occurs in OR with these higher temperatures (which a flat lander like myself wouldn't have realized until now). The remaining snowpack around Portland melts faster, causing the potential for flooding AND and increase in stream and river speeds. There were numerous cautionary stories from the TV saying be careful in the water, etc. Also, despite the 90 deg temperatures, the water is still VERY cold. So, you have to watch out for hypothermia. Pretty interesting, huh?

One more random thing, I am closer to the north pole than the equator.

Oregon Trail

After 1976 miles, logging 30.5 hours on the road, we have made it to Portland! And guess what ... it was raining again!

After waking up in Boise, ID, we continued heading NW. An interesting side note for those who played Oregon Trail in grade school, a good part of the I-84 corridor follows the historic Oregon Trail. Fortunately, Max did not have to go hunting for food, Sara didn't get cholera, and we didn't have to ford the Snake River. But I digress. It took an hour to get to Oregon from Boise. Nothing different from yesterday's trek through ID, more Snake River valley with irrigated crops and occasional rolling terrain.

An official state map of Oregon says, "things look different here." I must say I agree. We saw a wide variety of landscape throughout the 6 hour drive. Rolling terrain, arid areas, beautiful pine forests... and the Columbia River! (which is cooler than the Cimarron; although the Columbia might not reach the "raging" level as often as the Cimarron)





Prior to getting to Portland, we had our first view of Mt. Hood (more pictures to come once we get a clear day in Portland). If you need to see Mt. Hood, go here. We then had to go through the Columbia River Gorge. "Had" is not a good word here... I-84 parallels the Columbia River for a good 120 miles, half of which is through "The Gorge". It is a breathtaking area, and even if I-84 hadn't gone through this region, it would have been worth while for the detour. Needless to say, we had plenty to look at as we neared Portland. It was a shock to see people, cars, houses, and civilization once we got to the outskirts of Portland. We had been in isolation for over 2 days... then... metropolitan area. I almost forgot what traffic lights were.

Now that we have opened the official Portland branch of okctopdx. Let see, other random thoughts to close out the trip. We used 62.5 gallons of gas, averaging 31.6 mph. Our best performance in gas mileage was from Home, ID to The Dalles, OR - 34 mph mainly because the speed limit was only 65 in OR and not 75 like CO through ID. Finally, we would like your opinion. Which word makes an area sound cooler - gorge or canyon? For example, does the "gorge" modifier in rattlesnake gorge make it sound cooler than rattlesnake canyon. Let us know.

Day Two - More Rain

Location: 43.5787 N, 116.2144 W

We started day two with a great view of the Rocky Mountains. It is quite a different feeling to look at the horizon see terrain. We headed north from Ft. Collins, CO to Cheyenne, WY, and saw the U.S. Cycling Championship (or people in funny helmets championship) along the way. We ended up driving past Cheyenne without really noticing it. We thought that the I-25/I-80 interchange may have been far away from the city, and that we were more focused on heading the right way instead of site seeing. However, later we found out that Cheyenne is a small city, and we were only 2 miles from the city center.

We encountered rain in the central 1/3 of WY. With the rain we had in OK early this week, and the rain we've had on the trip, we are ready to live in the rainy Pacific Northwest. It took us about 6 hours to cross WY, seeing some interesting terrain, not many people/vehicles, and some grazing area for cattle.




Utah was beautiful. We followed the floor of some valleys until we got north of Salt Lake City. After that, we entered some more semi-arid basin stuff (wish I would have paid more attention in geology class) until we got to the Snake River valley in Idaho. The Snake River (not quite as cool as the Cimarron River) is a 1,000 mile river that carved out a distinct valley and provides irrigation for farms in the valley. On a topographic map it makes a smiley face in ID! We got up to Boise in under four hours from the ID/UT border and 12.5 hours since leaving CO.

So far we have traveled 1400 miles through 6 states. To drive home the fact that we were truly away from civilization, if you added the population of all 6 states (OK, KS, CO, WY, UT, and ID) we have traveled through, thus far, you would have about the same amount of people as the population of Ohio. In other words, there is a lot of space and you feel very isolated. Tomorrow, we ride the Oregon Trail. (note this is not realtime, due to internet issues)

Current Elevation 4,984 Feet

Today was day one of our road trip to Portland. So, this is part one of our three part series detailing our trip.

We started out early this morning packing what we could into our little Hyundai, which required Peter to stuff whatever he could into every nook and cranny in the trunk. So that along with taking care of last minute details set us back about an hour and a half. But we would not be discouraged. The lack of traffic made it easy to get out of Oklahoma City. It turns out there is nothing too exciting on the north end of Oklahoma so I occupied myself taking pictures.

We crossed the Kansas border an hour and forty minutes after leaving home. Unfortunately, Kansas wasn't any more exciting than Oklahoma (sorry Kodi). Although we did see a wind farm, how fitting we thought. The wind mills are huge and turn a lot slower than I would have thought. Once again Peter has a cooler job than me, darn it.

We also saw a huge grain factory, which I'm assuming is the Ft. Knox of Grain. Unfortunately we were on a tight schedule so there was no time for stopping to see vaults of wheat, may be next time.

We saw several farms that reminded me of Dorothy's farm from the Wizard of OZ, which lead to a somewhat in depth conversation about the symbolism in the Wizard of Oz. Things really started to liven up in western Kansas when we hit the edge of some thunderstorms. Luckily we just had some rain and no hail or high winds.

Rain greeted us again as we reached Colorado. Total travel time at this point-seven hours. When we started out for the day Peter was pretty excited about Colorado and kept saying "I think you are going to like Colorado". Well, once we got out of the rain I finally got to see Colorado-like Kansas only browner. I was not a big fan and made sure Peter knew this. We drove and drove and no sign of mountains, I began to think the mountains were all a fraud and made sure Peter knew I felt this way. Finally, after a little over two hours of driving we spotted mountains at 6:26pm MDT and trust me they are not a fraud. We drove through Denver (the mile high city), someday we will have to come back for a visit. After eleven hours of driving we arrived at our stop for day one - Ft. Collins. We have a nice view of the mountains from our window.

Max is doing very well, which is to be expected since he such a world traveler.

Tomorrow Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho (no, you-da-ho, get it?). Stay tuned for more adventures from our road trip.

The Quirkiness of Portland

There was an interesting article on CNN.com Monday about the fun and funkiness that makes Portland unique. It definitely added several "must sees" (like the Velveteria) to our ever growing list. Check out the article it is pretty entertaining, and perhaps it will inspire you to embrace the quirkiness around you.