Oregon, part deux

Once we got our sweet ride, Amanda and I drove to our hotel in downtown Portland and settled in for the night. I quickly discovered that the hotel walls were about as thick as a sheet of tissue paper. The people in the room next to ours were up at all hours doing all kinds of things as I fruitlessly tried to get some sleep. I think I got about two hours of sleep total that night. That brings us to Day Two...

Friday, August 25: The long and winding roads
Friday morning I was up early and ready to hit the road to Eugene. One triple espresso, a few U-turns and a couple of grumbles later, we were finally on I-5 South and ready to explore new terrain.

We arrived in Eugene a couple of hours later. With about an hour to spare before my lunch meeting, we walked around the campus and checked out the bookstore. While walking around campus, I took a picture of some spunky flowers that I found amusing...they look like they're giving the finger:



I met up with two of the PhD students at the program and they took me and Amanda to lunch, on the j-school. That was really nice of them. After lunch, we both had our meetings with the grad directors of each program. Amanda really liked her program (master's in arts administration) and director. I'm not sure if the journalism program there is a good fit for me, though. I was a little bummed about that, but I'm glad I went so I could find out before applying.

Because we were fortunate enough to have a convertible on a warm, sunny day, we decided to take the scenic route back to Portland. We put the top down on the Mustang and drove towards the Pacific Coast Highway. The drive to the coast went through the mountains via a winding two-lane road. It was gorgeous. I had a huge smile on my face as I took in the scenery from behind the wheel.

We headed north once we got to the coast. It was windy and chilly, but we weren't ready to put the top up yet. Instead, we put on hoodies that we were smart enough to pack for our trip. After about an hour of driving up the coast with numb fingers and the car's heat blowing on our feet, we decided to stop at an overlook and put the top up. Here's the view of the ocean from our stop:





A little later, we stopped for dinner at a seafood restaurant overlooking the coast. I got the most fresh and delicious crab legs I've ever eaten. After dinner we headed back inland and I was getting very tired. The two hours of sleep from the night before were really starting to wear on me. By the time we got to the airport to drop off our car, I was painfully exhausted and had only one focus: get me to my bed, stat.

We took the light rail to downtown Portland and had an enlightening walk to our hotel. After that walk, we both decided that our hotel just might be in a shady part of town. I finally got to hop into bed around 1 am and had no trouble falling asleep. We still had the entire weekend left to enjoy the city...

posted by elizabeth @ 5:56 PM