Welcome to Portland!!!

Oregon is really a stunning state with a great deal of geological diversity and some superb roads. Next time through here, take McKenzie Pass road (summer only) over the central Cascades for a good time between Eugene and Sisters.

 

Hi Steve! I rode that on my 1982 R100RS, some years ago; an unforgettable experience.

By the way, during our Oregon travels, it was a great comfort knowing that your shop was just a few hours away.

 

Awesome road trip,

Thanks for the tip on Jakes, we're going to Portland next weekend,mill have to try it out.

 

Sir, I've really enjoyed living vicariously through your posts! My folks have lived in Fossil and Halfway (near Hell's Canyon) and I would love to follow your route one day. The roads in Florida just can't bring out the true beauty of a Porsche. Take Care,
Matt

 

Kika:

Suggest you get to the section in the bar, by about 3:30 pm, to get good seats. It has the best light, and great sightlines to the outside.

 

Thanks!
We are visiting some friends that just retired in *** Hill. Deb tells me that jakes has great Spanish coffee!

Any other suggestions? This will be our first time spending any time in PDX. we did visit U of Portland a few years ago when our son was looking at schools, but we didn't spend much time besides visiting the campus.

We love the outdoors, so we are looking forward to it.

 

Thanks for sharing those pics Rinty! I've never been in that region. I discovered it watching your trip report. Beautiful area, and the drive must have been good on those twisties!

 

Oh yes! Powell's Bookstore on 10th. It takes up a whole city block and has about a million books. I could spend a couple of days in there.

Also, I'm not a shopper, but Michael Allen's has cool men's clothing lines that you won't see anywhere else:

http://michaelallensstyle.com/

I got a nice fall jacket there.

There's a nice river walk alongside SW Naito Parkway, on the east side of downtown, all the way south to the Riverplace Marina:




Finally, if you're driving, come in through Sisters, as Steve suggested. Great roads, and there are lots of neat places in town. Have lunch at Bronco Billy's while you're passing through:

http://hotelsisters.com/about.html

 

Brono Billy's is good and the owner has a pcar...

lots of great food in Portland. one of our favorites is Andina - amazing peruvian food. mothers bistro used to be great and the list goes on and on....

 

Leaving Portland, we backtracked on I 84, and crossed the Columbia River on the Hood River Bridge. Then west to Carson, and north along the Wind River into the Gifford Pinchot Forest. I didn’t have an NFS map, and made a wrong turn at the Curley Creek intersection, which resulted in a drive of several miles on a very interesting road. Luckily, we were stopped at another junction when Ranger Rick came by and gave us directions to the road my wife said we should have taken all along. He and his assistants gave the car a hard look.

Back on track, we stopped for a few pictures in the Elk Pass area. I hadn’t expected to see snow this far west in the middle of June, but the elevation here is 4,170 above sea level:





A few minutes later, we arrived at our third destination road: Highway 99 to Spirit Lake. This was not to be:



Spirit Lake is on the east side of Mt. St. Helens, and we had really looked forward to seeing it.

We continued north to Highway 12, and had an enjoyable drive along the Cowlitz River and over White Pass . We called it a day at Yakima, which doesn’t seem to have much night life.

The next day we headed east on I 90, as I was getting a bit tired of running corners. So we reluctantly passed on our usual route, the twisty Highway 12 through Lolo Pass. The Lookout Pass section at the Montana border was interesting, even though it was raining. It’s one of the rare pretty sections of Interstate.

That evening, we celebrated my birthday at the Iron Horse Bar and Grill in Missoula.

The route for our last day of travel was over Highways 200, 287, and 89, which wend their way through the beautiful foothills of the Rocky Mountains all the way to the Border. We stopped at the Egg Mountain site, south of Choteau, and the scenery here is pretty typical for the area:






We got home in the late afternoon, and after putting the car away and unloading our stuff, we let the cats out and enjoyed a drink on the patio, reflecting on another successful trip.

Our 993's really are superb touring cars.

 

Rinty, really enjoy your posts and pics, please take more trips!

 

Thanks, Mike. I've still got a Nakusp trip in the can; just have to psyche myself up to write it up.

I wish they had a separate sub forum for trip reports here, like they do at BMW MOA. Then you'd get more viewers.