Challenge Day #22

#22: My Favorite City

This is a hard topic for me because when I travel, it's often to the same places, and they aren't really anything new or too exciting. Other places may have been pretty cool, but I only went there once when I was 8 years old or something like that. So, I suppose I will say that my favorite city is Portland, Oregon, which is about 2 hrs from where I live and the biggest city (according to population) in Oregon, and the 30th most populous in the United States. (Eugene is the 2nd most populous in Oregon.)

The mass majority of my experience in Portland has been traveling to and from the airport. We do have an airport in Eugene, but it's much smaller and slightly more expensive. So, most people go through PDX (Portland). 

  

Aside from trips to the airport, my other major experience in Portland has been to youth rallies and concerts at the Rose Garden. Our youth group used to go here nearly every year to a big Christian rally, Acquire the Fire. 

  

When we went to the Rose Garden, we'd often take the MAX train in between events to go to the Lloyd Center mall for shopping and lunch in the food court. The train is free to use and travels between places in 10-15 minute increments. 

 

The Lloyd Center is HUGE, to me! In Texas, the little town I lived in had the rinkiest, dinkiest little shopping mall. I was impressed that the town I live in now has two major malls, but one of them is significantly better than the other. The Lloyd Center has more levels and MANY more stores compared to our mall, though. It has a large food court and even has an ice skating rink inside!

  

 

It wasn't until Jesse and I went to Portland to celebrate our anniversary in July that we experienced parts of Portland we had never seen. We took a cruise ship on the Willamette River and ate a nice lunch while enjoying the view of the city. 

  

We went to the Japanese Garden (although it was summer, not fall, at the time):

  

And we visited the Ira Keller Fountain:

My experience with Portland is still fairly limited, but more than my enjoyment of Portland, I really love living in Oregon. It's not a very well known state in the United States. When I was moving here from Texas, I was literally asked where in Texas Oregon was. Oh, you know. It's that chunk of land between California and Washington. But what I love about Oregon is the diversity and beauty of it. I can drive 30 minutes from here and travel down the river with all of the trees and enjoy the view or camp in it. If you drive an hour and half in another direction you can travel up the coastline and visit the beaches. We have mountains, desserts, and lakes in the other directions. We have big cities and small towns and beautiful landscape all around. Words don't do it justice. Pictures would be better, but it'd be hard to track them all down. Just take my word for it!