On Thursday, October 17th, my family and I got on an Alaskan Airlines plane for a three hour and forty-five minute flight to Seattle at 7:30 (due to flight delays) only to rush to another flight that will take us to Portland. We were picked up by a friend and driven to her house only to crash at twelve midnight there while it was three in the morning in Delphi due to time zones.
First day of vacation in Portland started with my family and I visiting an outlook with an amazing view of the landscape of Corbett. Driving from attraction to attraction within Oregon made me witness the scale of the mountains and forested areas that Oregon has. The mountains were probably around 500ft tall with amazing details and textures to their compositions. Next, I went to Hood River Water Front Park where I got some amazing pictures of the lake and its surroundings. To finish the day, we visited a lavender shop where they had ice cream that tasted more like a snow cone to me. Day two involved visiting a food market were I bought apples from a stand. After that, we visited Tillamook, a cheese and ice cream production plant and restaurant/gift shop, which had some amazing ice cream and showed you the production for their cheese products (if you work there, you can get ice cream for free). After that, we visited Cannon Beach where they shot a famous scene from the Goonies.
Our plan for day three involved visiting the Museum of Pop Culture which has a giant attraction made entirely out of guitars. They also have a fantasy/sci-fi and horror section where they have models and replicas of famous movies from genres such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Friday the Thirteenth They also had a section dedicated to Indie video games and famous musicians from the early 1900’s. Next was one of my favorite parts of the trip which was touring the glass sculptures of Chihuly. The detail and shapes of those pieces are astonishing and fascinating to observe and I’m very glad to have viewed his work. I hope it will inspire other young artists in their artwork. Next up on the vacation was the Seattle Aquarium where they house sea-horses, fish of all types, and an impressive manta ray. It also included facts about the people of Bali having a day of silence to celebrate the Hindu holiday, Nyepi. The exhibit included three sea lions and some very cute otters.
Later that day, we went on a boat tour where I learned about how the Space Needle was a present to celebrate the first world fair in the 1900’s. Lastly, my mom and I visited an exhibit displaying real life artifacts retrieved from the Titanic, such as a life vest and a bench. The my family and I visited the famous gum wall where I placed a piece of gum to mark my existence there. We then went to the Space Needle which had an amazing view of the city of Seattle and it’s buildings. It was even more spectacular at night with the whole city lit up and the sunset up there “legendary.”
My favorite part of the trip was when we visited Ashford and saw its amazing waterfalls and forested areas. It was like a scene from Lord of the Rings. My brother and I hiked to the top of snow covered Carbonado at which point we saw an amazing waterfall, snow covered pine trees, and mountains concealed by fog. Lastly, we hiked to Corbett, where there as another waterfall and I bought some merchandise at a gift shop. I also bought some veggie sushi which was pretty good for my standards. After waking up to catch a flight at 4 am to Seattle then to Chicago, we finally made it back to Delphi.