I visited my daughter a few weeks ago in Portland, Oregon where she lives.

Portland is a city I thought I knew something about. A few years ago, I did a PowerPoint presentation for the Travel Club in my community called “Gem cities –Places you Want to Visit, but Don’t Know It” .  Portland was one of those gem cities—as was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Buffalo, New York.

I knew that Portland was a city of parks and that people who like to enjoy the outdoors are attracted to it. It also claimed to have a great public transportation system. And it was the epicenter of the microbrewery movement.  Food trucks were supposed to be a big thing in Portland, too. And of course, it rains a lot there.

So, did my research into Portland and the real place mesh?

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is that there were a few surprises. For instance, some of the neighborhoods looked like a Northern rust-belt city to me.

The food trucks are parked wherever there is a space for them—sometimes in what appear to be abandoned lots. Dozens of food trucks can be clustered together rather like a food-truck trailer park.  (We never ate at any food trucks, however.)

The downtown is beautiful with many interesting buildings and green spaces and upscale retailers like Nieman Marcus.

The one thing that struck me was how young the population appeared to be. I live in Florida, which skews older. Portland is the opposite—whenever I saw someone about my age, I actually got excited. “Look there’s an older person,” I’d exclaim, as if I was a zoo looking at an exotic animal. Okay—maybe not that dramatic, but it was a comfort to see a 50 or 60 something.

The parks were as abundant as I expected—and hiking and biking are the things to do. Most of the clientele in the hotel I stayed at were younger people who were pursuing these activities. I saw lots of waterproof jackets, backpacks and other evidence of an outdoorsy lifestyle.

Some of the parks are accessible only to hikers—and the fabled public transportation system can be ridden to these destinations. The street cars and buses run frequently and seem to be well used. Brenda and I rode the street car to some downtown destinations—and my fare was dubbed HC for “honored citizen” fare. I guess that’s a lot better than old fogey!

And yes, it does rain—when I was there is was mostly a drizzly kind of rain which necessitated a rain jacket. Even though there was rain every day, the sun peeked out frequently, making for a rainy/sunny mix which was pleasant.

Needless to say, my visit to Portland was great—partly because of spending time with Brenda and her significant other, but also because of the experiences I had while I was there. My next few blog posts will highlight a few special places in Portland.

Stay tuned!