Portland is known to be rainy and for people coming from the dry San
Diego this city feels more like wet-land. So it was not surprising that
rain greeted us when we landed here two months ago. A fortnight after we
moved to Portland, we had unpacked most of our home and set it up. We
were all excited to explore the city that was our new home but the only
dampener was the rain. Mind you we were the newbies in town then, yet to
soak in the Portland spirit. It is a different tale now that we have gotten used to the "now there- now gone" kind of sprinkling rain that
is typical of Portland weather, but this story is of the time before
that. So on a wet sunday afternoon after lunch at a friend's home, we
hit the road for a drive through the scenic route our hosts suggested
for a dekko. While San Diego boasted of beach getaways at a stone's
throw distance from almost all parts of the city, Portland has its
share of nature's treasures. The city is flanked by Columbia river on
one side while its major tributary the Willamette flows right through
the heart of the city. So the downtown has its share of bridges that
take you across the Willamette earning Portland the sobriquet "City
of bridges".
The river Columbia, the second largest in North America comes to Portland all the way from the Canada on her way to the Pacific ocean. The Columbia river scenic area boasts of a large number of waterfalls, thanks to the Cascade mountain range that has volcanic rocks through which the underground springs from the mountains, rainwater and the melt-offs from winter-snow all flow through/fall from to create breathtaking waterfalls. The most popular among them is Multnomah falls, a two tiered natural beauty where you can see water plunging down from a height of nearly 620 feet to the ground in two major steps. Driving in the downpour was quite an experience, and soon we were on our way to the Columbia river gorge. Thankfully as we neared Multnomah falls, the rain thinned to a drizzle. The fact that the parking lot was packed with cars meant we were not the only ones marking our presence at the waterfall during rain. The waterfall looked spectacular even from the parking lot. The stone stairway leading to the view point added an old world charm to the place. We wanted to get a closer look at the cascade and by followed a paved trail that took us to a quaint looking footbridge. This bridge is just above the lower cascade. The trail continues all the way up to the top of the Multnomah falls and beyond that there are multiple paths that lead to various other waterfalls that dot the Gorge. As we stood on the footbridge, the wind blew cold water-drops from the waterfall on our face. After spending a few minutes soaking ourselves in the sprinkles from both the fall and the rain-gods, we decided to return during drier times for a trek all the way to the top. The impromptu nature of the trip meant we just had our phone camera to capture the images of the Mountain water descending down like a veiled beauty.
Now if only we could have had garma garam chai accompanied with samosas or pakodas it would have been a perfect Sunday... Little surprise then that our next stop was a food joint in downtown Portland where we savored samosas and Vada pav. The place was aptly named Bollywood dreams and the ambience had a filmy flavor in the form of movie posters of Bollywood blockbusters like Mughal-e-Azam, Sholay and the like. All our cravings satisfied, it was a perfect Sunday.
