US and Canada Tour

Roz and Stan's big trip for 2015

Page 1 (30-31 May)

Sat 30 May 2015

Sydney to Portland (via Los Angeles)

Finally packed and waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to the airport. Two bicycles, two bags to be checked luggage, two pieces of hand-luggage. So the Ferrari is not ours - it just happened to be parked on the street.

Long flight but we made it there OK. This is from the gate in LA waiting for our flight to Portland.

Arrived in Portland and found that it was all set up for bicycle tourists - complete with a Bicycle Assembly Area right next to the luggage carousels and the train was right next to that and allowed bikes on board for free. Portland is a totally bike-friendly city.

We were in a hurry to try to get to the hostel we had booked before their reception closed so Stan put together both the bikes because he is a lot faster at it than me. (It takes me about 45 minutes - he can do it in half the time - and he doesn't get any left-over bits!)

Meanwhile I packed the panniers, bought the train tickets and called the hostel (once I'd worked out how the pay-phones worked) to tell them we were on our way.

They only had a dorm room - so bunk beds for the first 2 nights here.

Sun 31 May 2015

We had a day in Portland to explore, get over our jet-lag and buy things that we couldn't bring with us - like gas for the stoves and food. We also got SIM cards for our phones so we can call each other - and get data. Apparently AT&T have the best coverage - so I got the prepaid $60 plan that gives me unlimited talk and text and 4.5GB high speed data (then unlimited 128Mbps slow speed data) and Stan got the prepaid $45 plan with less data - I'll use my phone as a hot-spot for our ipads and my PC.

We walked into the 'down-town' area and back (about 12 km all together) as we thought we'd be doing plenty of cycling later.

We are hoping that this is the closest we get to a bear on our trip.

Some of the buildings in Portland are beautiful and historical - a lot of warehouses that have been gentrified.

Most of the pedestrian crossings at junctions in the city did not have buttons to push - you just had to wait - but on the way home we finally found one that did have a button and not only that - when you pushed it it had a little voice that says 'Wait'.... so we took a video - totally juvenile but we are on holiday here. Also on the subject of pedestrian crossings, I have to stop referring to the 'little green man' - as the man here appears to be white and there is no 'little red man' either - just a red hand.