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Found out that The Proclaimers were playing in Portland and Las Vegas, and my wife really liked them, so we decided to make a small vacation out of it. We flew up to Portland on Saturday, lunched at a greasy spoon diner (pork loin lunch, yum!) and spent the afternoon driving along the Historic Columbia River Highway (pdf). We stopped at the Crown Point Vista House, Latourell Falls, Shepperds Dell, the Bridal Veil Falls, and the Multnomah Falls. All were very nice, our favorite had to be Shepperds Dell, which was also one of the least trafficked and secluded.

We stayed in Vancouver, WA, at a Phoenix Inn Suites. The hotel was ok (I’d give it 3 out of 5), but the price was right. Not exactly true suites, and a bit rough around the edges, but no significant complaints. Dinner on Saturday was at Patrick’s Hawaiian Cafe in Vancouver, which was quite good and a great local spot. What a menu, this restaurant had, plus live music to boot.

Sunday we decided to avoid the mom’s day crowds and drive up to the ape cave, located on the side of Mount Saint Helens. Unbeknownst to us, the cave is a mile hike from the parking lot, and the mile trail was covered in snow with no markers or even an indication as to which direction we wished to hike. Warning to winter/spring travelers wishing to visit this cave: bring snowshoes and a GPS with the lat/lon of the cave entrance and/or a trail map. We enjoyed the drive, nonetheless, particularly there was very little traffic. On our way back, we stopped at the Oregon side of the Bonneville Dam and took the lovely tour. Dinner was at the Döner House, also in Vancouver, a fast food German restaurant, which was very good (as good as most German restaurant food I’ve had) and not busy.

Monday we headed into Portland via their light rail train system (MAX). The Chinese garden was our first destination, which was quite lovely. Definitely a different experience from the Japanese gardens we usually see, more of a focus on the courtyard design and the way windows and doorways create portals into the garden scene (almost as if framing a beautiful painting.) Lunch at a dim sum restaurant, a quick visit to Powell’s books (I’ve been trying to cull my book collection, so no interest there), then we tried to go to the art museum or some of the galleries, all of which were closed ’cause it was Monday. Dinner was at a lackluster Lebanese restaurant.

Tuesday was spent in Washington Park, first in the beautiful Japanese garden, then the Portland Zoo. Both were quite impressive, much better than we had expected. The zoo even had halfway-decent food (better than most zoos). The evening was the concert, with a nice meal of Cuban cuisine before. The concert was good, but not great.

Wednesday, before flying out, we had a couple hours which we spent by visiting Horsetail Falls, which we missed on Saturday. The hike was beautiful, hiking behind the upper falls was neat, and it was great fun seeing a pika about 20′ away from me in a pile of rock. We flew home after visiting the falls.

Went to the 2008 IEEE Aerospace Conference (I was the lead author on one paper and secondary author on a second) over the first week of March. Decided to head out a couple days early to get the tourism stuff over early.

Wednesday, Feb. 27 – flying out. Late lunch in Butte at a little pizza place. Ok food, nothing special. Checked in to the Gallatin Gateway Inn. We had stayed there one night in Oct. 2001 when we last visited Yellowstone, and were looking forward to staying there again. Dinner was very nice, particularly the brownie dessert with caramel ice cream, caramel corn, and drizzled caramel on top. What, no nuts? No raspberry drizzle? No strawberries cut delicately and splayed out? PERFECT. The brownie was amazing, so amazing that we got it the second night.

Thursday, Feb. 28 – Drove down to W. Yellowstone for a snow coach tour, but first a quick breakfast of buckwheat pancakes, yum. The snow coach from Alpenguides amazing fun. We were packed in like sardines, and it was great fun. The pop-up roof was well worth it, when we came across elk and bison in the roadway folks could pop up and take photos safely and with little interruption to our trip. Much time was spent in the Old Faithful area, enough to see two eruptions and have lunch in the snow lodge, plus a visit to the castle guyser which was erupting constantly. Ride back we stopped at the mud pots, which are my favorites. Although I remember them being bigger when I was a kid…

Dinner in the evening was again at the Inn, and was very nice again. This time, I had the Sonoran-spiced chicken breast, which was perfectly cooked and nicely spiced. Another glass of the same wine as Wednesday, delish (some Paso Robles red, I don’t remember the winery or variety, but it was very good, and I like to drink wines from my alma mater’s neighborhood, particularly when I find their wines at far-away places like this.) And we split the brownie this night…I was tempted by the bananas foster but my waistline thought the better of it.

Friday, Feb. 29 – Decided to wander around town, and noticed signs pointing us towards the Museum of the Rockies. I’m a museum junkie, so what the heck. Little did I know that this museum packed an extensive, and very important, collection of dinosaur fossils. These include the largest t-rex skull, a full t-rex skeleton installed in a display in the same arrangement it was found on the hillside, and a lot of other skeletons. Very interesting. Getting hungry, we decided to grab some lunch downtown (I kinda wished there was a dining option at the museum, but no biggie). We tooled around Bozeman, what a neat downtown! Not a chain store in sight (on the main drag, the chain stores are segregated to the south/west side of town) and some unique buildings. Happened across the Cateye Cafe on a side street and we had a late lunch of comfort foods (me: turkey shephard’s pie, her: grilled cheese with bacon.) We were stuffed and happy. Note to self, though, cianti does not go with turkey and potatoes. Everything was very tasty, including the cianti, and the staff was nice and friendly.

Evening, we decided to make the jaunt back to Butte to catch The Clintons playing at The Silver Dollar Saloon. We got there a bit early, not knowing what the parking/crowd situation would be like, and we had a couple drinks and some popcorn. (Only other option for food was pork rinds.) We were so stuffed from our late lunch that we didn’t need anything substantial, and the drinks were cheap, so who am I to complain? The band started promptly at 9pm, and they rocked! The acoustics, the crowd, the band were all jamming. The show lasted ’til 1:45am (yes, almost 5 hours) with only one 10-minute break mid-show. Seeing this band with locals was so worth the trip, you can’t imagine. Folks were singing along to many of their belters… Needless to say, the show was worth the trip, and I’d recommend The Clintons to anyone wanting to see a good show. Probably the best live act I’ve ever seen, although The Slackers (who played the lamplighter in Campbell, CA, a couple years back) would be a close second.

Saturday, Mar. 1, took the wife to the airport (on the way there it was snowing fairly hard, and my favorite part was driving past a couple horses running in the snow, what a sight!) Spent a couple hours in the Museum again (this time taking some photos), then picked up a co-worker from the other airport and headed up to Big Sky. Oh, had some mediocre Chinese food in Belgrade before heading up.

Sunday, Mar. 2-Thursday, Mar. 6 – Attended the 2008 IEEE Aerospace Conference. I was not particularly impressed by the venue (confusing layout, staffed almost exclusively by college kids, expensive) but the conference was great fun. On Tuesday, a co-worker from JSC and I headed down to the Lone Mountain Ranch for a day (~5 hours) of snowshoeing. I’d never done it before, and we had a blast. It was snowing most/all of the time, but generally little wind and we were warm the whole time. Buffet lunch at the ranch house was wonderful, and quite inexpensive for what was served. A real class-act, this Ranch. Much more calm than the chaos that is Big Sky. I didn’t get a chance (nor was I particularly interested) to do some downhill skiing. Perhaps next time.

Friday, Mar. 7 – Flew back to San Jose. Little did I know that the following week was spring break for the University of Montana in Bozeman. If/when I go back to the Aerospace Conference, I’ll try to make sure to find out when spring break is and plan accordingly. (It might have been wiser to stay a couple days after the conference…Although travel was fine.)