On the way to Portland, Oregon

I haven't really used my GPS for quite a while, since my maps and roadsigns have been quite adequate to get me where I've wanted to go, but I've started using it again to find specific campgrounds listed in the AAA campground book and also today to find specific locations in Portland, Oregon. This GPS's notice of specific turns is not as good as with my old GPS, but this one also will find specific intersections even without specific addresses and it will find the center of a town even if given no specific address - things my old GPS couldn't do.

After a couple of mishaps related to finding a campground, I decided that maybe it was time for me to look for a motel again. I had originally anticipated going to a motel once a week on a rainy day. In fact, however, altho there have been a couple of rainy nights, there haven't been any rainy days except one at Glacier, so I've just been using the tent and , sometimes on especially cold nights, the car.
I finally found a motel just 20 minutes from downtown Portland for $55.00 which included free WIFI, use of a microwave oven, a refrigerator and also a laundry room.

In Portland I visited the art museum. It is in two very attractive buildings, although as one might expect, their collection does not begin to compare to Philadelphia's. It does have a small collection of Impressionist paintings but the focus is much more on modern abstract art.
Portland also has a street which includes several blocks of tree shaded parks with lots of park benches. The street is named Park Street - not very imaginative but certainly descriptive enough. I enjoyed just sitting there for half an hour and watching people stroll by. I then took a walk around the downtown area which took me past their concert hall and their main theater which was playing O'Neil's "Long Days Journey into Night." Portland seems to have a cultural district somewhat like Philadelphia's Avenue of the Arts.

I had thought of going to Israeli dancing, which is held here on Sunday evening, and had even looked up the address on the internet when I was still back in Philadelphia; when I was in Israel several years go at the Carmiel Dance Festival, where a thousand people dance all night on the tennis courts after the performers have finished their performances, I danced with a woman from Portland and thought it would be nice to run into her again, but in the end the prospect of spending a nice warm evening with a hot bath in my own personal private bathroom was just too good to give up. In this case Israeli dancing just couldn't compete with the hot bath.

Sign for the day:While I was sitting in the park across from a sign among the flowers which said, "Please keep your dog(s) out of the flower beds. Thank you," a dog came along trailing a leash, went over to the sign, lifted his leg, and took a pee. I figure it was an act of defiance on the dog's part, or maybe he/she just couldn't read.