As the plane was about to land at Portland International Airport, before it continued onward toward its final destination, I overheard a couple talking a few rows behind me. “Is there anything to see in Portland?” A woman asked her man. “Nah, Portland is the kind of place you drive through on your way to somewhere else” he said. “It’s not a real destination in itself.”
If I wasn’t about to disembark, so happy to be home in my now favorite city, I might have set him straight. But then again, maybe it’s a good thing some people feel this way. It keeps the traffic down a bit.
The couples’ conversation also catapulted me backward seven years, to when my husband and I were first considering a move here. I remember driving on the freeway on a grey, wet day in May, looking at the run-down, stained concrete overpasses and industrial-looking buildings. I didn’t see the beauty either, making it hard to understand why so many people were enchanted with this drippy city.
Since then, I’ve come to know the insane beauty and fascinating nuances all around us, in every direction. Now, when I see those same dingy freeway buttresses, they amuse me. They’re such an anomaly in a town brimming over with roses, rhododendrons, fountains, parks, rivers, lakes and hundreds of miles of trails criss-crossing forests, creeks and canyons.
No, you don’t see these Portland attractions from the freeway, which, I suppose, inspire some people to keep going, passing us by completely. And that actually works in our favor.
It could translate into a few less riders along the river bike path, a shorter line at Mother’s Bistro for breakfast, or possibly an open table at Expatriate, when I get a craving for a James Beard onion & butter sandwich. (It’s really good btw!) All I can say is, I’m glad I looked beyond those mottled overpasses. It could easily have been me, driving onward, in search of a ‘real’ destination.