Portland

I got to Portland a few hours ago, very tired and not really in a mood for sightseeing. I got some food, got lost on the roads for a while, got coffee, sat on the waterfront esplanade. I'll be staying at a McMenamins hotel tonight here in Portland, so I can get a good night's sleep for a very long ride tomorrow to Crater Lake.

It's raining pretty hard now. I'm tired and don't feel like riding, I'll sit out the storm.

I decided to take a few hours off from riding and get some work done. Centralia has at least half a dozen powersports stores within a 5 mile radius, so I bought a new pair of cold-weather gloves at one of them. Then I headed to a wifi cafe listed online, so I'll stay here for a few hours and then head south. The weather's pretty grim, looks like it'll start raining any minute, but maybe it'll blow away by the time I leave.

After dinner I visited Pioneer Square, the original founding location of the city and now a downtown shopping area. I was in the mood for some pool and found a billiards club, but finding a street not too shady to leave my bike with all the gear on was difficult. I finally found an empty street near the club with a Mercedes parked on it, so I parked behind that. The tables were great. Then I took route 5 south about 70 miles to Centralia, WA where I had booked a room in the Motel6. I checked in a few minutes ago.