Norwitz Notions

We only had one day to spend in Portland, Oregon and it was a scorcher.  We decided to do our neighborhood roaming in the morning and then find indoor spots for most of the day.  We then met friends for dinner. A) Alberta Street in the NE section. We drove up and down Alberta & […]

[Read more →]

When we were trying to figure out what to do on our one day in Portland during a heat wave, we met some moms in Salem who said we should go to OMSI.  To where?  To the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.  An entity big enough in Portland to warrant its own set of […]

[Read more →]

At the end of our day-long trek into Portland, we met up with a friend and her son at Kalga Kafe, a vegetarian restaurant in the southeast part of the city.  Dinner hours are 5pm-midnight (it serves lunch weekdays) and it hosts live bands some evenings.  Since this was a Saturday night, we thought we […]

[Read more →]

I’ve lived in cities with large central libraries before (like Boston) but the locations I’ve lived recently tend to have smaller ones (with access to more books via inter-library loan).  Portland has one of those old-fashioned but refreshing monuments to reading.  A library where you actually want to spend time, not just kill it. Multnomah […]

[Read more →]

Unlike our misadventure of the night before, our two night stay at Champoeg State Park, just south of Portland and north of Salem, was peaceful, quiet, and medically uneventful.  We arrived with concerns.  Since it was a weekend, and we were only booking a few days in advance, there were just two campsites left.  I […]

[Read more →]

The first overnight stop on our road trip from Petaluma, California to Vancouver, Canada, was in Southern Oregon at the Indian Mary Campground in Merlin. By Google Maps, it’s 410 miles and a 6:30 hour drive. With extensive stops, it was more like 9 or 10 hours. Indian Mary Park Uninc Josephine County, Oregon 7100 […]

[Read more →]

This huge and beautiful park is worth the couple mile detour for anyone travelling along I-5 in Oregon.  Our first stop was the picnic area.  They have a large covered section of tables, which was taken when we were there so we ate at a table in the sun (during a heat wave unfortunately). The […]

[Read more →]

While driving north on I-5 through Oregon, I paged through an Oregon tourist guide looking for a good place to stop for lunch.  We decided on Salem, with the fabulous Riverfront Park next to a children’s museum. A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village http://www.acgilbert.org/ 116 Marion St. NE, Salem, Oregon 97301 503-371-3631 or 1-800-208-9514 Admission is $5.50 […]

[Read more →]