When in Portland...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Portland

Portland,Oregon the city of Roses, Rip City, Bridgetown; the greenest city in the United States and the 2nd greenest in the world. Home to Mount St. Helens. Incorporated in 1851, Portland got its name in a coin toss. Seriously!! Asa Lovejoy and Francis W. Pettygrove, the founding fathers wanted to name their town after their beloved hometown. Lovejoy was from Boston, Massachusetts and Pettygrove was from Portland, Maine. Pettygrove won and I had the opportunity to visit the beautiful city of Portland for a couple of hours. I flew into Portland for a vacation and after I got done at the airport I was to meet my brother for lunch in downtown Portland at Sushi Land. *yummmmy sushi!

I received directions to where I needed to go and found myself in the wrong end of town.

I have been to Portland maybe twice in my entire life.... a couple of school trips that constituted the bus driver driving into Portland, I got off the bus and got right back on. But in getting lost I learned a few things that everyone should know:

*Roses from the Portland Oregon LDS Temple

1. Get a map! Even though your directions may be simple, you will still need to see it visually to understand. I-405 wraps itself around the city and you might think as I did that you are on the wrong road but due to the lack of signage saying: Honey, 3 more miles until you reach the Morrison Bridge! I did not even drive far enough to get to my exit. Get a map and use it!

2. Traffic: I found myself doing 55 miles an hour on the interstate!!!! I called Hotstuff screaming because I had to drive so slowly. Here in Utah, 55 is not an acceptable speed limit. 75 is the acceptable speed limit!!!!!! Whatever you do: do not go through a yellow light. To Oregonians, yellow means stop. To Utahns, it means haul your ass before you get stopped at the red light! Oh, and sometimes you can't make a right on red! Oops!

3. Know your Simpson's and your Alphabet:

Matt Groening, the creator of the Simpson's, is from Portland. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Groening)
Many of the characters from the Simpson's, are named after streets in Portland. I had the pleasure of driving on Burnside (Mr. Burns) and crossing Flanders Street(Ned Flanders- hey diddleyho neighborino!). Numbers run east to west and names run alphabetically north to south.

4. Parks and Bridges: Portland is famous for it's parks. There is a park that runs almost the entire length of the city and in fact the worlds smallest park resides in the middle of a street. There are also 12 bridges in Portland crossing over the Willamette River.

5. You must pay for parking!!!!: I found a good parking spot just outside the restaurant where we ate. I saw the signs for time allowed for parking. Mine was 90 minutes. I saw a small kiosk a few feet away from my car but had no idea what it was for. After I had already been in the restaurant for about an hour, my brother and I left. While my brother smoked his cigarette, I stood by my car and talked to him.
"Did you pay for parking?" he asks.
"Did I need to pay for parking?" I asked in return, naive to the need to pay for parking. My brother laughs at me.
"Come with me," he tells me. We walk down to the kiosk and he pays $.80 for a half hour with his debit card so that I can park for a few more minutes. Come to find out that if you do not pay for parking or if your ticket runs out it is a $40 ticket!

So there you have it! Honey's guide to Portland! OH! and FYI- the ghetto is on the northeast side of town.