On Friday Peter and I went on a field trip. In a school bus!

Why? We had the pleasure of participating in the 2nd event presented by Portland’s Dill Pickle Club: The “How Are Things Made?” Tour.

This was an event that is right up our alleys. We love watching shows like How It’s Made. In St. Louis Peter and I lived by the Anheuser Busch brewery so I had many opportunities to go on its factory tour and always found it interesting. Pretty much any opportunity I have to see behind-the-scenes production of any product, event, job, etc I will jump on. It gives you insight and respect for how something we often take for granted comes together.

On our tour we visited 3 places:

• Intel
• Pendleton Woolen Mills
• Port of Portland Marine Terminal 6

We also enjoyed a brief conversation/lecture from Dr. Randall Bluffstone, Chair of Economics Dept. over at Portland State University.

So I will get to the tours in a moment but I just have to say that being in a big yellow cheese wagon is exactly the same as it was growing up, only I have gotten bigger and the seats haven’t. But it was fun nostalgia.

Intel

The Intel tour in Hillsboro, OR was very sterile. Which I guess is fitting when I think about it. The tour was like a slick slice of a science museum experience, and we learned about what goes into making the processor chips and how much they have progressed over the years. It was really fascinating. But we didn’t get to see any actual production. I think the building the tour was at was nothing but office drones anyway. It would have been nice to at least see a video of a chip being made.

There was a Q&A portion of the tour. Our group was very interested in things like environmental impacts and foreign relations. I asked a question about how many chips Intel makes and the speaker did not know the answer.

One of my favorite parts of this tour was the oversized computer with Windows 3.1 era boxes and a throwback Intel commercial shot on it.

Pendleton Woolen Mills

So this was the best tour of the day, but no photos were allowed. This place is in Washougal, Washingon, right across the river from Portland. Before the tour we were in the attached store with clothing and blankets and Peter and I were like “this stuff is lame.” After the tour we wanted to buy something because we were so impressed with what goes into making the materials.

First, from a technical standpoint, this tour is great because everyone gets to wear a headset that is tuned to a frequency that the guide’s microphone is on. Thus you never suffer from being in the back of the line or the guide having their back to you. Everyone can  adjust their volume to a level that suits them. EVERY TOUR EVER should do this :)

So during the tour we get to see fresh wool from the sheep’s back in bundles, learn about the methods of dying the wool, see it being combed and spun into thread, and see the thread on looms making fabric. We were walking through the mill, next to the giant deliciously 1960’s green machines that roll the threads, walking next to old school tables and safety posters from the 80s, and walking past consciously-ignoring-us employees on their breaks. Some of the looms were so old they use a patterned ticker-tape looking thing that “tells” it what pattern to weave. This mill’s daily operations don’t appear to have changed in the past several decades, but if it ain’t broke…

The QA in the factory really impressed us… as the loom weaves the fabric, it is examined for errors/holes/etc.. and it is examined a couple of times after. Every square inch sees human eyes. In fact the human element is present at every stage in the production.  You can read a little more about this and see some blurry photos here.

The blankets are all made in the USA at Pendleton factories but the clothing is all sewn overseas.

Port of Portland, Terminal 6

First off here’s some facts swiped right from the Wikipedia entry:

• Port of Portland’s marine terminals export the largest amount of wheat from the United States and third largest amount in the world.
• It is also the fifth largest port for tonnage, third largest auto import gateway in the country, the largest mineral bulk port on the U.S. west coast, and the 17th largest port for cargo containers in the United States.
• Around one thousand businesses and corporations are said to use the Port’s marine facilities.
• Imports and exports at the Port of Portland total about $14 billion USD, annually.

Port of Portland has four terminals. We saw Terminal 6, which has most of the storage containers and cars. I don’t know why it is called Terminal 6 if there are only four total, but you can probably google that.

So this terminal deals with a lot of heavy stuff. This tour was really enjoyable because our guide was nice, loud and knowledgeable. We seemed to be driving around the premises after daily work was done so we didn’t get to see a lot of stuff going on but it was fascinating to see the big machinery and vast use of land. These photos were taken from inside the school bus, and it was drizzling, so forgive me.

Those crane looking thingies are parked right on the edge of the land, overlooking the columbia river. They lift up the containers and place them off and on the barges.

Each of these containers is the size of a load on a full size semi truck.

This neat machine picks up these massive heavy containers like it’s no big deal. It was interesting seeing this approach… it makes the PODS approach seem a little rudimentary. Also that POD container is half the length of these containers.

And that concluded our day. Not pictured: Peter and I enjoying a brown bag lunch I packed us, suburban mom style. It even had a freakin ice pack and napkins in it. And it met all our food pyramid guidelines.

Portland has many 4-way intersections with no stop signs. Seriously!

Sure they are mostly in quiet low-traffic residential areas. But it still freaks me out and Peter and I have had a couple of close calls where we didn’t realize the cross-street didn’t have a stop sign and we almost got hit.

And when you do meet cross-traffic at one of these ghost sign intersections it is one of those awkward “you go” “no you” or a simultaneous “FINE, I’ll go” tangos.

If I had to guess I’d say this is perhaps actually meant to improve safety and traffic calming, because it forces you to slow down and look around at each intersection. But if you aren’t used to it, it’s kinda dangerous.

This plays into our theory that Portland is anti-signage altogether. Exhibit B is streetsigns. They love to get bent or turned so you can’t tell what street you are driving down anymore. Or they love to hide behind trees so you can’t read them at all. I have a little tree-hugger in me but come on, you gotta trim that up. Some of us don’t know where we’re going yet. If Portland wants to create more jobs they should hire people whose responsibility is to maintain signage visibility/existence. It will help us all get where we’re going, and safer!

/soapbox

© studentofrhythm

We landed in Portland June 4th with a big goal: buy a home. Yesterday it was finalized!

We are the very proud owners of a 1911 craftsman home in northeast Portland.

A very empty home we now get to decorate and furnish. I’ll be honest.. it seems really daunting. I have been tearing pages from magazines and saving images off the web for decorating inspiration for many months. But I have no idea where to start on my own.

We named our home Bauhaus! For more photos click the pic above. Feel free to share ideas on colors! I think I want to paint the kitchen a yummy green but beyond that not sure what to keep or paint over yet.

Tomorrow the POD gets dropped off. If you are going to have a POD parked on a Portland street you have to get a permit, by the way. $20 and you can only have it parked there for two weeks.

I want to give a plug to the team that made our home buying process go so smoothly. Kudos to our amazingly patient and helpful Realtor Deb Counts-Tabor with Oregon Realty and savvy broker Michael Sullivan with Capital M Lending. And thanks to all our friends (old and new!!) and family for tips and support along the way.

When Peter and I were taking our cross country drive to Portland, we were so excited about the new land ahead of us and our new, close proximity to natural beauty. “Let’s go to the coast in the next week or two!” we said. We never went. Housebuying matters took priority.

Our friend Courtney came to visit a couple of weeks ago and it was a great excuse to finally head west and make acquaintence with the Oregon coast. We decided to go to Cannon Beach. Just over an hour’s drive from Portland, we had a very pretty drive through the hills. It was a little alarming to see hillsides of tree stumps from recent logging… it’s not an industry prevalent in the midwest, so the mass tree graves kinda freak me out.

Anyway, unlike any other coasts I have been to, the Oregon coast doesn’t really give you any hints it exists til you’re right on top of it. It goes from tree-woods-wilderness to beach.

Our first stop in the town was at a kite shop. Kites are apparently a hot commodity on the Oregon coast because we saw several other kite shops the more we explored. Here’s some photos from our day at the beach.

Peter, myself, and Courtney:

Foggy Haystack Rock, famous for appearing in The Goonies and other films:

Courtney flying her kite:

After we left Cannon Beach to head back to Portland, there was a traffic jam on the only road out. We decided to make a u-turn and check out Seaside which is another beach town north of Cannon Beach. I had heard Seaside was a happening place and I know they have 4th of July stuff going on there. However I think we went the wrong way into town or missed the main strip because the town seemed rather rundown and the beach was not as exciting as Cannon beach.

Peter and I cannot wait to close on our new house.. some time this week (!!). The place we’ve been staying temporarily is… not that great. To pass the time the other day I taught Peter how to play Rummy and he taught me how to play Poker with these Diet Coke playing cards I picked up in the dollar bin at Target last week. Can’t wait to unpack our other games when we move in :)