Train travels, Portland and environs happenings

I am finally letting you all know how our trip is going so far and what we have been up to. It is full of links, which I hope will make up for the lack of pictures from me.
Our train ride was rather uneventful, but we left the Mississippi river area about two hours late. The biggest disappointment with that was we got to East Glacier around sunset instead of two hours earlier. They made up an hour of time though so we got to Portland only an hour late on Thursday. This is the type of train we were on, for those out there that I know are busy panting while waiting for the information.

On Friday DTY and I rode the bus from Oregon City into Portland and got off in The Pearl District and walked to Powell's, where there were some text books that DTY had ordered online to pick up. Plus the fact that she just has to know where it is if she is going to live in this city. After we hung around there for a while (finding more books and having a bite to eat)we wandered around The Pearl District for awhile. I took some a couple of pictures, but they are film, so I will post them after I get home. Then we took the bus back out to Oregon city, walked around for a while and rode the town elevator. We decided to walk back down the stairs just for the heck of it. We generally hung out and waited for my friend to get done with her day so we could all go back out to the River House for dinner.
Saturday DTY and I were lucky enough to be chauffeured about by my friend all day. The three of us went to Saturday Market, Trader Joe's, which we don't have at home, but I might have to take Hubband to next time we go to the Twin Cities. Then we decided that DTY should go look at this place, since she will be starting school here in less than a week and had never laid eyes on it or anything like that before now. We wandered about and found her dorm, the "Union" building and such. Fortunately, she thinks it looks like it will be a cool place to be for the next while in her life. (I'm glad she didn't think otherwise, because I don't know what she would do with herself instead at this point. Not like I ever though she would change her mind.)
After that we went to this cool place and I got a pound of yeast and would have gotten some other stuff, but I still have to get it all the way home. Then it was back to the house to rest up and check in with everyone else. That night the lot of us went to see this movie that I have been anticipating for months. I do think you should all go see it if you like fairy tales, it is really well done. Different from the book, but a good differ ant. The author is very pleased with the way the movie turned out.
Sunday some other friends drove over from Vancouver to get us for a couple of days and we went
here and did the climb up to the top trail.
Today we drove out to the coast and went here and were NOT disappointed, despite its name. We hiked around a lot today too. While we at one beach we got to see the beginnings of a kite festival and it was a lot of fun to watch.

Just for the record, I have made progress on Dr. Who, but have come to the conclusion that it will be on the return leg home too. I have about 1/5 of it done and will be mailing it to the girl in a couple of weeks.
I haven't listened to the radio since I left but heard the tail end of something today about flooding in Minnesota, which turns out to be almost 20 inches of rain where my train will be returning to next week. I read a rumor that we have had 10 inches at my hose in the last two days. The drought has got to be over by now.