Well we decided to go to Portland on a whim this weekend. Karen had been talking about going somewhere and I had digital camera on the brain, so we decided to go to Portland where the sales tax benefit would be quite nice. The plan was to get the new Nikon Digital SLR camera and use our REI dividend to buy some snowshoes.
When we first arrived at Jantzen beach (a GIANT shopping island just over the border) we found this neat merry-go-round that Karen just HAD to ride.
After leaving REI empty handed and also not finding the camera I was interested in at the camera shop there, we headed to downtown Portland. Having been there before, it was pretty easy to find the “smark-park” garage and walk to Camera World. This venerable Portland landmark has recently been taken over by Ritz (aka Wolf Camera) and I found the experience of buying a camera there to be somewhat disappointing. The sales guy seemed to have limited knowledge of the product he was trying to sell. Not only that; he assured me that no one in Portland had it in stock. So I proceeded to order one.
Well across the block was a tiny camera shop called The Shutterbug and of course they had one in stock. The nice young salesman there said of course Camera World would pull a sleazy move like stating I couldn’t get the camera anywhere else. So much for trusting salesmen who have conflicts of interest…
The new D-100 camera is very nice, 6.3 megapixel and a nice 24-105mm zoom lens. Karen took to it right away! The following pictures were taken on Hawthorne street after we had a nice dinner at the Bread and Ink Cafe.
We stayed at a nice old house in Terwilliger Park (I love that name!). A nice green belt along a hillside overlooking the river and the town. We were the only guests, but the old couple who ran the house were very nice and we had a fun time visiting with them and getting a tour of the house. I regret not taking them up on the offer to sip port after our dinner, but we were just too tired.
