Monday September 25th - day 6. South bend to Portland, Oregon.

Up at 6.30 and hero Bill did the washing up whilst we enjoyed a cup of tea overlooking the wetlands in the grey early morning light. Still deserted. We were on the road by 7 and heading south to the famous Cannon Beach for breakfast.
The beach does not disappoint. It's vast and misty and Haystack Rock sits centre stage. After a brief recce at the northern end of the beach, we drive to park at the south end and, after breakfast in the van, run south along the beach to a cluster of barnacle covered rocks
before returning for an invigorating swim in the clear, cold surf.
Then, it's time to hit the road in order to get to Portland in time for lunch.
With Bill at the wheel, Chris at his work desk and me navigating, we arrive ahead of schedule with time for a delicious lunch
at Broder Nord. We thought parking in the middle of Portland would be a nightmare, but we pulled off the main road onto a quiet side street and there was a large space offering two hours free parking.
This is a place that you would never find by accident but Chris has local knowledge, and it has the most lovely Scandinavian menu and feeling of 'Hygge'. Our friendly server showed us to a strange but cosy egg shaped booth. Chris was dashing off to a meeting at one o'clock, so his potato, egg and spinach pancake arrived swiftly and he departed in a 'Lyft' taxi. Meanwhile we could sit back with a latte or two, browse the menu and enjoy a delicious brunch followed by danish pancakes with lingonberry jam and lemon curd.
After brunch we drive on to the Jantzen Beach RV park close to the airport. It's large and functional but clean with hot showers and wifi. Within a short time, our Lyft taxi has arrived like magic and we are on our way back into central Portland.
We head first for Powell's city of books. This unique and amazing bookshop occupies a whole block, stocks over one million books in 3,500 colour coded sections, in every genre possible and has a coffee shop where you can enjoy a delicious latte and contemplate the map of the shop and where to go - I could have spent all day there!
We moved on to the Apple Store to fix some things, by which time Chris had finished meetings and we could enjoy Portland. It is a great city - lovely brick buildings laid out in a. Lear grid pattern with plenty of open spaces. There are innumerable outdoor stores, featuring all the big names and loads of interesting independent stores too. At seven we made our way into the brewery area to the Ten Barrels microbrewery for some local IPA, cucumber and melon soda, pork scratchings and sauteed Brussels sprouts with bacon!
We followed this by dinner at the Mediterranean Exploration Company.this restaurant was packed, and for good reason. We chose a selection of mezzes including roasted cauliflower, lamb meatballs, spicy prawns with spinach, kebabs served on cinnamon sticks, piitas with hoummous, falafel, roasted peaches with pistachios and goats cheese, followed by semi-fredo kulfi, bread pudding and cardamom ice cream with Turkish coffee. This was such a good evening - conversation ranged across a vast variety of subjects including all the possible wealth of human nature expressed within the walls of Powells book shop - too vast to imagine. Our Lyft taxi driver Home was another interesting character - a retired Dentist, unable to work due to health problems but living his new life as a driver.
Back at the RV park, Chris packed for his flight tomorrow. We all headed off to bed shortly after that, in view of our 4.45am start tomorrow for his flight back to San Diego and work.