The Elenbaas Family: The Oregon Trail Part 2: Exploring Portland

The rest of the weekend the three of us hung out around Portland, seeing Reuben's home town and having some fun.

On Saturday morning, I further proved that old dude wrong (see previous post) and went for a 10 mile run on the same feet he said I wouldn't be able to walk on and in the same shoes he said would be shot. It was a terrific run on a nice path along the river. Portlanders are huge into fitness and I had plenty of company even early on a Saturday morning.

Later in the day we visited Reuben's school, went to a farmer's market downtown, and then headed to the Oregon coast. The first stop was the famous Cannon Beach where we had a nice little picnic.

Next we went to the small city of Seaside, where Lewis and Clark's expedition ended.

Finally we went to Austoria, the city where the movie Goonies was filmed. They had built what they called "the column." It was 164 steps to the top and a very nice view.

On Saturday night we took a very interesting tour into the Portland underground. This is a very shady part of Portland's past and is referred to as Shanghai Tunnels. From about 1850-1940 these underground tunnels were used to capture men and sell them as slaves on oceangoing ships. The men doing the capturing would steal drunk men from bars or men doing drugs, hold them in cells, and keep them for whenever captains would come in needing a crew. The tunnels were fascinating. Back in the day it was a huge network with trap doors, hidden entrances, and holding cells. Here we are going down a hidden door from the street level.

Here are some bunks that were part of an opium den.

These are the rails to a holding cell. They were made especially strong because they knew the men they were capturing were the roughest and toughest men in Portland.