33. Snowshoeing at Trillium Lake, 2/27/11

Trillium Lake is a classic winter sight, and not something you would expect to find so close to a highway. The wide sweep of the frozen lake surface lends a natural sense of drama that you might think exists only in nature calendars. In fact, Trillium Lake and the view of Mount Hood beyond has been featured prominently on hundreds of picture-postcards, book covers, and, yes, calendars. Once you get there you’ll understand why. The broad expanse of the lake opens the skyline to reveal Oregon’s tallest volcano in all its majesty.

I discovered that snowshoes do not slow you down but have opened up the outdoors to new adventures in the winter months. We were not alone – many folks discovered that Oregon’s winter landscape is inviting and easy to travel through with a pair of snowshoes strapped to their boots.

Trillium Lake – according to many is one of the best beginner sites around. If you are a beginner, allow a full day for your hike into Trillium Lake. Bring a lunch, energy food, and lots of water – as aerobic as it is, you lose a lot of water – it is important to remain hydrated.

Snowshoeing is a lot of fun and very easy. They say, "if you can walk, you can snowshoe.” The walking gait of snowshoeing is slightly different than regular walking. You have to keep your feet further apart and lift your feet farther off the ground. This becomes automatic after a few minutes, but it does work some different muscles. I usually walk 3 miles a day broke up into 2 different walks; this 5 mile hike is quite the hike and about three-fourths of the way through I was D-O-N-E! The only thing that kept me going was the thought of the “Snow Cap” hot chocolate that was waiting for me at The Mood Hood Lodge.

Keri and I rented out snowshoes (Jan had her own) at a rental shop in Sandy for $13. The rentals included poles as well. When the gal in the rental shop said that we have to have the gear back by 7 p.m., I was thinking we would be back well before that…was I shocked when we pulled back into the shop at 6:55. They say the hike should take about 3-1/2 hours and it took us about 4 hours, but I feel that was pretty dang good considering I had never done this before. Being that this was my first trip, I probably should have started with something shorter though.

The last bit of the 5 miles is a hill that gives you quite a workout, and I realized by this point I could no longer really pick up my feet and was struggling to get up the hill. I was so tired afterward but it was SO worth every step of it. I really feel that we accomplished a wonderful feat, and the Snow Cap hot chocolate was heavenly.

In all, we had a really fun day. I want to come back and see the lake again without the layer of ice! Keri and Jan talked about returning another winter and doing cross country skiing. I am not sure about that but we never know, do we?

32. Portlandia, 2/19/11

Did you know...one of Portland's best known landmarks is the Portlandia sculpture, which lies on the third story landing of the Portland Building and is the second largest hammered copper statue ever built; only the Statue of Liberty is larger.

The statue was built in sections in one of the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., and the parts shipped to Portland by rail. It was assembled at a barge building facility, Gunderson, Inc., and was installed on October 6, 1985 after being floated up the Willamette River on a barge.

The statue is based on the design of the city seal. It depicts a woman dressed in classical clothes, holding a trident in the left hand and reaching down with the right hand to greet visitors to the building.

The statue is above street level and faces a narrow, tree-lined street with limited automobile access. Occasionally, there are suggestions to move the statue to a more visible location, but these have come to nothing and the sculptor states that he designed the statue for its location and would not approve of moving it.

It has also been claimed that Portlandia's relatively low profile results from sculptors close guarding of his intellectual property. Unlike the Statue of Liberty, Portlandia may not be reproduced for any commercial purpose without permission from the artist. The rights to the image of Portlandia remain the artist's property.

The statue itself is 34 feet, 10 inches high. If standing, the woman would be about 50 feet tall. An accompanying plaque contains a poem by Portland resident Ronald Talney.

She kneels down
and from the quietness
of copper
reaches out.

We take that stillness
into ourselves
and somewhere
deep in the earth
our breath
becomes her city.

If she could speak
this is what
she would say:

Follow that breath.
Home is the journey we make.
This is how the world
knows where we are.

31. The Queen of Sheba - Ethiopian food, 2/18/11

The Queen of Sheba on MLK may be considered the best Ethiopian food in Portland. It definitely is a place I would not have gone if it had not been highly recommended to me. An old converted store, this is a musty old building, with a hole in the wall feel. There is a front room with a few tables, the coolers and a cash register, a second room behind has about six smaller tables, and another darker room and full bar around the corner.

According to Ethiopian folklore and the Old Testament, Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, made the arduous journey from Tigre in Northern Ethiopia, across the desert and the Red Sea to visit King Solomon. When she returned, she gave birth to their son, Menelik, who Ethiopian leaders up to the time of Haile Selassie claimed as an ancestor. Now it seems every major city has a restaurant named after the queen.

Many different Ethiopian dishes are available. Pronouncing the names was next to impossible for us. Fortunately everything is numbered making it a whole lot easier to order. Just try saying “Tsebhi Kintti-Shara” or “Alicha Tibssi Kintti-Shara” and you will see what I mean. The menu is about 50% vegetarian with the rest made up of beef, lamb, and chicken dishes.

Once you have worked your way through the ordering process, the food comes on one large communal platter that takes most of the table space. The tray is lined with Injera with the food piled in sections on top. Injera is a spongy traditional flatbread made with fermented tef — a tiny grain native to Ethiopia, and doubles as cutlery – no forks here! You tear off a bit and use it to pick up a dollop of food with your right hand. This flatbread takes a bit of getting used to. Its texture reminds me of old foam-packing material used many years ago. It is not that I did not like it...it is just that it was a new food experience. It does not have a lot of flavor except for being slightly sour, rather it is a vehicle to get the food from plate to mouth. As the meal progressed, the Injera soaked up flavors from the food resting on top of it greatly improving the experience.

The food is dominated by two different spice mixtures common in Ethiopian food. The first is a combination with Alicha, a complex sauce made from chopped ginger, garlic, onion, fenugreek, cumin, basil, cardamom, oregano, and turmeric giving an amazingly fragrant aura to the dishes. The second is Berbere, a piquant combination of wine, cumin, clove, cardamom, turmeric, allspice, fenigreek, ginger, chili, and garlic. Most of the dishes made use of one of these two spice mixtures.

Melissa and I chose Yedero Wet – a lemon-washed chicken leg in berbere sauce topped with a hard-boiled egg, the house salad with fresh lemon dressing, lentils with spices, and Atakilt Kilike Alicha - a variety of cabbages, carrots, green beans, and other vegetables sauteed in aromatic spices, all served atop the Injero bread. This is not your grandmother’s cooking!

Overall, the food is aromatic and complex spices and tastes explode in the mouth. Dishes here are spicy but achieve an excellent of balance, never masking the subtle flavors or leaving your mouth scorched.

The Injera bread takes some getting used to. I know it is part of the culture and the whole experience, but I kept wishing I could skip it and just use a fork. Queen of Sheba was a place I would go to more for the novelty of the experience, and the experience was fun. Thanks Melissa for introducing me to it.