This past week was an entire escape from reality and into the world of Scottish Country Dancing. Each year, the Teachers' Association of Canada (TAC) puts on a week-long event called Summer School that involves daily dance classes, afternoon electives, evening social dances or concerts, and culminates in a banquet and ball. This year was the first time Summer School was held in the U.S. More importantly, it was in downtown Portland on the Portland State University campus (don't ask me why it's called Portland State when Portland is not a state, I guess it just sounded good at the time). When I found out about Summer School last year I knew what my next vacation was going to be. I arranged to take off a week from work and made carpool plans with good friends who live directly across the river from the downtown area. I enjoy downtown but traffic-wise it is not for the faint of heart during morning and evening rush hour.
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| Reflections |
My friends and I quickly fell into a routine that got us to the campus in time for the 8:45 class and then back across the river in the late afternoon for a few hours of rest before driving back for the evening events. The weather was unbelievably cooperative and visitors from the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand enjoyed the sunny skies and perfect temperatures, well almost perfect. It did hit 90 something on Saturday but one hot day out of a whole week isn't bad.
In between the morning and afternoon classes there was a break for lunch and then elective dance classes began at 1:15. During that time I found ample opportunities to look for anything worth taking a picture of. I kept waiting for someone to ask me what country I was from since I had on my best tourist costume, including backpack and camera.
One afternoon I was particularly in need of some chocolate. I didn't pack a whole lot of lunch because I didn't want to have to carry it around all morning so I felt perfectly justified in going in search of dessert. I got out my trusty GPS and looked for some likely places that would carry fresh chocolate chip cookies. Cookie Cabana sounded like the perfect spot and it was only about half a mile east of the campus. I started off for SW Market St. positive that I would shortly have cookie in hand. It soon became apparent that finding 105 SW Market was going to be harder than I had anticipated. I was almost to the river and it still wasn't in sight so I decided to try for Plan B, after making a plan up that is. But just so the detour wasn't a total loss, I found a couple of sights that were photoworthy.
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| Old and New |
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| The Cookie! |
After wandering around a bit and deciding the restaurants I was looking for were not stand alone establishments but in one of the many office buildings, I was even more determined to find the elusive chocolate chip cookie. After all, I had burned up all those calories and didn't want it to be for nothing. Finally, after going out the rear entrance to one office building so as to avoid going past the information station again (people who work at those have a knack for spotting someone who looks even the slightest bit dazed and confused), I came across a local deli called The Spicy Pickle. And there it was, a small basket with fresh cookies wrapped up inside. The guy behind the counter asked if that was all I wanted and it was hard not to tell him how much effort it had taken just for one chocolate chip cookie. I had a feeling he wouldn't understand.
When we last heard from our feline heroes, they had just arrived at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. The campus was lovely and was situated in the middle of downtown (although, Sackville is quite small and downtown quickly becomes the edge of town). I'm not sure what style the buildings were, but whatever it was, it was photogenic.
After checking into rooms and semi-unpacking, some of us went exploring (and running on the track to get loosened up). There was a waterfowl park on the edge of the campus that wondered through bulrushes and over a large lake/pond and through the birch trees. It was especially beautiful at sunrise, just watch out for vampires masquerading as mosquitoes. I spent a lot of time here in the afternoon after dancing all morning. A trail ran through the park and by way of a detour crossed over the highway and continued on indefinitely through "Middle Sackville" and beyond. Saturday was the only chance I had to really explore this trail and that wasn't for as long as I would have liked. It was mostly farmland all along the way with church steeples peeping over the trees.
