First Thoughts on Portland

First Blog Post!

I'm just going to start by saying this is my first blog post! There, now that I have the first sentence down, the rest should come easy! So a little info about me and this blog. I'm a Coloradoan gone Husker gone Oregonian. That's a mouthful! I've lived in Colorado for most of my life, and I consider it my home. I moved to Lincoln last year to attend UNL. I am still in the process of pursuing a B.S. in Computer Engineering. This summer, I get to intern with Intel and in the process explore a whole new part of the United States that I've never been to!

This blog will be about coding, my experiences at Intel, UNL, and any other things that may spring to mind (I'll try to keep it mostly technology-related!). Hopefully blogging regularly will make me more productive, improve my writing, and improve my understanding of topics I blog about.

To Portland!

Here's what the drive looked like:

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It was 1200 miles, we split it into two days of 14 and 4 hour chunks. We saved four hours for the last day so we could get the beautiful view of Oregon and the Blue Mountains and the Cascade Range. I only started taking pictures halfway through Oregon, partly because we drove through Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho. Long drive short: wind, dirt, and trucks. When you cross into Oregon, you can instantly notice a change in vegetation. Everything is green and there's moss on everything.

On the second day we hit the Columbia River. For those of you who don't know (like myself earlier today), the Columbia River is what divides the northern border of Oregon from the southern border of Washington. I don't have a picture to show this, but you can clearly see the difference between the two states. On I-84, the Oregon side, there was moss and shrubbery covering the side of the mountains. On the Washington side, however, there was little greenery to be found, and everything was brown. On the Oregon side we saw a Mountain Goat (first one I've seen, and I'm from Colorado). I think the ridiculous rainfall just attracts more wildlife in Oregon.

The drive through Portland was hectic and busy, but we were greeted by a beautiful view driving over the Willamette River, which runs right through the heart of the city. There are many bridges that cross the river, and when we got to the other side, we saw huge houses on top of hill peaks. It was amazing. To the right is a picture of a tunnel soon after the bridge.

After that we took NW Sunset Highway into Hillsboro, a western suburb of Portland. Then we took NE Cornell Road to my apartment, and let me tell you, the traffic was horrible. It seemed like we stopped at every stop light, and the wait time for each one was 30-60 seconds. I thought it was possibly rush hour (at 12:00?). But we drove again at 4:00, then at 4:30 and 6:00. Every time we got stuck at every possible stop light. It took us at least 12 minutes to drive 2.5 miles.

Besides the traffic, I love Oregon and Portland. This is a giant city. There are thousands of restaurant options, and I only have three months to explore them! I already saw an Oyster shop today, and that got me excited! I think the weekend my roommate gets here, I'll introduce him to Oysters. He's from Wisconsin and gets here in two weeks. He's in for a treat!

I start work at Intel Monday and I couldn't be more excited. We went and saw the Jones Farm campus and there was a hawk perching on the Intel sign and munching on its catch. How cool is that?!

I think that's it for now. If you read any or all of this post, thank you! I couldn't be happier finishing my first blog post and taking this awesome new step in my life.

Edit: I almost forgot, I wanted to share the photo album. Here's the Oregon Album.