<p>Ohio is it. Well see how fast (safely) you can go from high mountain desert, over the Cascades, to river and valley, up to rain forest, and down to the ocean. There are a few big trees left, not many, but a few. Come see what Columbus was looking for.</p>
<p>For a really nice dinner or lunch, go to Andina resturant in the Pearl district. Wonderful Peruvian food, you can get a regular ‘dinner’, but we prefer a selection of the little tapas like dishes. Don’t miss the yucca stuffed with some kind of South American cheese. It looks like a little Twinkie, but is so rich and savory, unlike anything I’ve ever eaten.</p>
<p>We’re also planning a visit to Reed with S2. </p>
<p>Anyone know how long it would take to drive to Salem from Portland, if we decide to include a visit to Willamette U? </p>
<p>Also, does it make sense to drive to Seattle (through Tacoma to see U Puget Sound) or then fly out of Seattle to points East. This would be the last week in March.</p>
<p>Its less than 50 miles to Salem, so depending on how fast you drive …</p>
<p>I think that it is doable to then drive to UPS- and fly out - but bear in mind rush hour in Wa is denser than in Or</p>
<p>Probably about 45 minutes, depending on traffic. Flying out of SeaTac would definitely be closer than driving back to Ptld. However, rental car and flights could be more expensive with different arrival and departure cities.</p>
<p>One caution, the last week in March is spring break for public schools in Oregon, don’t know about Willamette and Reed though.</p>
<p>Reed’s spring break is Mar. 15-23, Willamette’s is Mar. 24-28.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. </p>
<p>I had noticed that Reed will be in session that week, but not Willamette, but I want him to take a look-see anyway. </p>
<p>S’s h.s. starts spring break on Mar 21, so we can fly to Portland on Saturday and be tourists, take a drive to Salem Sun and just look around and then arrange to visit Reed on Monday a.m. and stay for lunch. Enough time for Reed or should I schedule most of the day? </p>
<p>Follow up question: How long would it take to drive from Portland to Tacoma? And then, Tacoma to Seattle? </p>
<p>I’m trying to decide if I should keep the rental car from P to Seattle, and turn it in at the airport there. Or should I fly from P to Seattle and rent a car to go to Tacoma (unless there’s a train or something that would let us just visit Puget Sound and return to S.)</p>
<p>What do the locals suggest?</p>
<p>Depending on the traffic conditions, it will take 3-4 hrs with pit stops to get from Portland to Tacoma. A one-way ticket on Horizon PDX to SEA will be $99 fully refundable, I believe. I would check how much it would cost you extra to return the car at Seatac vs. Portland, add the cost of gas for the trip and decide if flying is worth it.</p>
<p>Here is the Horizon’s website specifically advertising the Portland shuttle (and I found it quite amusing, since we drive to Eugene through Portland often):</p>
<p>[Horizon</a> Air / The SLOG](<a href=“http://www.i-5slog.com%5DHorizon”>http://www.i-5slog.com)</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>And they do ticket in Ticketown!</p>
<p>Thanks, BB.</p>
<p>Jazzy Mom, it really is only 2 hours from Portland to UPS. We whip up there with friends to visit their daughter fairly often.</p>
<p>Oh, and Tacoma to Seattle can be up to an hour if you get stuck in traffic, unfortunately. Willamette (which happens to be my alma mater and on which my dh is an alumni board member) is an easy campus to see in the time you’re allotting. If you’re looking at Reed and Willamette, you might want to consider Lewis & Clark as well. L&C is 15 mins from the Reed campus and is lovely.</p>
<p>Lewis and Clark is beautiful. Be sure and visit while the students are there - it really has it’s own vibe, whether that’s right for your kid depends on your kid.</p>
<p>Thanks for the additional info. </p>
<p>I think I am more excited about this trip than my son is. Years ago, when we settled in CA, far from family back in NY and FL, I reasoned that we would be able to travel all over the West and NW and see places I’d never been… and we never quite got around to that due to the more emotional pull of spending vacations with family Back East. </p>
<p>So this is my chance to visit Portland and Seattle – would love to tack on Vancouver but another time perhaps. </p>
<pre><code>I understand the OR and WA colleges get a lot of students from CA. I’ll admit to liking the idea of S2 going to college close enough for us to come and see a jazz performance or something. The only restriction he’s put on location is no college in So Cal — he wants a change in climate. And he loves, really loves, rain. Weird kid. So he is interested in Reed, due to what he’s read about the sciences, but leery of intensity of the workload over all. He’ll have a day to tour and sit in on a class. Perhaps I’ll just drop him off and go to Powell’s for awhile.
</code></pre>
<p>Unfortunately, Willamette will be on break during our time there, but we will drive down there on Sunday to see the campus and walk around so he will know what it looks like. It seems to be a very well-rounded college, with a lot of what he says he’s interested in: chemistry and possibly kinesiology, varied arts and music, including jazz band, offers Russian studies, study abroad, and online it looks like a very pretty campus. I like its motto: “Not unto ourselves alone are we born.” Not a bad sentiment for young people to take to heart. </p>
<p>I can’t get a good handle on L & C. If he wants to visit, we will, but it seemed to him (reading Fiske), that it wasn’t very science oriented and it didn’t offer Russian as a language.</p>
<p>UPS we’re going to go see to have some solid safety-matches on the list and because it’s pretty close to Seattle, which as stated earlier, I really want to visit. In Seattle, we’ll only walk through UW to get his reaction to that large a school (and maybe plant a seed — could be good for grad school.) </p>
<p>Any other travel tips or insights into the colleges in OR and WA would be great. We’ll also look in CO and WI and other midwest locations, but I’ll wait for summer for those.</p>
<p>jazzymom, L&C does have a Russian Department and offers a minor in Russian as well as a study abroad option in beautiful Saint Petersburg and in Vladivostok (across the Pacific Ocean from OR):</p>
<p>[Russian</a> Language](<a href=“http://www.lclark.edu/dept/russian/]Russian”>http://www.lclark.edu/dept/russian/)</p>
<p>[L&C:</a> Catalog 2007-2008 - Russian](<a href=“http://www.lclark.edu/cgi-bin/catalog.cgi?russ.dat]L&C:”>http://www.lclark.edu/cgi-bin/catalog.cgi?russ.dat)</p>
<p>I surfed the L&C Chemistry Department’s web page and was pleasantly surprised at what it seemed to offer. The Department owns several pieces of laboratory instrumentation including its own NMR (300 MHz, but still a nice instrument for an undergrad school), and students are engaged in joint research projects with Oregon Health Sciences University (the research is mostly in the areas of bioinorganic and physical chemistry).</p>
<p>Here is the picture of the NMR:</p>
<p>[300</a> MHz Bruker Nuclear Magnetic Resonance](<a href=“http://www.lclark.edu/dept/chemdept/nmr_spec.html]300”>http://www.lclark.edu/dept/chemdept/nmr_spec.html)</p>
<p>Hmmm, may be you should stop by L&C just in case. The campus is beautiful and the food was pretty good when we visited.</p>
<p>And today I found out that The Wizard teaches chemistry at UPS - soooo cool:</p>
<p>[Chemistry</a> :: 2007 Chemistry Magic Show](<a href=“http://www.ups.edu/x19353.xml]Chemistry”>http://www.ups.edu/x19353.xml)</p>
<p>Oh my god!</p>
<p>I had Tim at Seattle Central community college- he is great!
( another science geek I had is Dennis Hibbert at North Seattle CC- who is now at Evergreen- both wonderful instructors)</p>
<p>I am going to mention that to D- because last year- even though she has a tough time w math & we worried about chem- her high school teacher was great and she really liked the class.</p>
<p>Tim has * white * hair?
where the hell did he get white hair?</p>
<p>I apologize for my excitement- but I basically didn’t attend highschool ( didn’t graduate- ) and Tims class was one of the first college classes I ever took. It really changed my image of myself as a student.</p>
<p>How’d I miss that L & C has R? </p>
<p>I must have confused it with U Puget Sound, which does not list Russian among its offerings. All the colleges are starting to blur together into a seething mass…I need a secretary for this stuff.</p>
<p>Well, L & C has just moved onto the visit list, since we’ll be right there anyway. </p>
<p>Thanks for the correction, BB. It may just be good marketing, but when I read about these colleges, they all sound great and I could see him at any of them. Each viewbook is more stunning than the next.</p>
<p>L & C is a big language school- which may have been one of the things that gave D pause as languages are difficult for her.</p>
<p>However, she did like it- and Portland is close to her sister so perhaps we will look at it again- who knows- after her trip to Ghana and a year off, she might even feel like tackling Reed!</p>
<p>( but I would be happy with her at WWU- )</p>
<p>jazzymom, LOL! Sorry to mess up your list! That’s what I thought of all the colleges we visited with DD - in my brain, they all morphed into one shiny campus filled with beautiful buildings and happy kids! It was a good thing DD kept records of her visits and findings. But I have to tell you, L&C’s admissions office stands out of the crowd. The building looks like it came from a Kinkade painting.</p>
<p>If UPS is a safety for your son, so will be L&C. DD had no problem getting in EA and even got a merit scholarship.</p>
<p>But I have to tell you, L&C’s admissions office stands out of the crowd.</p>
<p>I think it used to be the womens dorm or something- a sorority house?</p>
<p>I can just see the housemother looking the dates up and down. 
But the vibe I got from L & C was a lot different than Reed.
At Reed it was * charged*
At L & C was much more laid back- which is not saying that, that is a bad thing.</p>
<p>Well, this trip is about testing the vibe and seeing what stays on the list and what doesn’t. And because I want him to have seen what’s available here on the West Coast (and closer to home) before we start the great trek East. </p>
<p>I think I could say that UPS and Willamette would be safeties, since his SATs are above their 50th percentile level and the admit rate for both is over 50 percent. Course, with private colleges, you just never know.</p>