Adventures in Oregon and Washington

One of the attractions of moving to the US was that I'd have to do less work-related travel. Last year, I spent 51 days in the US, on 7 separate work-related trips. However, my new role is expanded over the old one, and my teams work in I think 11 different Google offices around the globe, and I do need to go and see them once in a while.

This week I had my first (OK, second; we did of course go to New York City in our second week here) work-related trip since moving: a quick tour of the Pacific North West, which took in The Dalles in Oregon (my first visit to a Google datacentre), as well as the more familiar climes of Seattle and Kirkland in Washington.

So, I found myself getting on a plane from San Jose to Portland, Oregon, then jumping in my hire car. Even this bit was pretty exciting; I was informed that in Oregon, petrol stations aren't self-service, i.e. I should sit in the car and wait for someone to pump the petrol for me. You remember, like the 70s! Very quaint.

From Portland I drove about an hour up the 84, towards the town of Hood River where I was staying. The 84 pushes through the gorge of the massive Columbia River, as does the railway (which is now freight-only). It's genuinely a gorge, with mountains on either side, and was a beautiful sight as the Autumn colours took over. On the way there, I passed multiple landmarks, including things such as the Bonneville Dam - on that picture, the 84 is the road on the right, and you can start to get some impression of what an experience it was to drive up here.

Hood River itself is a small town - 7000 people or so - but it's full of neat little shops, including a coffee shop which reminded me a bit of the great Krema back home in Farnham; maybe it was the orange chairs. I had a bit of a walk around and found the end of the little tourist railway which there is here, as well as catching one of the frequent huge freight trains which lumber down the river gorge, carry double-deck shipping containers.

The datacentre itself is about another half an hour up the gorge from Hood River, and has probably the best views of any Google office I've been to.

Before long I was driving back down the gorge, and getting on the plane to go to Seattle. This is the shortest flight I've ever done; the seatbelt sign never went off, and I probably should have arranged things so I could take the train. Anyway, Seattle was its usual self (weather essentially the same as London; cleaner and a bit more buttoned up than California), and it was great to get home to Palo Alto on Thursday night.

The Pacific North West was great, and it's definitely on my list to get back to the Columbia River Gorge - but perhaps in late Spring when the weather's a bit nicer.