Portland By Train, Trail, Tram, Trolly... and Foot!

Today was packed full of activity and surprises. It started with a huge breakfast of pancakes and bacon cooked by our wonderful food committee. With full bellies we made the two block walk to the park and read the whole lesson as a complete class. Then our fabulous adult leaders handed us our first clue; our Portland Urban Adventure began!!

First Adventure: Travel by Train!
We figured out clues to find our next destination. After walking to the MAX station and completing various tasks we hopped on the MAX and made our way to the Washington Park. Here we had more challenges to complete and these clues led us to our next section.

Second Adventure: Travel by Trail (a.k.a. a lot of walking!)
In the far distance, we saw a radio tower. After deciphering a code we discovered this was our next destination. Then we made our way on a long and gorgeous scenic route. This led us to what seemed like the top of the world. It was a park filled with historical monuments and plaques. Here we used our creativity to make a rhyme using the names of the monuments.
Our trail journey continued on road until we reached the point where it was down hill from there, literally and figuratively!

Third Adventure: Travel by Tram
We thought Portland looked beautiful at ground level but it was even more terrific from an aerial view in the tram. We took many pictures and our ride was over too soon.

Fourth Adventure: Travel by Trolley!
At this time we enjoyed a relaxing ride back to our hostel. All of us had time to spare and we stopped to get ice cream as a reward for our hard work.

Detour along the way:
Somewhere along this journey we all had a road block. We needed to conquer the three story, multiple roomed Powell's Bookstore. We searched high and low for a Science and Health in which we placed a note for the next team to find. It was really cool that even though we were competing against each other we were still supporting each other along the way.

We all convened back at the hostel and had a great recap on last years curriculum presented by the wonderful Andi, Gwen and Denali. Then Mark, Jen and Tom introduced this year's curriculum: Ethics. We had a very in depth conversations on questions that were posed to us and these discussion were continued into dinner and more. With growling bellies, we ventured one last time into the city for the day and ate at restaurants of our choice. The rest of the evening was relaxing before bed time.

Sweet Dreams!!
- NLC Class of 2013


By: Shelby Barner, Jess Faunt, and Amy Hollshwandner