I’m here for three days in Portland, Oregon, attending and presenting at the 2009 ITSC (Instructional Technologies Strategies Conference.) I’ve updated my blog handouts page with links to my five sessions, two of which are repeats.
I absolutely LOVE mountains. As a “flatlander” growing up in Kansas and spending most of my adult life living the midwest in Texas and Oklahoma, I don’t get a chance to see scenes like this one which I photographed yesterday with my iPhone out the window of our Southwest Airlines flight, on the descent into the Portland airport.
I’ve submitted this photo and several others to the Southwest Airlines Flickr Group. As you can see, newly submitted photos have to be approved by individuals moderating the group. This is further proof of why I love Southwest Airlines: They are an innovative and cutting edge company. 
Is this a beautiful sight to see or what? According to WikiPedia, “Mount Hood’s snow-covered peak rises 11,249 feet (3,429 m) and is home to twelve glaciers.” I wish I had time for a closer look on this trip, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
As we continued on our descent into Portland, we flew directly by and over the Columbia River, which was used by Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition west to reach the Pacific by land. This image shows the Columbia near Portland. Again according to WikiPedia, “The river is 1,243 miles (2,000 km) long, and its drainage basin is 258,000 square miles (670,000 km2). Measured by the volume of its flow, the Columbia is the largest river flowing into the Pacific from North America and is the fourth-largest river in the U.S.” We don’t have any rivers this size in Oklahoma!
I was seated on the left side of the plane, so as we turned east (towards Mt Hood) I was able to catch a glimpse of cloud-shrouded Mount St Helens to the north. Awesome!
Portland is a beautiful place! According to the hotel travel guide, the USGS rates the chances of Mt Hood (a “dormant” volcano) erupting as “a 3 to 7 percent chance within the next 30 years.” I think the Cascade range is one of most beautiful and breathtaking mountain ranges I’ve ever seen. Some day I hope to hike and climb in the Cascades with my family.
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portland, oregon, mountain, mthood, hood, mtsthelens, mt, sthelens, itsc09, itsc2009, itsc, southwest, airlines, southwestairlines
On this day..
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- Creative Commons and Flickr - 2010
- Emotion and text-based communication - 2010
- Any interactive website is poison - 2010
- Poll Results: How much would you / your school pay for PollEverywhere? - 2010
- The Night Before Valentine's Day - 2010
- New WordPress design thanks to Lightword - 2010
- Film on the Fly: Get your Cell Phones Ready for Movie Making! - 2009
- Copyright for Educators - 2009
- Computers for just testing and math games - 2008
