Where is Mrs. Friederich?

On Friday Mrs. Friederich wasn't in school.  Where was she, Mrs. Egesdal didn't say.  Then at about 2:15, when we were coming in from recess, our skype was ringing.  Mrs. Egesdal said, "Answer it." Guess who it was?

It was Mrs. Friederich!

 But where was she?  She asked us to get out our draft books and to take notes and try to guess her location.  Here were her clues:

1. I am not in Forest City, IA
2. We flew west
3. I am in a different time zone
4. It is lunchtime where I am (I am hungry)
5. Home of the Portland Trailblazers ( Noah knew it now, because he likes sports)

"That's right I am in Portland, Oregon"   We were very excited about this and had a lot of questions.

Mrs. Friederich and her tour guide (Mr. Friederich) took us on a picture walk of downtown Portland. This is what we saw:

 Then Mrs. Friederich told us that she had an assignment for us.  We were supposed to write a story about why we thought she was in Portland and not at school.  (What an assignment from Oregon?)
Here are some of our ideas:

1. Her daughter must go to school there.
2. She just wanted to get away
3. She is on vacation to study
4. She wanted to get away from Forest City for awhile
5. She went to a big city
6. They went to visit relatives
7. She went to see an old friend
8. She wanted to see another town 

We will have to wait until Monday to find out why she was in Portland instead of being at school.  Mrs. Friederich said it was time for her to eat lunch and that she would see us on Mon.  We will have lots to share.