Portland, Oregon

This Labor Day we both had the Monday off work, so we took advantage and went on a really big adventure! We went all the way to Portland, Oregon! Our weekend started at 3:30am when our alarm went off to get us to the airport for our early morning flight. It was going to be incredibly hot in Riverside this weekend (hitting 44 degrees!) so we were very glad to be running away for the weekend. When we left our apartment it was already 28 degrees at 4:15am! We made it to the airport in good time and got some hashbrowns from McDonalds for breakfast. 

Ready to go!

The flight took just over two hours and we got a little snack about halfway through. When we reached the airport (it's so nice flying domestically and not having to go through customs or any lines when you land) we stepped outside and onto the Portland Tram. This took us right into the city centre where we would be staying and exploring. 

Our first stop was the Portland Saturday Market. This market pops up every weekend and sells lots of art and crafty things. It's as if etsy came to life! I got a coffee, as Portland is second only to Seattle in their coffee reputation, and we walked around to see all the stalls. It covered two streets and a park and was very busy with people. 

The far end had a whole row of different foods, and we got a big curry plate to share and some samosas. We sat on some steps by a fountain and people watched while we ate. The area reminded us of Camden; it was filled with alternative people with interesting clothes and bright hair, big sections of street art, and very industrial looking with large bridges across the river. It wasn't helped by the fact that that morning in the Pacific Northwest it was overcast and quite gloomy. 

Once we'd eaten, we took a little walk along the river to find the famous Portland sign. I'm not sure why it's famous, but it certainly is big!

Our next stop was Powell's bookstore, so we walked a bit further into the city. On the way, we passed the entrance to Chinatown with its big decorated gate, a red London bus turned into a bar, and another market in another park. This market was much fancier, with people selling actual art for a lot more money, so we only looked around a little bit before continuing on. 

The bookstore, Powell's City of Books, is the largest bookstore in the world, and has three floors selling new and used books. We spent nearly two hours wandering around and finding new books to add to our lists. 

Just opposite the bookshop was a second hand/vintage clothes shop which I wanted to peak in. As we had already seen, Portland is very into their unique looks and I thought I might be able to find some funky items. I was very temped by some black boots, but they weren't quite my size, and when would I wear long leather boots in Southern California?

We walked back to the main area of Downtown and stopped in at the doughnut shop that's all over instagram. Apparently the locals prefer a different doughnut shop, but the tourists like the novelty of Voodoo Donuts. We had to queue for a few minutes to get in, but the inside was so weird and cool! They had giant doughnuts hanging from the ceiling, stained glass windows with doughnuts in them, and everything was pink! They had a rotating case with all of the different doughnuts on offer, and I chose a maple cream (which had a moustache drawn on top) and Mitchell got a peanut butter oreo flavoured one. 

Doughnuts secured, we went to go and find our hotel. It was only a few blocks away, and when we got there, they gave us a free upgrade to a King size room! It was a very nice hotel, with quirky furniture in the lobby, and our room had birds on the wallpaper. 

We sat for a little bit, until it was time for dinner. Portland has plenty of food trucks around the city, so we went to go and try out one stationed in the town square. When we got there, it turned out the one we wanted was only open in the mornings, but we did get some tasty sushi burritos from the one next door.

After that, we went back to our hotel and had a couple of drinks in the onsite bar. We had a good time and then it was to bed after our very long day.

Sunday morning we were up (relatively) early again and went in search of breakfast. We found a diner and the food was good, but the service was so slow we nearly missed our bus! We managed to catch it in time and it took us all the way into the mountains!

The Columbia Gorge is a river which separates the states of Oregon and Washington, and has a lot of waterfalls and very green trees in either side. We pulled up to one of the biggest in the area, Multnomah Falls. As soon as you stepped off the bus you could see it reaching high into the trees, way up the side of the valley. 

First Glimpse

You need a pass to get in, but because we got the bus, it gave us priority access! We went and took some pictures at the main viewing area and then set off on the trail. 

We went up to this bridge

The first part was a lot of switchbacks going up and up, and this part was very busy with people. But once we reached the main turning point where it turned from a trail into a loop, it was suddenly a lot less busy. This was nice as it was a very pretty route. We're not used to so much green any more, or flowing water, so it was fun to see and so beautiful. We passed a few stopping points and bridges and got some very cute photos. 

We'd reached about a third of the way around when we started to run out of drinking water. We'd meant to buy some more bottles, but all we had were the ones we'd taken on the plane. Because we're California trained hikers, we take water very seriously, so decided to head back to the start and refill. 

We got back and took a little side route to see Multnomah Falls from the top. It was under whelming after seeing it from the bottom, but it was cool to see how far up we'd climbed. We also saw a couple of snakes on our way down! We asked some native Oregonians what they were, and apparently it was just a garden snake. 

That's the car park down there on the right

We refilled our bottles and had a snack, and then started the loop again, only this side from the other direction. This way, we saw the other big waterfall in the area, Wahkeena Falls which you could get much closer to, and Fairy Falls, which I think was my favourite. It was smaller, but the water fell very wide over lots of little moss covered rocks. This part of the route was very pretty too and I'm glad we carried on to see it.

Fairy Falls

We then turned back the way we came to catch the bus back to Portland. After the bus had dropped us off, we went and got a slice of pizza from a sketchy looking window. But it was cheap and had good reviews online, and all we wanted was some basic cheesy pizza.

He had a very long day

Ominous but tasty

We were very tired when we got back to the hotel, but we still had to go out for dinner. Once we could be motivated to shower and stand up again, we headed out to the Pine Street Market, which is an indoor food hall. There was only five or six options, but it was very pretty inside with lots of fairy lights strung up and big windows all around. 

Monday morning we were up early one last time and checked out of the hotel. We went back to the town square and found that the food cart was open this time! It's called "Fried Egg I'm in Love" and serves egg sandwiches. It was very popular even at 8am, and we could see why, the sandwiches were simple, but very tasty. I had one with tomato and avocado and Mitchell's had veggie sausage to complement the egg. 

After we'd eaten, we walk through the other end of Downtown to go to a big park. This area was much nicer than the bit we'd seen so far. The area we'd stayed in had a lot of homeless, especially with mental health issues, and while it was busy during the holiday weekend, I'm not sure I'd want to walk around by myself, and definitely not at night. But as soon as we crossed to the other side of the town square, it was so much cleaner and more open, there were people jogging and taking their babies on walks. Our overall opinions of Portland changed a lot after seeing this side of town!

We came to the park and took a walk through. We passed the Sacagawea statue and came to the rose garden. It was huge! All sorts of roses in lines and lines. We also stopped at the amphitheatre which was big and must be a great place for Shakespeare in the park. The row of trees behind the stage even had gaps for performers to come in and out of.

Our main stop in this park though, was the Japanese Garden. We paid our entry and went in. It was very odd seeing all these dainty Japanese statues, plants and buildings, overshadowed by the enormous pines native to the Pacific Northwest. It was very green, and so overwhelming it broke my memory card, so I don't have many photos of it to share. But they had a little pond with heron statues and a bridge crossing over it, a bonsai garden, some small pagodas and structures and lots of little streams. They also had a couple of zen gardens, which were big gravel areas with larger rocks dotted about, and the gravel had been raked in concentric circles around them.

This is from Google

This too

This is me

This too

A big draw is the view of Mount Hood you get from the top. You can see it looming over the city of Portland and rising out from the surrounding hills.

It was only a small garden, and once we were done we took a route back to the tram stop to take us back to the airport. But, we did have time to stop for doughnuts at the locals' preferred shop. Blue Star Donuts was very pretty and painted a lovely calming blue. I think donuts must be exclusively a breakfast thing around here, as they were sold out of a lot of their flavours when we arrived just before noon. Mitchell had horchata (cinnamon) and I had chocolate bergamot. 

This is also from Google. I can take straight pictures

We sat down to eat them, but our tram arrived, so we hopped on instead and ate them as an airport snack. 

That was it for our adventure, although we did have a stopover at Vegas, which was weird to arrive into. They had slot machines right there in the terminal! People were playing on them as they waited for their flights. You could also see the casinos out of the windows of the terminal, and the sun set as we waited, so we got to see all of the Vegas lights as we took off. 

We got home about 10pm, making our long weekend a very long weekend indeed. We had a lovely time in Portland and got to see so much of it. I'm not sure if we'll ever be back, but I'm sure glad we got the chance to visit and experience this quirky city! 

Lots of love,

Emily and Mitchell

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