My coworker was backing out of time off he had initially decided to take for a Fourth of July weekend and asked me if I would like to claim it instead. Sure, why not! It took a while for me to figure out what I wanted to do or who I would want to do whatever with, but I eventually landed on a road trip north to Portland. Hooray for spontaneity!
My lovely mother agreed to go with me so that I wouldn't have to travel alone (I'm so not ready for that). It took about 9 hours to get there, driving through flat planes of farmland and weaving through mountains and past Shasta in Northern California. Through one stretch of Oregon, we were startled to find what looked like tumbleweed floating through the air. We were very confused. There were tufts of casually floating grass everywhere in the sky. I don't know either. But you'll know when you're really in Oregon because everything is suddenly so green. It rains much more in Oregon than it does in California, so the plants are very happy and they show it. I would love to live in Oregon some day, maybe in retirement.
We arrived earlier than we expected, so we decided to let our first visit be to Multnomah Falls, a couple of miles east from Portland. It's a very popular destination, and since it was also July 4th, it was a holiday and therefore very crowded. A really cool place where you can view the wonders of nature (a very tall waterfall) without having to hike at all to see it. It's just off of the freeway with loads of parking, a gift shop, and a cafe. There's the option to hike up to the top of the waterfall too, but I wasn't about to go up that far.
Afterwards, we dropped off our stuff at the hotel and visited downtown's charming Pearl District with both high end indie stuff and homeless people areas. Not really sure what to think about that, but it was really hard to find a place to eat on the Fourth of July.
The next morning, we got up early to make our way to the famous Voodoo Doughnuts. A line out the door didn't surprise me, but it did surprise me that the line also started at the door, so it was pretty misleading. The doughnuts were well worth the wait, as they were superiorly delicious and creative flavor-wise. Their main staple would the the Voodoo doughnut, a raspberry filled in the shape of a voodoo doll and shanked with a pretzel stick. The other must-have is the maple bacon (oh my god) bar. Yes, bacon. On the maple bar. It was like eating a bacon maple sweet pancake breakfast to go. I really liked the butterfinger doughnut, too.
Next we visited Washington Park where the Japanese garden and Rose garden reside among a crap ton of other things. The hills in this park are forested with these tall canopy trees that are amazing to be under. It feels very secluded. Roses don't interest me very much, but the Japanese garden was immaculate. I couldn't put my camera down!
If you want a great view of the city of Portland, visit Pittock Mansion just up the road from Washington Park. There's a nice area with benches to sit there for a while, or you could pay to go inside the mansion, which I didn't bother doing myself.
Leaving Pittock Mansion, we weren't really sure what to do next, but were heading west anyway, and eventually thought, hey, why not keep going all the way to the coast? The drive was very pretty and hilly and forested, and we eventually made it to Seaside where we got out of the car and visited some of the shops along the beach. A huge statue of Lewis and Clark alerted us to the fact that this very spot was the end of their adventure across the country.We didn't want to drive back the same way, so we headed a little bit North to Astoria first before going east again. My mom told me that this town Astoria was where they filmed the movie The Goonies. Pretty sweet, but I didn't really recognize anything in particular. By the time we got home we were pooped, especially my mom who prefers to be the driver.
In the morning we visited Portland's famous Saturday Market. Lots of craft and food booths pop up all over downtown along the Willamette river and you could literally spend hours there trying to visit all the tents. My feet definitely hurt and we had to quit early. Some of my favorite booths involved woodworking or blown glass pieces, but my mom's favorite was a guy who made chains and inspired her to learn how to make them herself.
Our last adventure in Portland was stationed at the Leach Botanical Garden. The garden feels very secluded, but it's actually in the middle of town, which is kind of disorienting. It's very beautiful, and often hosts wedding receptions, but allows visitors to tour the grounds where a stream cuts through forested areas. If Oregon wasn't so beautifully lush and green, it probably wouldn't have felt as magical as it did.
We made our way down to Salem that day in order to spare us an hour of driving the following day on our way back home. And good thing too, because our bed in Portland had a bed-ridden-morbidly-obese-man-sized dent on my mom's side.
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