Portlandia!

Because you HAVE to go to Voodoo Donuts when in Portland!

We came rolling into Portland on Friday night.  I enjoyed watching the grass seed being harvested along I-5 on the drive up, while everyone had their head's buried in a book.  Bish got us an Air BnB just east of the Willamette River in the Hawthorne neighborhood.  It was a 2 story 4 plex and we were on the second floor.  The place was referred to as "historic" but "significantly outdated" may have been a more accurate description!  It was a 100+ year old building, so did have a lot of character and lacked a lot of modern amenities as one would expect, but it was functional and had most everything we needed for our time in town.  Before unloading all of our stuff (aka crap!), we had ran by the local Safeway to grab some stuff to cook on the grill and have a quiet night after 3 days of traveling.  We cooked burgers on the grill, and had some salad.

Slackettes at Powell's!

On Saturday we decided to go across the river and explore downtown Portland.  We had been told that the Pearl District was a pretty cool area.  We walked across the river on Hawthorne Bridge, and had to find Danica some lunch as she was getting tired and crabby!  We found the park with all of the food trucks that Portland is known for, and Danica had an gyro wrap, and Darby got a bento box.  The gyro wrap was to die for!

 After we got rid of Danica's Grumpy Bug, found our way to Powell's Books, which is a well known bookstore in Portland that takes up an entire city block and is multiple floors.  Having two daughters that read voraciously, whether it be a paper book or their Kindles, we thought they would enjoy Powell's for hours.  So we got them situated there, and Bish and I promptly found the local Deschutes micro brewery as there are a ton of micros in the area!  We had barely gotten sat down at the bar (it was busy for mid afternoon on a weekend - we later found out there was a home brewers convention in town), and gotten our flight delivered, and our phones went off with the girls telling us they were leaving Powell's and coming to find us!  30 minutes?!!!! WTF?  Where were our kids?  I was pleasantly surprised that they actually listened to what I had told them as we left them - "we are going to Deschutes Brewery, which is a few blocks North of Powell's."  They were out on the street, headed North, and were just a half block from Deschutes by the time we caught up to them!  Maybe they will be able to function on their own someday!  :-)

Me in front of some random restaurant.

Powell's was "too crowded and too loud" for their liking.  It was a Saturday in the middle of summer, so I can see the argument.  Maybe we'll go back at a later point in time to give it a try.  So we finished our flight of beer, and moved on down the road.  Danica was starting to get tired of walking around (aka headed back down the grumpy path), so I lucked out and found a neighborhood grocery store called World Foods that had tables outside.  We ducked inside to grab something to drink and snack on (again, not enough fuel and Danica gets grumpy).  It was a small, high end, neighborhood grocery with a nice variety of things to choose from.  I ordered Bish and I some micro brew beers from their little coffee/wine/beer counter, and we found some cheese curds and herb flavored almonds (pronounced a-monds for my buddy Jeff!), and the girls had a root beer and chocolate milk respectively.  While sitting at the counter, an older gentleman that obviously worked at the place came up and started talking to us.  We discovered that he and his wife actually own the place (and another on like it in a different area, as well as a restaurant!).  He stood and chatted with us, and told us about his family, moving the US from Lebanon, and then Portland.  He was very nice, and friendly, and a gem to meet and talk to!

We ended up walking around the Pearl some more, and eventually hopped onto the light rail a bus and headed back towards our home for the time here.  We went and had a Poke Bowl for dinner not far from the "historic" place, and called it a night.  We got some cheap entertainment on the light rail.... an older lady (I was thinking white trash as the situation unfolded) sat across from Darby and I, and was headed to the same area we were (I know because she asked us where the train went).  She got on a call on her cell, and was talking "a bit loud" for being in a public place.  Well, she proceeded to explain to the person on the other end of the phone (as well as the whole damned light rail car!) that she left her husband "at the bar" where he had wanted to "go watch TV" (I guess the TV at their home wasn't adequate?), and that she "just needed to get away from him" as he was constantly "on top of her" (not literally) and wouldn't leave her alone.  She needed some "alone time" so was going to Target, and wasn't sure when she'd go back home!  She began to cry at some point while on the phone.  In some respects, you felt sorry for her, and in others, you thought "do you really need to be talking so loud in public about such a private subject?"  But it was entertaining nonetheless!

Danica with Darby "squared", aka Darby Bigelow in the Rose Garden!

On Saturday, I had discovered that Cale Bigelow (Clark 2.0 to the turf program at Purdue) and his family were in Portland too!   So I pinged him, and we made plans to meet up on Sunday!  We met him, and his youngest, the only other "Darby" we have met/known, at the Portland Rose Garden on Sunday morning!  He had been in town for some grass seed meetings with seed growers ("boring" from the Slackettes) and his family had flown out to join him for a few days away, as well as for Darby B. to look at U of O, and OSU as options for college.  We all kicked around the Rose Garden, and then headed down the hill for lunch at a pasta place that makes all of their own pasta!  After lunch, we went over near their hotel, and Bish and the girls stood in line at Voodoo Donuts fro 30 minutes to pay $10 for 4 donuts!  Then we all walked around a local street fair that was going on in the area, and eventually parted ways as they headed back to their hotel, and we headed across the river to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science & Industry).  There are friggen signs for this place everywhere!  It must be a big deal up here in Portland?

Waiting in line for Voodoo Donuts!

OMSI was pretty cool, and we lucked out as it was "$2 Entrance Day!"  It was in an old GE building along the river, so was very industrial looking.  The girls were pushing being too old for the place, but there was plenty for them to do and see and learn.  They did some of the activities, and were able to go into a robotic exhibit that was really cool!  We headed back to the "historic" place, and eventually went to some of the local micro breweries not far from there for dinner.  We first hit Modern Times (now with a Portland location!), and some tacos.  Then we went to Cascade Brewing, for some sour beers (their specialty), and a reuben and pretzel and soup.  and eventually to Rogue Brewing for cheese curds and lettuce wraps!  All the food was good, as is typically the case at most micro breweries.

A Voodoo "Dirty Old Bastard" donut and milk!

On Monday we headed East along the Columbia River towards a town called The Dalles.  Man is it a big river!  Bish had really good intentions to get in a hike along the way, but kept striking out.  She wanted to pull off to see Multnomah Falls, and the exit was closed as the parking for it was full by the time we left the house.  We were able to stop along the drive at the Bonneville (Bish kept saying Boonville) Dam for a tour and some education.  It was a fun visit as they had a lot of info on the Columbia River and all of the dams along it's route, as well as the history of the building of this dam back in the 1930s-1940s.  Me being the water geek that I am, I especially enjoyed the "dam tour" and the info I learned.  The river flows over 100 million gallons per minute... all friggen year!!!!  No wonder the ocean is so full of water!  And we learned that this dam is considered "small!"

So we ended up driving all the way out to The Dalles before we eventually pulled over again and walked around.  It was a cool little town, and we found a nice little microbrewery to eat lunch at (shocker!).  Then we made Bish really happy as we went with her to a local winery so she could taste some of the local wines!  It was honestly a really cool winery tasting room as it was an old grain mill along the river.  While she enjoyed some local wine and conversation with other visitors, I promptly took a nap on one of the couches in the tasting room!!!

Sideways Slackettes with totem pole at OMSI.

In hindsight, we should have spent more time in Hood River, OR than in The Dalles.  We stopped in here on our way back to kick around some more, and this was a much neater little river town that The Dalles had been.  Bish got to do some more wine tasting, and I did a little tasting at a local distillery!  The girls were really happy as they bought a Harry Potter trivia game, and then got some ice cream before we left town!  Once we got back to the house, we had a quiet evening of a movie and popcorn!

A sideways Bigfeet sighting on way to Cannon Beach.

On Tuesday we decided to head West to the coast and the ocean for something different.  We visited a little beach town called Cannon Beach which was your typical summer beach town with tourists walking around everywhere, bad traffic/drivers/etc.  We walked around the town a bit and Bish and the girls decided they wanted to go out to the beach.  I was way behind on my steps for the day (we typically do not get rolling until 11 am or so each day, so my typical walking patterns are shot thus far!), so I decided to walk around the town a bit more and explore all of the knick knack shops.  It was a whole lot of crap I didn't need to or want to buy!  As I'm walking around, I get a text from Bish that says "We are headed back to the car.  Danica is wet from head to toe."  I'm thinking "WTF did she do now?"  So I meander back to the car to meet them (I have the keys).  Well, her and Darby were playing chicken near the water, and Danica turned around to run, and she slipped and fell face first into the water!  Always something entertaining with this one!

Bish & girls in Astoria, OR where ships come to pick up wood.

After Cannon Beach, we drove up to Astoria, Oregon where the film Goonies was filmed.  After not voicing my opinion on spending more time in Hood River vs. The Dalles, the day before, I spoke up this day and said we should try to spend more time in Astoria than Cannon Beach today.  I was wrong, CB was better.  :-(  Not that Astoria was bad though.  We kicked around in downtown Astoria too, and found our way to another micro brewery - shocker!  They had all kinds of Goonies stuff to look at, and the beer was decent too.  We walked into some local "herbal apothecary" type of place with a hippie running the joint.  I'm amazed he could keep the doors open, but some lady was in tehre buying stuff while we were there.  We attempted to drive by and see the Goonie house, but they had signs on the alley to get there that you'd be trespassing if you went up the alleyway.

The sideways Slackettes version of Chunk & Sloth!

Wednesday was July 4th, and we had a rather quiet day.  We met my friend Tom Glazener, who I have taught with for the IA, for lunch, but otherwise just kind of took it easy, other than making the girls go do some bball and exercise type stuff in a local park for the first time on the trip.  We got stuff to make on the grill for dinner, and watched another movie, and eventually caught some of fireworks shows on the river from our West facing deck through/over the trees. 

I may add some additional pics to these posts if Bish can figure out how actually download pics from her phone.  I guess I'm not as clueless as my wife with my sideways images when she can't even download!  :-)

Off to Seattle next!