Day 1 with Aaron - Portland, Oregon

Because it was Aaron’s first day, I took it easy on him. We woke up leisurely and went out to breakfast at a local chain called Shari’s (a lot like CoCo’s) and then got on the way to Portland.

Our first stop was the International Rose Test garden in Washington Park. It’s a pretty large garden jam-packed with neatly manicured rows and rows of roses in every shape, size, and color. Some of the ones we saw had patents pending and I guess if you knew roses, you may have recognized some of the varietal names as well. There was a cool one that looked like it had two buds in one flower. I kept asking Aaron to pick out his favorite, but his response was that he didn’t really care for roses. My favorite roses are the ones that are two colors – especially the ones that have buds that are one color, but sort of bloom and age into another.

Next we went further into the park to Hoyt Arboretum. We got a map from the docent, but didn’t really use it. We just started walking and every time we got to a fork in the road, I asked Aaron left or right, and we just wandered. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell which path looked more interesting so we flipped a coin. Most of the trees in the arboretum were spruces, pines, and firs, but the magnolia section was interesting. The monkey puzzle trees were my favorite, they are a really weird spiky pine tree from South America. In the end, we think we walked most of the trails there, Aaron thinks about four miles.

Next we headed downtown to the Saturday market. We wandered through the many stalls just poking along. Next we walked to VooDoo donut, but the line was out the door and around the block, so we decided to check it later when we came back to the car. We walked to Pioneer Square and along the way stopped at an outdoor store to look for the French press piece to go with my cook stove. They didn’t have it, but we got a plastic press anyway so that we would have reliable coffee (little did we know). After Pioneer Square we walked to Mill’s End Park.

Mill’s End Park is about 252 square inches and in the median of the major road along the waterfront. Apparently there was a light pole there and a newspaper columnist who could see it from his window lamented when the pole was removed and a ragged hole was left for months so he decided to take care of it and plant stuff in it and of course write about it. It is now an official city park, though I am not sure who is in charge of the upkeep. I like the fact that the landscaping includes plastic dinosaurs and bugs. It was cute, quirky, and I loved it.

We walked along the water til we got back to the market and then checked out VooDoo Donut again, but the line was just as long. I told Aaron that it meant it was good, and the next time we were just going to have to wait in line. He said that because there was a line it perpetuates itself and just makes more people think they need to wait in line. Maybe.

We walked through Chinatown, but skipped the garden because it wasn’t free and headed to Rogue Brewery. We were starved. I had a hazelnut brown nectar and Aaron had an imperial ale along with some tasty food. Satiated and no longer cranky we walked back to VooDoo. Aaron was annoyed because he did not want to wait in line – he never waits in line for anything he says. I think that’s odd because sometimes you have to wait in line for good things, and Aaron humored me by waiting at VooDoo. I did offer that he could go get the car and see if he could figure out on the one way streets by himself how to get back to me and that would take about the time the wait in line was. He didn’t take me up on that offer, and I am not sure if I would have still been in line.

We waited in line for 80 minutes (Aaron was keeping track). The inside of VooDoo donuts was tiny, pink, and quirkily decorated. Even though the line had been super long all day, there were still plenty of donuts in the racks. I read the menu and its one hundred options and decided that there was no way I was going to be able to pick out a few from the many delicious and quirky options. Aaron told me it was up to me so I went with the VooDoo dozen, where the guy picked a dozen donuts.

Why is it so hard to choose? There are donuts like the Portland Cream – the official donut of Portland, the VooDoo, which looks like a Voodoo doll; the maple bacon bar with real bacon on it; the Cap’n with Captain Crunch on it; and others. In our VooDoo dozen we definitely got a good mix even if we don’t know the silly names that go with a lot of them – we know we got a Butterfingerin, a triple chocolate penetration, a Miami Vice, a Marshall Mathers and Dirt. When we got back to the car, we sat on the back, a well deserved respite, and picked two donuts to try. I picked up the purple one, but after the overwhelming grape smell, I couldn’t take it. I hate fake grape – but I passed it off to Aaron, who thought it was pretty tasty. The next one I picked was actually a normal donut with chocolate icing, so on the third try I ended up with a chocolate donut with strawberry flavors. The funny thing is… the grape and strawberry flavoring come from dipping white icing into koolaid powders! It’s actually a pretty good idea.

It was pretty early in the evening so we decided to check out the Columbia River Gorge and see what it was about. We took historic 30 instead of the new highway 84 (?) and the first bit was a little boring. Then we stopped off a vista point and saw the gorge for the first time. It was a lot wider than I expected…. More valley like than gorge-like. Off in the distance we could see a building on a point that looked like the next stop so we set off for it.

We were detoured on Larch Mountain Road. It was fourteen miles up to a vista point and we decided to go ahead and do it so we wouldn’t have to do it the next day. There was a parade in one of the small towns between our hotel and the cool gorge stuff and we knew we were going to have to be through early in order to get through before the parade… that and it was still daylight and apparently we had not done enough in one day. Larch Mountain Road was through old growth douglas fir and quite pretty. Not as big as redwoods, but there were still some pretty big trees. We got to the parking lot at the top and it was FREEZING. Probably because we were 4056 feet up. We set off at a hurried pace for the vista, knowing that at the top we were supposed to be able to see five peaks. The last stair on the vista was over 4,000 feet (there was a sign) and you could indeed see five peaks – St. Helens, Adams, Rainier, Hood, and Jefferson (I think). Aaron commented it was funny how you could forget how cold you were when you were looking at something awesome… because we were cold again as soon as we set off back for the car.

After Larch Mountain Road, we stopped at the house on the point to check out the view and then visited a few waterfalls. It was really sweet because there was still enough light to see, there was no one else there, and you could walk right up to the bases of three waterfalls. The last one was a bit longer of a hike, but we squeezed it in before it got too dark. My photo of Bridal Veil Falls looks like a blue ghost.

Finally we had enough, we had reached an interstate junction, and we headed back to the hotel.