Portlandia!

After leaving Glacier NP, we headed west towards Portland! We had a very scenic and exciting drive through the Sawtooth Mountains in northern Idaho! And before we knew it, there was Mount Hood! BAM! That means we’re getting really close to Portland!

Mt Hood! As seen through the bug covered windshield

Portlandia reminded us a lot of Milwaukee. It’s situated on a river, has lots of micro breweries and lots and lots of hipsters! Milwaukee hipsters WISH they were as hipster as Portlandia hipsters. Get on their level people. I mean the coffee shops had decoupage mustaches on the tables. And there were pinball machines at the “beer gardens”. Everyone and I mean everyone has full tatted up arms and legs, hair every color of the rainbow, the ugliest summer dresses you've never seen and they all ride a bike- even their dogs ride along. Level up Milwaukee.

We stayed with The Bears while in Portland, thanks for the hospitality friends! We rolled into town around 8:00 pm and enjoyed a nice night of catching up! My journal says "...super luxurious to have a bathroom, tap water and a couch to sit on!" :) Next day we were up early and had homemade cherry pie for breakfast when T got home. It was the best pie I've ever eaten! We walked to REI to pick up a few last minute items for the JMT, it was awesome to walk there! It was only about 2 blocks away! We met Josh for lunch and ate way too much at a delicious Indian restaurant whose buffet was SUPERB! 

We went downtown to check out Powell’s bookstore- the largest used bookstore in the world!! And holy cats was it big! And we didn’t even go into the main store! The main store is one full city block and 3 floors chock full of any and all books you could imagine! We spent our entire parking meter time across the street from the main building, in another city block sized building that was all math, science and engineering. Nerd Alert! Daveed had fun looking through all the math, physics, architecture etc etc books! I had fun looking through the neuroscience and psychology books. We both walked out of the store with a few new books and Daveed even found a cool antique book for his dad that was a sales book for an old coal furnace company. How neat is that?

We also checked out the rose gardens. Roses. Everywhere! My mom would have loved these gardens as she is a flower lover and especially loves roses! Over 70 varieties of roses! Who knew there were so many?! Daveed definitely didn’t as he told me there were exactly two kinds of roses: "old world and new world". Well, we both got schooled. We had a nice time strolling around the gardens and finished our tour with some sno-cones!

Later that night we went out for some din with Josh, we went to some fun hipster places. A Mexican place with cheap food and no service. And right next door a “beer garden” (outdoor picnic tables) with pinball machines! The beer place had an impressive selection of I think 50+ international beers plus big glass front refrigerators with tons of bottles to choose from! Then we met my cousin Alani and her boyfriend Mitch for a drink. I hadn’t met her squeeze yet so it was really great to finally meet him!

Alani!

Next day we went to the coast! We checked out Ecola State Park and the surrounding beaches. 

Ecola State Park

T wanted to fly kites on the beach so we stopped at a kite shop and picked out kites-- I haven’t flown a kite since I think preschool, it was SO fun! Lots of smiles and giggles as we all enjoyed flying our kites!

Flying kites on Cannon Beach

We went tide pooling at low tide, which was a first for me! Starfish, muscles, anemones! So cool to see them all up close! We went exploring down the beach climbing up and around on the exposed boulders. We found a cool cave that had a GIANT metal thing stuck all the way in the back. It looked like a piece from a ship or something. It was hollow and huge! We wondered how it got stuck way back in the cave!

Starfish!

Muscles!

Anemones! 

Sea Arch

This is the cave we found the big metal thing in

Next day, Sunday, it was already time for us to leave :(  We wanted to stay longer and hang out, the Bears are just the best! We had to move on though if we wanted to make it to Yosemite in time to start the JMT on our assigned date. So we got up early on Sunday morning and we all went to meet Alani and Mitch for breakfast. We had a great time chit chatting and then it was time to say our goodbyes. Thanks for the hospitality and fun, til next time Portland, put a bird on it.