So we are cruising right along! Our second stop was Portland, and we got there by Amtrak train from Seattle. For this portion, we got coach seats since this trip was only about four hours long. We were super surprised at how big and comfy the seats were! Coming off of a plane, these seats were basically luxury. They’re about double the width of an airplane seat and only two people per side. 
Once we arrived in Portland, we uber-ed to our hotel, The Crowne Plaza Portland Convention Center, which while it was outdated in some areas, had a lot of perks! One was free shuttle service within three miles of the hotel (which is a lot of things in Downtown Portland). Another was free bike rentals, including locks. This was my favorite perk when I planned out trip because I planned out this twenty mile bike adventure for Madi and I. Well, we made it almost that whole way! We biked down to Catherdral Park by St. John’s bridge, and Newton’s law taught us a lot. What goes up must come down right? Well what goes down must come back up in some cases. That includes going back up a 15% gradient hill for a quarter of a mile with a bike. And then going up and down smaller hills the rest of our journey. As Madi put it “at first I was biking with you in front of me, the sun shining and the breeze blowing and thought ‘wow what a beautiful day on the West Coast with my wife’ but then as we came up the hill, across the bridge and down the other side (around mile 12) I thought ‘I’m gonna kill her’”. Ahh, can you feel the love guys? Yeah, biking sixteen miles up and down Portland was enough for us. We put up the bikes and used our trusty legs or Uber the rest of our time here. We did however, use part of our long bike ride to get to Salt and Straw. This was the BEST ice cream we have had in a long long time. With unique flavors like pear and goat cheese or honey lavender, we decided to stick to our guns and get the cinnamon snickerdoodle (OMG SO GOOD). It was between that and the sea salt and Carmel. We will let the you hipsters eat those other flavors, we were OVERLY satisfied with the choice we made. 
That night we headed over to Killer Burger for dinner. It was delicious. Any place that advertises that every burger comes with bacon is for me. We finished our first night off at Powell City of Books, a huge bookstore with both new and used books. This place is like McKays on steroids, but the prices are not as good as McKays. That didn’t stop me from buying a few things! I probably could’ve spent hours there (as I do in McKays) but limited myself to an hour. 
After giving our legs and our brains a good rest, we awoke to a new day and new adventures. Our second day was spent exploring more Portland standards like Voodoo Doughnut, Pittock Mansion and the Japanese Gardens. We saved our doughnuts for the train ride, and had brunch at Byways Cafe which was a cute little diner with food that was pretty good. Here is where we ran into trouble. After ubering to Pittock Mansion , we go to buy our tickets and they tell us “those doughnuts can’t come in” *insert eye roll*. So we decided to just walk around the outside and see the spectacular view. The view was worth the Uber price alone. It was incredible. Next we made a pit stop at the Rose Test Garden which was free and so beautiful. June is its peak time, but there were some gorgeous blooms right now. Next was the Japanese Gardens, which after I paid for what I thought were super overpriced tickets, they tell us again “no food allowed” but at least here an attendant was nice enough to hold our box of doughnuts for us. You the real MVP lady. The Japanese Gardens were nice, very tranquil, but very small. It took us about 45 minutes to casually walk through them. So in my head I just pretended like the Rose Garden was included in the ticket price instead of being free. (These are the kind of things that I have to do since I am usually pretty frugal). 
Our time in Portland was well spent. I am glad we didn’t plan to stay there super long, as we did pretty much everything we wanted to in actual Portland, but Oregon itself has so much to offer. We definitely will be back to visit Oregon again one day, but maybe not Portland itself. We will see!
Next up: Napa!! After a night on the train. California here we come! (Immediate regrets after typing this, sorry for all who will now have the OC theme song stuck in your head forever as I now do).
Must Dos in Portland
- Bike (or uber) to St Johns Bridge, pack a picnic for Cathedral Park
- Visit the Rose Test Garden
- Browse in Powell City of Books
- Eat at Killer Burger
- Indulge at Voodoo Doughnut
- Enjoy the view at Pittock Mansion
Thanks for keeping up,
- Olivia
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