Portland Adventures

We spent the full week in Portland and more of the week involved work, with adventures as able during the week. This is our collection of fun Portland spots and food exploration.

Monday – We headed to the Japanese Gardens – arriving a bit early relative to our ticket time (required!), we walked around the Rose garden

Rawls made a wish here

And we wandered the Japanese gardens for a long while. There are 5 different garden areas, all impeccably maintained. Claiming to be “the most beautiful and authentic Japanese gardens outside of Japan” – we couldn’t disagree.

Entering

Koi!

Incredibly beautiful

And everyone’s favorite, bonsai

Dinner was takeout from an interesting Chinese spot, Master Kong. Rawls was really happy with this choice (we got him some eggs and avocado toast after 😉

Tuesday

William and the boys after work/school went to Mt. Tabor to see the park and the dormant volcano. Pictures are in their heads. I hear it was beautiful.

After work (EST) wrapped, we visit the “city of books” – Powell’s which is the largest new and used bookstore in the world with over 1mm books offered. It’s a pretty amazing space and William and I could have spent hours here – the boys were happy with about 30 minutes so we settled somewhere in between.

Then we met Cari Sanchez-Potter and her husband Phil Potter (Jax transplants to Portland who are so wonderful), at one of their favorite Portland spots, Nostrano. Amazing catch-up and the boys enjoyed their new Powell’s books purchases

Wednesday

William decided to push the limits with the boys again today (in a great way) and took them on a 8mi hike to Ramona Falls, outside of the city. Got some gorgeous pics out of the trip this time

Apparently remote enough that you had to leave all your info as you started on the hike

Got icy higher up!

Awesome view at top!

And some interesting crossings

Boys came back to rescue me 😉 and we met William’s music friend, Tommy at an awesome spot – Canard. The boys really enjoyed dinner BUT especially the “funfetti “ dessert pancakes. Exhausted but happy boys here.

Thursday Recharge day for all of us in different ways but a bunch of food highlights:

William went out and picked up Blue Star donuts for breakfast – Blueberry Bourbon, Raspberry Rosemary — interesting stuff and felt like we had to try while out here.

And then picked up the most incredible Banh Mi for lunch – Cuon PDX. Seriously baguette perfection.

And ended the day with takeout from Langbaan – apparently near impossible to go pre-pandemic and they converted to really well done takeout “Thai snacks”. Loved the scallop bites, shrimp and betel leaves and the octopus salad was just beautiful!

Friday We drove out towards the coast – first went to Nehalem Bay to a place called Kelly’s Brighton – colorful crabbing operation and the biggest Dungeness crabs. Each was about 2 lbs! We hung out on the docks and then picked apart the Dungeness crabs. The shell is filled with what they call “crab butter” – crab and seawater and amazingly does taste like salted butter.

Afterwards, we headed on a tour of the Tillamook creamery. Really cool facility and the active work in the factory was fun to see. Boys enjoyed this!

And some sampling of their product afterward: ice cream and cheese curds

William won the takeout ordering choice with Hat Yai – restaurant is actually related to Langbaan but a Malaysian focus with the best fried chicken (Shepherd especially agreed but only the dark meat!), and really delicious pickled things.

This morning we woke up with plans to visit a few places – first the Portland farmer’s market at Portland State University. Wow amazing access to all the local vegetable, seafood, dairy, meat vendors. Also many hot food vendors and tons of bakeries. Fully wished we could have picked up food to cook a few meals but instead we had a late breakfast and grabbed a few things for the flight tomorrow.

After the farmer’s market we went to Hoyt’s arboretum — 18 miles of trails divided into sections devoted to various tree families. We walked the firs, spruces, oak, magnolia and birch areas. Fully an area that would have been fun to visit multiple times. Last photo here you can see the boys were really at each other