Location: Portland, Oregon, USA

Kat and I hopped into the car first thing this morning for a little trip east towards Washington state to see the Multnomah Falls Nature Center, which was quite a bit quicker than I had anticipated! It only took about 30 minutes to get there and then 5 minutes to stroll leisurely up to the viewpoint. It was a delicate 2 tiered waterfall that had been completely. Commercialized. It was really pretty, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t seem like it warranted its own lodge and restaurant and 4 snack carts. FOUR. There were tourists everywhere and I was a bit baffled… then Kat reminded me of two things:

1) We’re in the states and if something can be commercialized, it will be.

2) We’re lucky enough to come from a place where nature and things like waterfalls are the norm, so maybe some don’t seem as awe-inspiring to us as they do to a lot of the other tourists passing through.

Good points! And good reminders for me. Still worth the trip as we got to drive back along the other side of the Columbia River along the Lewis and Clarke Highway, which was a blast and had some incredible viewpoints.

One thing I’d really like to note at this particular time is that I have been the navigator for all of this trip so far which is a HORRIBLE idea. I mean we have only had to make like 3 u-turns and considering I have zero sense of direction I would say that’s not the worst. I just have a feeling this is going to come up again some time later on this trip…

So then… our day became all about food. (I mean it often is anyway but stick with me here). Ninety-nine percent of the recommendations we received for Portland were food related so we decided to just hammer out a bunch all in a row. (I told Meaghan before I left that I was gonna try to eat in moderation on this trip. Ha. Ha. What. A. Lie.) We stopped for lunch at a Thai place called Pok Pok, trying a few things we couldn’t pronounce that were delicious. No pad Thai in site on this menu!

We browsed a few shops along the way to Blue Star Donuts. Yes. More food. Everyone on the internet says go to Voodoo donuts because they are aesthetically intense, but the locals say they taste terrible in comparison to Blue Star. I had a plain glazed buttermilk donut that gave the best donuts I’ve ever had a run for their money. Always take locals advice I guess! Probably a good rule to live by.

We were feeling pretty full at this point so we sat down for a visit and some more crossword puzzling in a converted red train caboose called Tea Chai Te, which boasted something like 150 types of tea. Comfy velvet wingback chairs and plants gave the whole place a super relaxed atmosphere, but after a couple hours of visiting (and digesting!) we were ready to get on with the food tour.

One more thing Portland is known for is its food cart pods. Many a food cart will pile up in groups all over the city so we stopped in Cartlandia (I laughed about this name for like 5 full minutes) for some burritos, which we brought home to eat in our pj’s.

All in all another relaxed day. I haven’t felt this rested (or this full!) in awhile.

Sav