To wrap up July, Joel and I took a vacation - sans kiddos. I had a work trip to the Pacific Northwest (Vancouver, BC and Seattle, OR) so we capitalized on my airfare having been covered by the company and Joel flew out and we met up in Portland. What a wonderful vacation.
Going in to this trip, I had done the least planning ever in the history of vacation planning. We booked our tickets back in April and then I pretty much stuck my head in the sand when it came to doing any other planning.
About 3 days before I left for the work part of my trip, Joel and I spent about hour talking and internet researching about what we wanted to do and came up with a short list.
I didn't even get around to booking the rental car or hotel until I was already in Seattle for work. Talk about last minute planning! I kept thinking I would be punished somehow for not planning things out very well, but you know, for the first time in my life, everything actually fell all in to place withOUT over planning! I had no idea that could happen. (I don't think I'll be doing a lot of that in the future cause it sent my anxiety off the charts in the days leading up to it...).
Portland is typically rainy, but it had not rained in the 40 days prior to arrival (meanwhile, Indiana was having one of the rainiest summers on record). Of course, when we arrived to Portland - pouring down rain. Sweet. But, alas! Somehow, it managed to only rain on that first day whenever we were indoors!! Anytime we needed to go outside - no rain. Craziest thing.
I lucked right in to meeting up with a friend who was my customer a couple jobs ago. We met up for drinks/dinner and got to catch up for a couple hours. It was so good to see them. You know when you change jobs (or move or whatever) and say "We'll have to meet up again some day!" and then life goes on and you never actually meet up? Well I ACTUALLY got to meet up and it was super cool! (Can't believe I didn't take a picture...)
After that, we checked in to the hotel and then decided we'd go to a distillery in downtown Portland. But on our way in, I saw a bunch of tents set up along the river so I told Joel we should go check that out and see what was going on. Turns out it was a beer festival! BOOM!
Going in to this trip, I had done the least planning ever in the history of vacation planning. We booked our tickets back in April and then I pretty much stuck my head in the sand when it came to doing any other planning.
About 3 days before I left for the work part of my trip, Joel and I spent about hour talking and internet researching about what we wanted to do and came up with a short list.
I didn't even get around to booking the rental car or hotel until I was already in Seattle for work. Talk about last minute planning! I kept thinking I would be punished somehow for not planning things out very well, but you know, for the first time in my life, everything actually fell all in to place withOUT over planning! I had no idea that could happen. (I don't think I'll be doing a lot of that in the future cause it sent my anxiety off the charts in the days leading up to it...).
Portland is typically rainy, but it had not rained in the 40 days prior to arrival (meanwhile, Indiana was having one of the rainiest summers on record). Of course, when we arrived to Portland - pouring down rain. Sweet. But, alas! Somehow, it managed to only rain on that first day whenever we were indoors!! Anytime we needed to go outside - no rain. Craziest thing.
I lucked right in to meeting up with a friend who was my customer a couple jobs ago. We met up for drinks/dinner and got to catch up for a couple hours. It was so good to see them. You know when you change jobs (or move or whatever) and say "We'll have to meet up again some day!" and then life goes on and you never actually meet up? Well I ACTUALLY got to meet up and it was super cool! (Can't believe I didn't take a picture...)
After that, we checked in to the hotel and then decided we'd go to a distillery in downtown Portland. But on our way in, I saw a bunch of tents set up along the river so I told Joel we should go check that out and see what was going on. Turns out it was a beer festival! BOOM!
The second day, Sunday, was predicted to have rain so when I woke up that morning I was Googling "things to do in Portland in the rain." Of course the things that were coming up were art museums, history museums, an aquarium, etc. I'm just not a museum kind of girl. Not typically. So I checked the weather again and saw 50% chance of scattered rain and decided we should just chance it and head to the waterfalls to hike.
We had an awesome breakfast at hotel and then I snagged some bread, peanut butter and jelly and made some sandwiches. Grabbed a couple apples and bananas and viola! Free lunch!
We took off toward the waterfalls, and thanks to the dinner the previous day with my friend, got the tip to take the scenic route instead of the interstate. By going that route we stumbled on lots of cool things we'd have missed entirely had we followed the GPS.
First of which was a u-pick blueberry farm. For $5 we could fill this coffee tin. And we did and they were delicious.
We ate on these blueberries for the next 5 days. Best snack ever. I'd pack them in my coffee thermos and they would stay cold all day (only tasted ever-so-slightly of coffee.)
We took off on down the road and pulled off to some scenic overviews. And Vista House which was built in 1917 and was (one of?) the first "rest stops" to be built in the US for travelers to rest, use the restroom, take in the view, etc.
After that we started seeing the waterfalls - there are a lot of them. I kind of lost track and now I don't remember which ones are which. So just enjoy the pictures and we'll call it good.
We got so unbelievably, incredibly lucky with traffic on this adventure. We ended up getting one of the last parking spots at one of the waterfalls and it was in a location such that we could hike from there to several of the falls. Just after we snagged the spot, we saw the traffic backing up for MILES and cars were literally parked on the highway just waiting for a parking spot to open up. I'm sure some people had to wait in their cars for several hours just to be able to get a spot to park so they could see a waterfall for 5 minutes and go back home. Yikes. Glad that wasn't us.
In addition to waterfalls, we saw some ginormous trees, moss growing on everything, streams, fresh water springs (which we filled our water bottles with and drank up), snakes, clover growing everywhere...yeah, I guess that's about it.
We had an awesome breakfast at hotel and then I snagged some bread, peanut butter and jelly and made some sandwiches. Grabbed a couple apples and bananas and viola! Free lunch!
We took off toward the waterfalls, and thanks to the dinner the previous day with my friend, got the tip to take the scenic route instead of the interstate. By going that route we stumbled on lots of cool things we'd have missed entirely had we followed the GPS.
First of which was a u-pick blueberry farm. For $5 we could fill this coffee tin. And we did and they were delicious.
We ate on these blueberries for the next 5 days. Best snack ever. I'd pack them in my coffee thermos and they would stay cold all day (only tasted ever-so-slightly of coffee.)
We took off on down the road and pulled off to some scenic overviews. And Vista House which was built in 1917 and was (one of?) the first "rest stops" to be built in the US for travelers to rest, use the restroom, take in the view, etc.
After that we started seeing the waterfalls - there are a lot of them. I kind of lost track and now I don't remember which ones are which. So just enjoy the pictures and we'll call it good.
We got so unbelievably, incredibly lucky with traffic on this adventure. We ended up getting one of the last parking spots at one of the waterfalls and it was in a location such that we could hike from there to several of the falls. Just after we snagged the spot, we saw the traffic backing up for MILES and cars were literally parked on the highway just waiting for a parking spot to open up. I'm sure some people had to wait in their cars for several hours just to be able to get a spot to park so they could see a waterfall for 5 minutes and go back home. Yikes. Glad that wasn't us.
In addition to waterfalls, we saw some ginormous trees, moss growing on everything, streams, fresh water springs (which we filled our water bottles with and drank up), snakes, clover growing everywhere...yeah, I guess that's about it.
We ended up hiking 11.5 miles (27,405 steps). And it didn't rain a single drop until we were about 10 minutes from our car. It was an absolutely wonderful and completely exhausting day. SO GLAD I spent it in nature and not in a museum!
Day 3 we went white water rafting on the Clakamas River. It was freezing. The air temp was only about 70 degrees when we went and the water was colder than that. We went on a 1/2 day trip and at first I was super disappointed that we couldn't get on a full day trip (they were sold out and since we didn't book until the last minute, we had to take what we could get). However! Once there, I was so glad it was just 2.5 hours. That was plenty. We didn't take our phones on the trip so no pictures of the actual rafting. Just beforehand.
We did our best to find some "hole in the wall" establishments to eat in and one of the best was the place we found after rafting. Mondays were "all day happy hour" so I had like 3 draft Bud Lights for $6 - total. It was ridiculous. Plus I got grilled cheese, tomato soup and onion rings for like $7. Are you kidding me? I think the beers hit me kinda hard.
To contrast our cheap, but delicious, lunch we went to Portland City Grill for dinner that night. Fancy place on the 35th floor of some tall building. We spent $75 on dinner - got no drinks - I had a salad and an appetizer and Joel had some kind of scallops - can't remember what. Anyhow, the food was very costly and just meh. I think Joel and I must just have simple taste. I'll take the Bud Light and grilled cheese all day long.
But afterwards.... oh afterwards.... we got donuts. We waited in line for about 30 minutes at 8:00 at night. I'm told that you will wait at least 30 minutes for donuts no matter what time of day it is. But, uh, totally worth the wait. NOM, NOM, NOM.
I got a yeast donut with chocolate icing and a yeast donut with white icing and crushed Oreos on top. Joel got a crueler (his favorite) and a Bavarian creme filled thing. All were delicious.
Tuesday, day 4, we rented bicycles and rode all over Portland. The first stop was to Pittock Mansion. Joel found this spot and suggested we ride bikes there. He mentions that it's a big mansion just a few miles from downtown at the top of a hill (mountain??) with a really beautiful view. I think nothing of it as I'm game for anything.
But then we start riding. And it hits me that Joel said it's located 1100 feet above sea level. And then I realize that I am ON A BIKE. Riding uphill. For 3.5 miles. Ho-ly hell. I'm in relatively decent shape but I had to get off and walk the bike more than I rode it, I think. It was steep. And exhausting. And hot. But it was completely worth it. For one, we kept riding (walking) past blackberries growing wild along the side of the road. I've never eaten so many blackberries in my life. They were plump and delicious. Warm from the sun. Perfection.
Second, when we did FINALLY reach our destination, it really did have beautiful views. That's Mount Hood in the distance.
Then we made the super fast decent back down the mountain and stopped at the Rose Garden and the Japanese Gardens. Joel was pretty impressed with the Japanese Garden and I suppose it is cool. But it was kinda boring. Just a lot manicured Japanese maples and few other things. Joel has a much deeper appreciation for that art than I do. Guess he's a little more cultured than me!
And then, we stopped for beer and appetizers - cause we earned it after all that biking. And, not gonna lie - one more stop at Voodoo Donuts. Where we waited in line for another 30 minutes at 5:00 in the afternoon for donuts. And then, we passed a street vendor selling gyros and we just had to have one of those too. And in one fell swoop we managed to consume 5x as many calories as we had burned off riding bikes.
Wednesday, day 5 and the last day of our vacation, we didn't have a lot of plans really. We had to be at the airport at 5pm to catch the red-eye so we still had a fair amount of time to do something. But, we'd done all the major things we wanted to do.
So we decided to go pick more blueberries. Cause those things were just so d@mn delicious and we had pretty much demolished the first coffee can full. So we bought a big tupperware container so we could transport them back home and headed off to the farm. After picking another coffee can full, we looked for another hole in the wall place to grab a late lunch. We found one. I got one of those crazy burgers with a fried egg on top. Friggin good. With the exception of the blueberries and blackberries, I was way off plan on this trip!
After lunch, we found a little beach and put our feet in the water. The river was flowing really fast and if you didn't watch it, you'd be swept away in a heartbeat.
After that it was time to head to the airport. We made our way over and had to stop to fuel up the rental car. Well we got ourselves into a horrible traffic jam that I thought was going to cause us to be late to the airport. So while sitting in traffic, I double checked the flight - still on time - and got us all checked in. We finally broke free of the traffic and made it to the airport.
We had to wait in a bit of a line to check our luggage. Just as we were walking up to the counter, I get a text from Delta. "Sorry, your flight is cancelled." @#^#!@!*&
We were rebooked on another flight that didn't leave until several hours later - total bummer. We had no choice but to just go sit in the airport and wait. If only they had cancelled the flight an hour sooner, we could have messed around for long before even coming to the airport. Oh well.
We did finally get on the plane. Joel tried to catch some zzzzs - sporting my workout headband as eye mask.
All in all, a really good vacation. Joel commented that it's one of his favorites that we've been on. I think it's cause we were active the whole time. Not much sitting around. But I think of vacation as a lot of sitting around, so when we got home, I ready for a vacation.
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