Oregon Sampler: Days 1-2

Now that Tanya's class is over, we're taking the week to drive around Oregon and explore some of the things the state has to offer.  Tanya calls this route the "Oregon Sampler."  Before we left the city, though, we stopped at a local favorite doughnut shop: Blue Star Doughnuts.  As it turns out, Voodoo Doughnuts, while good, is really more of a tourist place and a novelty than a local favorite.  After eating Blue Star Doughnuts, however, while they do have unique flavors, Voodoo Doughnuts actually makes the better tasting pastry (in both our opinions).

Anyway, south we went.  It is really beautiful here.  There's mountains and trees and long sandy beaches along the ocean.  Monday, we headed south along the coast.  Our first stop was the ever popular Cannon Beach.  This is a cute little town, mostly a tourist stop.  But tourists come here for a reason, right?  It's really pretty.

While here, we ate at Moe's, a local chain famous for their clam chowder.  Tanya says it was pretty good, top two of clam chowders she's had (I don't really care for clam chowder).  Their cabbage salad is also pretty good, as well as the cod tacos and grilled shrimp skewers.  Very much a seafood place.

We continued our journey south.  Along the way we stopped at the Tillamook County Creamery.  We're big fans of Tillamook cheese.  Actually, anyone who lives in the Northwest is a big fan of Tillamook cheese.  We got some delicious ice cream and took a self-guided tour, which is basically just watching the factory line below cut and package cheese.  It's kind of mesmerizing, actually.  Then we got to go and sample some of their cheeses.

We then continued on our journey.  Of course since this is the Oregon Coast, there are lots of pullouts and beautiful views.  We did pull over a few times.  It's a really pretty area over here!

We made a pitstop in Depoe Bay - home of the world's smallest harbor - to taste some wine and take some pictures.  Shocker, we left with two bottles of wine.

Our day ended in Newport.  After checking into our hotel, we headed over to Rogue Brewery.  Interestingly, in Oregon it is the law that any place that sells beer must also sell food from a kitchen.  So we got to taste some beers and eat dinner.

We spent the night in Newport in Travelodge, which ended up being a really nice place, especially for the price.  The room was really clean and inviting.  We both agreed that we kind of wished we had had this room in Portland.

The next morning, we continued our journey into Oregon.  We stayed on the Oregon coast for a little while, making several stops along the way.  There are tons of pullout spots on this highway, all with really amazing views.  We were looking in particular for a place called "Thor's Well," which basically looks like a hole in the ocean.  There are pictures on Google, and there's a spot on the map, but there are NO SIGNS that we could see from the highway, and even when we stopped at the place Google Maps said it should have been, it was not there.  We were both super disappointed.  However, all the other beautiful scenery mostly made up for it.

Eventually we made our way east away from the coast to our lodge for the night, Union Creek Resort.  If you're into camping and being in the woods with a nice creek, maybe a log cabin, no cell service, perhaps an old family restaurant down the road, this is definitely a great area for you.  We loved it.  The only thing we could possibly complain about was the heat in the room we got.  There were fans, but it was not enough.  We roasted until the night time air cooled it down enough for us to really sleep.  However, we got to see some cool things while we were there.

Before we slept, though, we went over to the Natural Bridge.  This is a short hike into the woods from the parking lot.  This underground tunnel was formed by underground lava, and now it houses this mysterious, wondrous underground river that pops out seemingly out of nowhere.  Over top of it there is a natural land bridge that has been used by indigenous peoples for thousands of years.  Now they have it fenced off to preserve the land, but the rock formations are as cool as the river itself.

After this short hike, we moved on to the reason we came to this area in the first place: Crater Lake.  This is the deepest lake in the United States, and it was formed by the volcanic collapse of Mount Mazama almost 8,000 years ago.  The deepest part of the lake is almost 2,000 feet, and only 2% of the floor of the lake has been explored.  The water is so clear, even from the highest point of the cliff side, you can see into the water.  We paid a $15 fee to get into the park, but this ticket is good for seven days (for those of you who would stay longer).  We had to drive up the mountain to get to the first viewing point.  When we turned the corner onto Rim Drive and saw the lake for the first time, we lost our breath.  It is incredible from all angles.

One of our favorite experiences while being here was when we came up to one of the viewpoints and a chipmunk came up right to us.  Literally.  He just scooted right over to us and stood up, as if he was expecting us to feed him something delicious, even though his cheeks were already swelled.  While I don't typically support the idea of feeding the animals, I will say that all we gave them was a few organic cashews.  And they loved them, okay?

After almost three hours of enjoying this lovely area, we headed back down to our lodge.  The first two days of the Oregon Sampler was awesome!  When it's over, we'll post a map of our route so that you can also enjoy this journey!

Portland: Days 2-4

Friday was a bit lazier for me.  I took a bus toward City Center, and I went on to check out the Waterfront walk.  I started at Steel Bridge.  Portland is really bike and pedestrian friendly, so virtually every bridge is accessible by both car and walker.  There is also a lot of water around here.  It's really beautiful and green for a city.  It doesn't feel nearly as cemented as a place like New York or even Chicago.

The walk along the river was nice, warm, sunny.  Lots of people run and bike here.  There's also quite a few homeless, but I never really felt worried because there are so many other people around.

I walked down to Hawthorne Bridge where I crossed back over the river.  I decided to walk towards a nearby cafe, which when walking, it doesn't really seem nearby.  Portland is interesting because you can quickly go from residential to shopping to warehouse back to residential pretty quickly.  The other thing about Portland is that it's got the largest number of non-chain restaurants, so there's really not very many repeating places.  This can be a good and bad thing.  If you like a place, you can only go back to that one spot.  But, there are also a lot more choices.  Anyway, I found a place to sit for a while, and then I just decided that I would rather sit around and read.  So I took a bus out to meet Tanya at her class so we could ride back to the hotel together.  I also knew that I needed to make sure I didn't wear myself out for Saturday.

Saturday was a big day for me.  And Tanya was extra sweet and supportive - she got up early so that I could take her to her class so I could take the car to my race.  When we decided to go together to Portland, and knowing that I would have days on my own, I looked for any races I could.  I found the Helvetia Half Marathon.  Perfect.

(That last picture of me finishing, I was turning off my watch so I got an accurate time.  Sorry you can't see my face.  But I do wonder how many finishers have pictures like this.  At the beginning of any race, you can always hear the beep! beep! beep beep! of all the watches and timers people switch on.)  This was my third half marathon, and definitely the biggest.  The course was through the back country roads of Hillsboro, OR, up and down hills, with lots of beautiful views of the farms and forests.  We even ran right by the Roloff Farm, which if you watch TLC you'll recognize from the show "Little People, Big World."  Obviously we didn't go in, but I did see the sign!

The pictures all have dots on them because the photos are stupid expensive, so I refuse to buy them.  Like, $20 for a digital copy of one photo.  No.  Anyway, I wish I had a picture to show you of the huge crowd of runners lining the country road, all the bright neon dots bouncing between rolling fields of green.

If you're in to traveling for running, I highly recommend this race.  There are lots of people, so I was never running alone; there are plenty of water stations and multiple toilets along the way; the views are really lovely; and it includes lots of food and snacks, a free burger and beer, a pretty cool t-shirt, and a medal.  Even though I was there by myself, I really enjoyed it.  I didn't finish as fast as my other two, but I knew I wouldn't.  This one was significantly warmer (it was technically only 60, but 60 and humid and sunny, so I got sunburned) and it was hillier (almost 900 feet elevation gain).

Needless to say, Saturday evening was just about relaxing.  Even though, to tell you the truth, I felt pretty good.

I had no plans on Sunday.  I was going to head up to the Rose Test Gardens, but then I learned that it was the Pride Parade.  So I went on down to the Burnside Bridge on the Old Town side of the river to watch the LGBT celebration.  This was definitely one of the longest parades ever.  I didn't stay for the whole thing because it was so long.  But it was cool.  There were some pretty cool floats, a couple bands.  And I didn't see any protesters.  I did walk around the festival area, but because I don't live there, it was slightly less meaningful.

The good news, though, is that the Saturday market (which also goes on Sunday) was right next to the parade, so I walked through that part.  It was pretty cool.  It reminded me in a lot of ways of the markets we went to in South America.

After Tanya got back, we decided to go down to a local favorite ice cream spot called Salt & Straw.  If you ever go to Portland, you definitely should eat this ice cream.  When they give it to you, it's a lot prettier than this, but I'd already eaten some of it.

Some other things we know about Portland:

1) Everything is a craft: beer, doughnuts, ice cream, restaurants, even boutiques and coffee shops and clothing (it's kind of a hipster's paradise)

2) Everyone is into recycling.  It's everywhere.  Cars are into recycling.  It's like, a thing.

3) They call this the City of Roses.  So naturally every yard has roses.  Roses everywhere.

If you're looking for a nice city to get away to, this is a really nice city.  Plus, it's really easy to get out of the city.  Beautiful hikes and drives are really not that far away!

Road trip to come!

Portland, OR: Day 1

First, I don't think I've mentioned that many of my travel photos end up on Instagram.  You can follow Karis's feed if you like - "kariskoett" is the username.  Since we spend most of our time at home, most of our pictures are from Alaska.  But whenever we travel, I make sure to showcase some of that.

Second, I think as travelers it's easy to get stuck in the idea of international travel.  While I am 100% in love with visiting other countries, I also want to make sure to appreciate the incredible variety that is available to us in our own country.  The United States is unique in the sense that it spans so many different types of landscapes.  From the Arctic to tropical islands to deserts to rainforest to mountains and everything in between, there are few countries in the world that can offer as much diversity.  One of our goals in our travels is to take full advantage of this.  So while the original purpose of our trip is for Tanya's class, the other reason we're here is to explore and enjoy Oregon.

We took a night flight out of Anchorage to Seattle where we rented a car and drove down to Portland.  (The Columbia River is really pretty, but it's hard to get a good picture from the car.)  Since we're going to be doing some driving around the state, we needed a car, and it was actually cheaper to rent one in Seattle than it would have been to fly to Portland and rent one from here.  This move saved us a few hundred dollars (thank you, Tanya).  Since we're down here, we also went ahead and made an appointment to get our TSA Pre-Check, which means that on all future flights we book (unfortunately it doesn't apply to flights we've already booked), we don't have to wait in those pesky lines and take off all our belts and shoes and empty our liquids and all that.  It just makes everything faster.  And since we are frequent flyers, we decided that the comfort (and not being late to our flight) made the $85 per person worth it.  Especially for international flights, the check-in lines can get really long and really, really slow.

The next stop: Voodoo Doughnut.  Yum.  If you ever make your way to Portland, make sure to visit this delicious doughnut shop downtown.  I think there are two locations.  A couple of notes about this: one, make sure you have cash as they are a cash-only business (yes, really), and two, try to go when everyone else is at work because the line can get a little out of control.

We headed to our hotel early because we'd had an overnight flight, which means we didn't get a lot of sleep.  So most of the day we rested.

On Thursday, the exploring began.  Tanya went to class, which again is why we're here, and I headed out on the town.  The first thing I wanted to do was go to the book lover's mecca: Powell's Books.  Of course there are many wonderful book stores out there, including The Strand in New York City, Powell's is definitely high the list of awesome ones.  They even give provide a map of their store so you can find what you're looking for.  If that's not enough, however, information desks are scattered throughout, at least one in every room.

I had made a list of things I wanted to do and see today, so I didn't want to spend too long in the bookstore.  My next stop was Forest Park.  This is the largest park in the city of Portland with over 5,000 acres of trees and trails.  Of course I wanted to go see it.  So I plugged it into my phone, and my Google Maps said I could just walk there.  It would take nearly an hour, but I could walk.  So sure, I walked.  Maps did not tell me that it was all uphill.  So okay, that's fine.  I walked to Forest Park.  As I got closer, I quickly realized that I was walking through one of the wealthy parts of Portland.  Huge, beautiful houses with flawless yards and shiny cars.  But I made it.  And yes, it was lovely.

I didn't actually go through the tunnel.  I took a bike trail around it.  The first trail after the tunnel I did grab on to since by this time I was just walking alongside the road.  And this trail was all uphill.  Which was super, since I'd spent the last hour walking uphill.

The only thing I did not like about Forest Park is that there are no maps on the trails.  The trails are marked at intersections, but for people like me who have never been here, those trail names don't mean a whole lot.  And the trails are not on Google Maps.  So I was just sort of guessing.  I did end up on the right trail, though, and it, too, went uphill.  After about another hour of climbing, I reached the top, where there sat a lovely parking lot.  The Pittock Mansion is really the top, but to get there, I would have had to walk on a road up and up again, and I'm pretty sure it's windy, and I'm pretty sure there's no sidewalks.  So I hear it's got really nice views of the city, but it's not really accessible by foot.  I just went to the other side and made my way down.

The other thing I didn't love about this trail was that it sometimes had to cross a road.  And this wouldn't be so bad, except that where this trail requires you to cross the road, there is no pedestrian cross walk paint, no sign, no blinking yellow light, and it's a windy fast road.  I mean, obviously people cross it safely all the time, but I feel like this is definitely something to consider.

Anyway, by the time I got to said road, I realized that I probably needed to eat something, and if I didn't grab a bus on this road, it would be a while before I found another.  So I waited about a half an hour for the next bus to come by, and I headed back into City Center.  Here, I found a lovely little restaurant called Cheryl's on 12th.  Good food, good service, great spot to just sit and chat or sit and read or just sit.  I'll probably go back.

After a bit of reading, I went ahead and made my way to where Tanya's class was to meet her.  Here are few things I learned about Portland today:

1.  Drivers are really conscious about pedestrians, and they're not even rude about it.  They're super nice about letting people cross the street and do their pedestrian thing.
2.  There are a lot of bikers.  In fact, about 6% of Portland residents commute to work by bike.
3.  There are like, no chain restaurants.  On the one hand, it can be hard to find exactly what you're looking for (unless you're looking for Starbucks).  On the other hand, though, there's more original and tasty food (including TONS of food carts).
4.  It's a safe city to visit if you're gay.  So gay travelers, you probably already knew this, but Portland is definitely one of USA's gay-friendly spots!
5.  The public transportation here is great.  I got a day pass for the bus for $5, and the MAX, which is a train that runs around the city (there are 4 lines), is free!

More exploring to come!