Portland, Oregon

We loved Portland.

The main difference for us between Portland and Seattle was that we had a host in Portland where we could safely leave our car for the day and use public transit.

Way back in Juneau, Alaska we were looking for a sheltered spot in the never ending drizzling rain to make dinner on our camp stove. We came across a a family BBQ at one of the public picnic shelters and asked if we could use a corner of the picnic shelter to make our food. They welcomed us in and we spent the rest of the evening sharing barbecued Alaskan Salmon, cake, beer and wine and stories.

One of the couples at the BBQ was actually visiting from Portland. They gave us a list of suggested things to see in Oregon and gave us their contact information and an invitation to stay with them when we were passing through

Fast forward a month to Portland, we called Dave and Rhonda to see if they were available to host us while we were in town. For the following three nights we camped out in a corner of their lawn, made dinner together each night and shared drinks and stories.

Our first morning in town we caught the bus and used our transfer to hop on and off and explore the Hillsdale district. We wandered through cafes and hippie clothing stores, saw buskers and bakeries and eventually made our way downtown.

Some of Portland's many food trucks 

Portland is the capital of the budding food truck movement. Trucks cluster in semi-permanent groups in parking lots with shared seating areas or move around to different locations each day. We used www.foodcartsportland.com to find the larger clusters of trucks and sample their wares.

Smiley lunch from a Moroccan food truck

Grand Central Baking Co where we shared a grilled cheese and the soup of the day

Ginger ale and more food trucks

Tasty Korean Bento Box 

Full of good food we explored Pioneer square, the waterfront walkway and visited the enormous Powell's City of Books.

The later half of the afternoon was spent brewery hopping. We visited Rock Bottom Brewery, Fat Head Brewery,  Deschute's Brewery, Hair of the Dog and The Commons Brewery.

The Commons Brewery

While we may have blown the daily budget in Portland on food and drink, it was an experience we had been looking forward to, and saved for accordingly.

The following day we spent exploring the Colombia River Gorge which we've written a separate post for.

 We had such a great time in Portland that it was really hard to leave our hosts Rhonda and Dave and their daughter Haislee. We returned to highway 101 and carried on our journey down the coast.