May 24: To the Coast

Today was our first day with internet service, partly by choice, and partly because our days have been so full.

We got up and checked out of our hotel in Portland this morning, got a quick breakfast (I'll let you guess where), and then walked around downtown for a little while. (We were headed to the Saturday Market, but we were actually too early ... if you can believe that!)

Greg


Us with Portlandia


This would so not fly in Greenville.


I have trained him well, haven't I? :) Love this one he took of me.


We did then head over to the Portland Saturday Market. It's hard to describe accurately: a lot of arts and crafts vendors, some food vendors. Kind of like a big street festival that they have every weekend. I swear, every other vendor, though, was for some sort of natural soap. They must have enough customers to support them all, though, I guess. (And I was shocked by how few "water pipe" vendors there were. I think there were more Scientology tents ["free stress test!"] than water pipe vendors.)




It turned out to be a gorgeous day in Portland. The sun was out and shining, it was maybe 70 degrees, and there was a light breeze. Since it was finally clearing (some), we went down to the south waterfront to ride the tram. I believe that it was built to connect the lower and upper parts of the medical school/hospital, but they probably make more of their money from tourists. :)



Back towards Portland:


Maybe Mt. Hood? It wasn't as clear as we thought it was. :)


We took the streetcar back towards downtown, with a stop off at the Portland Farmer’s Market, which is on the campus of Portland State University on Saturdays. Once I saw someone with strawberries, we were in pursuit and weren’t leaving without them. We also picked up some apples and pears, and some almond brittle for the road.




From the farmer’s market, we took the streetcar further north, back to the Pearl District. Greg’s looking for a rain coat (and I’m looking for one with a hood), and we had seen a Patagonia store when we were up there the other night at Hot Lips. No luck on the jacket front; I think Patagonia is a little more high performance than either of us really need. (Read: neither of us requires a $325 rain coat.)

The side benefit of going back to the Pearl District was that we did make it to the cupcake place (I think it was called Cup Cake Jones, which my mom will appreciate, as she’s the one that taught me that “jones” is actually a verb, as in “I’m jonesing for some cupcakes.”) and got ‘em to go. Greg got some sort of chocolate cupcake with chocolate filling and chocolate icing. Mine was a chocolate cupcake with mint chocolate filling and icing. Sadly, I didn’t get a picture of the actual cupcakes before we devoured them (later).



One observation about Portland is that there are rhododendron everywhere, and they’re in full bloom right now. Just gorgeous, and more colors than I’ve ever seen – oranges and yellows, and the usual purple and pinks. I don’t think I got any good pictures, though.

It was lunch time (or a little beyond) by that point, so we went to another Chipotle downtown. (We’re both engineers. We could eat the same thing every day for weeks on end.) Greg changed things up a bit by trying the pork burrito (which was good), but I stuck with the chicken burrito with guac.

After lunch, we headed for the car and got on the road. We went down I-5 to Salem. Greg had found this museum in the Fodor’s guide that was supposed to be a museum of some more of the inventions of the guy who invented the erector set. It was kind of hard to find, as the street address put it underneath a bridge. When we got there and paid our entrance fee, though, we realized that it was just a children’s museum, and some of the rooms just looked like they had toys thrown around everywhere. So we just called it a charitable donation, and got out of there.

We got back on the road to the beach. Because we had gone down to Salem first, the GPS altered our route a bit, and took us out these gorgeous, scenic back roads through farm country. The roads were empty, which I worried a bit about with the holiday weekend. But we had no problems.

We’re kind of in a love-hate relationship with the GPS. I’m glad that it took us to the beach the way that it did, and it has been useful. But it was hard in the city, where the roads are really close together, and the delay with the satellites means that it tells you just a fraction too late when to make a turn. It was also frustrating when we were trying to get on I-5, because there’d be signs up for I-5, but it was taking us on another path and I couldn’t figure out why. Oh, and there was the time we used it to find Target, and it took us to an office park where we eventually found something called “Target Stores” listed on one of the signs. Don’t get me wrong – we could have looked it up online. We’re just still trying to figure out its limitations.


We eventually had to cross the mountains to get to the beach. I don’t think we saw any elk, despite the warning signs … but I don’t know if I’d know an elk if I saw it. anyway The weird part (for an east coast girl) was then we came down out of the mountains and pine forest and were less than half a mile from the beach. It was just like we came upon this clearing, but it was the coast.

We did hit some rain showers coming through the mountains, but it was our daily does of rain. If that’s what it took for the fabulously nice day we got in Portland, then it was worth it.

Another GPS story: you can choose the icon you use as your “car.” There’s a monster truck, a convertible, etc. Greg chose the station wagon with the suitcases and surfboard strapped to the top. I pointed out that the surfboard looks kind of like a coffin, and that’s when we realized that it’s the station wagon from National Lampoons (Wally World) and that’s grandma strapped to the top.

We headed first to the historic bayfront in Newport, which was a lot of little beach stores (think “nautical wear” and cheap souvenirs, lots of tie dye, but sadly no airbrush). Most of them were closed, though, and we had no problem finding parking on the main drag. It’s kind of weird how quiet the coast is. We walked around for a little bit, and went out on one of the piers to get a view of the Yaquina Bay Bridge.


There were some sea lions hanging out at another pier.


All of the seafood restaurants down by the bay were the “do you want that fried, or double chicken fried?” variety, so we drove a little further to Nye Beach. I had a recommendation from TripAdvisor for a place there, but it turned out to be a little more hm, “organic” than either of us either really cared for. We found another place, April’s on Nye Beach, which had a bit of a wait, but that gave us time to walk around on the beach.




I tried roast duck breast for dinner, mostly to try something new, but didn’t really care for it. (Now I know.) I should have gotten seafood, though. Greg got the halibut, and that was good. We got an appetizer, though, that more than made up for it: warm bread, a head of roasted garlic, homemade mustard, and a hunk of Cambozola cheese. I didn’t know what the cheese was when we ordered it, but I LOVE cheese in any form, so I knew I’d be happy no matter what it was. But it was some sort of a blue cheese, I think. So good.

After dinner, we got some coffee and finally ate those cupcakes we got earlier. I can’t begin to tell you how much restraint it took to wait that long.

We found our way to the bed and breakfast we were staying at, the Newport Belle, which is a docked riverboat (the GPS directions were "cross bridge and then navigate off road."). We got there kind of late, so we really just checked in and headed for bed. I stayed up for a bit trying to get some blog stuff updated because I know some of you (hi dad) were going through blog withdrawl. :) Plus, if I don't write it down, I'll forget.