Portland: Town of Bikes, Beer, and Weird Hipsters
A brief stop on my way downtown.
I got up around 10:30a and headed down to the kitchen to begin the onslaught on the "All you can make" pancake breakfast provided by the hostel. Someone had left a bag of fresh blackberries on the counter and were free for anyone to use. So I made 4 regular pancakes and 4 with blackberries. The berry ones were better if you had to know. While chowing down, I sorted out my plan of attack for the day which was to include the Chinese Gardens, the Rose Test Gardens, the Chris King Factory, Powell's Book Store, and the infamous VooDoo Doughnuts. All these stops were about 1-2 miles apart from each other, so getting to them was pretty quick and simple.
My favorite spot was probably the Chinese Gardens, which is claimed to be the most authentic Chinese gardens construction outside of China. They take up an entire city block and include a lake, waterfall, several buildings and bridges and a few hundred native Chinese plants and flowers. It was about as relaxing as Cannon Beach but in a completely different way. I really enjoyed it. =)
The Rose Test gardens is an area on top of Washington City park, a large hill-top park on the west-side of town. They've got an inordinate amount of roses there. Like proabably millions of them, all different species, colors, sizes, etc. I felt like the Queen of Hearts and her many card soldiers from Alice in Wonderland were going to collect me up at any moment and have me headless. It smelled great though!
Powell's Books was described to me as the largest bookstore in the world. Naturally I had to check it out. Once I got there, I only needed to look in the window and realize that I didn't want any part of the madness contained inside, so I just kept rolling.
The next stop was VooDoo Doughnuts. I didn't really know much about it but it had been recommended by a few different people so I decided waiting in line for 45 mins was worth it. It was miserably hot though and after a certain point, there was no shade for like half and hour. For our waiting-in-line entertainment, there was a duo playing funk/jazz/blues tunes on guitar and buckets. They were actually extremely good musicians. The best part was that the bucket player had a frying pan as one of his "drums." Turned out the selection of doughnuts was gigantic so I simply opted for the VooDoo dozen, which is just 12 picked by the staff. I got an apple fritter too and as it would turn out, that was the best one. Haha.
The Rose Test gardens is an area on top of Washington City park, a large hill-top park on the west-side of town. They've got an inordinate amount of roses there. Like proabably millions of them, all different species, colors, sizes, etc. I felt like the Queen of Hearts and her many card soldiers from Alice in Wonderland were going to collect me up at any moment and have me headless. It smelled great though!
Powell's Books was described to me as the largest bookstore in the world. Naturally I had to check it out. Once I got there, I only needed to look in the window and realize that I didn't want any part of the madness contained inside, so I just kept rolling.
The next stop was VooDoo Doughnuts. I didn't really know much about it but it had been recommended by a few different people so I decided waiting in line for 45 mins was worth it. It was miserably hot though and after a certain point, there was no shade for like half and hour. For our waiting-in-line entertainment, there was a duo playing funk/jazz/blues tunes on guitar and buckets. They were actually extremely good musicians. The best part was that the bucket player had a frying pan as one of his "drums." Turned out the selection of doughnuts was gigantic so I simply opted for the VooDoo dozen, which is just 12 picked by the staff. I got an apple fritter too and as it would turn out, that was the best one. Haha.
At this point, my list of things to see had pretty much come to an end, BUT, a friend from the bike shop at home had put me in contact with his best friend, Brian a.k.a. Huts, who now lives in Portland. As it would turn out, this guy was going to a giant BBQ pork roast not too far from my hostel. I dropped my collection of doughnuts off at the hostel and headed over to actually meet Huts and to eat an endless supply of roasted pig. It was awesome! Huts was a great guy and we connected instantly, talking about art and such. He's doing a Masters of Fine Art in town and had met the guy in charge of this pig roast party. It was nice meeting some local people because it made for a much more wholesome stay in town. We stayed for a while, watched as some guests lit fireworks, smashed an old electric guitar, and eventually enjoyed a fire in the backyard as the evening chill set in. He rode his bike with me back to my hostel after things started winding down and I promptly went to bed.
BBQ Pork Roast Party!
Huts offered his apartment to me if I wanted to stay and extra night and I took him up on it. The next day, I packed up my stuff and was just about to leave for Huts' when a gentleman by the name of Mike stopped me by saying, "Your bike is the bike of the day!" I had no idea what he was talking about so that developed into an hour-long conversation/video interview about my bike and my trip. Mike owns a bike shop in Gainesville, FL that deals primarily in vintage european road bikes and wanted to know more about the [best touring bike he'd ever seen].
I finally did get out of there and made my way to Huts' place, where he let me do some laundry as I planned my route out of Portland towards Bend. We made a spaghetti dinner and went out for a beer later in the evening at the Hair of the Dog (HotD) bar. On the way to the bar, we stopped at his studio. What a place! It was a giant warehouse-turned-studio that was the most perfect creative adult playplace I'd ever seen. We went up on the roof too for a great panoramic view of the city. The studio is right next to the Franz bread bakery and the whole neighborhood smelled wonderful because they were making cinnamon-rasin bread at the time.
After our sampler tray at HotD, we headed back towards his place to a little park with another, different view of the city. I think that area is referred to as "The Bluffs" as it's a little grassy spot perched on top of some pretty steep cliffs on the NE side of town. We got there right at sunset too. T'was a nice ending to a weekend in Portland. We rolled back to his place and crashed almost immediately into our beds.
I finally did get out of there and made my way to Huts' place, where he let me do some laundry as I planned my route out of Portland towards Bend. We made a spaghetti dinner and went out for a beer later in the evening at the Hair of the Dog (HotD) bar. On the way to the bar, we stopped at his studio. What a place! It was a giant warehouse-turned-studio that was the most perfect creative adult playplace I'd ever seen. We went up on the roof too for a great panoramic view of the city. The studio is right next to the Franz bread bakery and the whole neighborhood smelled wonderful because they were making cinnamon-rasin bread at the time.
After our sampler tray at HotD, we headed back towards his place to a little park with another, different view of the city. I think that area is referred to as "The Bluffs" as it's a little grassy spot perched on top of some pretty steep cliffs on the NE side of town. We got there right at sunset too. T'was a nice ending to a weekend in Portland. We rolled back to his place and crashed almost immediately into our beds.
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