The month of May started out quite nicely in Seattle. It was sunny and warm, making us believe that summer was almost upon us. However, as the month progressed it slowly turned sour. We decided to break the monotony with a trip down to Portland for the weekend. Unfortunately, we just found more of the same, but we made the best of things and had our fun.
We left Seattle early in the morning and started our day at the Portland Saturday Market. Nothing really caught our eye until we started seeing the bright pink boxes belonging to Voodoo Donut. We followed the boxes until we came upon their source. The line was ridiciously long but hey, what are you going to do. I was expecting cakey doughnuts but they are actually fairly fluffy. Not Krispy Kreme fluffy but still very good.
After that snack we went in search of more food. Unlike Seattle, food stalls are all over Portland. It’s actually pretty awesome, just a full block of stalls. Once we got our fix, we meandered down to Powell’s Books. It’s a book store if you couldn’t tell, but it has more books than almost any library. It’s also a giant place which is hard to grok from the outside. It’s kinda of like the Tardis, bigger on the inside than the outside.
We could have spent many more hours at Powell’s but we had to continue on our day. The next stop was at Smith’s Tea Shop. Julie’s slowly becoming a tea connoisseur so I thought she might enjoy the place. I was expecting more of a loose leaf store but it’s actually more of a coffee shop. Julie and Christine shared a tea tasting while I got a matcha latte. The latte was quite delicious. Somehow they turned all the milk into a foamy substance that was rich but light at the same time. The people in the store were incredibly helpful and patient as Julie and Christine tried to decide what their teas were to partake in their tasting.
The day ended at the Screen Door, which has what we consider is the best fried chicken that we’ve had so far. With that we were out for the day. Note, on the screen door. The chicken tastes almost as good cold as it does fresh.
The next morning, we got some bikes on loan from the hotel we were stayed. It was near the airport so we rode on a bike trail that runs alongside the Columbia River. The only issue was that they only had cruiser bikes which were gigantic. As you pedalled, your legs would fully extend on every revolution. This made biking incredibly tiring, but at least it wasn’t as hilly as Seattle. Once we worked up an appetite, we made our way to the Waffle Window. The window is literally a hole in the wall that serves up Belgian waffles topped with all sorts of breakfasty items.
We ended our trip with a visit to OMSI. The museum was pretty great. Lots of interactive exhibits where you got to test all sorts of things. We even found out that Julie has crazy grip strength, so much that she almost broke scale. We also got to tour around an old diesel submarine and look through the periscope. With that, we hit the road and made our way back home.
