Our Last Day in Portland

Okay, now that all the photos are uploaded (still more to vomit up on that site today), we can go ahead with our last day in Portland entry. It's Thursday morning now and I'm sitting in the study area of the Ace Hotel, waiting for Steph to gain consciousness, us to pack up our stuff, and head west to Astoria, followed by a nice coastal drive, then finally on to Seattle where we'll be until we fly home Sunday night.

So our last day in Portland was a great one. We got a bit of a slow start in the morning due to some quick work that I actually had to do for the office. No worries though, as we were out the door by ten to grab some breakfast at a place call the 35th Street Bistro. I ordered an Asparagus and Tomato Quesche and Steph got a whole mess of scrambled eggs and the biggest strips of bacon I've ever seen. After breakfast we jumped in the car and headed east this time towards the neighborhood of Hawthorne.

Our first stop was Mt. Tabor, a now-extinct volcano that is now covered in pine trees, dog-lovers, and the occasional nomad that still appreciates some good sleep under the aspen pine canopy. We couldn't find a hole leading down into the guts of the volcano, but I highly doubt one exists anymore, at least one that is publicly accessible, so we climbed to the peak and explored the top of the hill, discovering a perfect, framed portrait of downtown Portland. This place was like walking through one of my old fantasy King's Quest series computer games that I played as a kid. For those that ever messed around with those, it's public knowledge that the Pacific Northwest was inspiration for much of the early games' settings, and it shows. Even the bathrooms up here have a fairy-tale quality to them. We took a few shots, explored around a bit, then headed down back down towards the car.

Our next stop was Hawthorne, which we read was one of the neighborhoods to see when you're out here, due to the plethora of hip little boutiques, thrift stores, and record shops, with the occasional coffee shop thrown in. It's also the home of the most cozy outlet of Powell's Books, a large chain of popular book stores here in town. After exploring a few of the shops and picking up a few things here and there, we wandered into the bookstore and were completely amazed at the size and selection. It's the largest bookstore I've ever been in and the demeanor of the whole place is laid back and even somewhat sarcastic. We looked around for a little while and came across a few books that I remember having as a kid, specifically an encyclopedia about gnomes and another from the Three Investigators series, which I haven't seen in years, probably since I was in elementary school.

We spent a few hours in Hawthorne and walked around the streets a bit, taking in the atmosphere. It was very laid back and trendy, almost a younger, college version of Nob Hill, except not quite as pretty and less kept up. We really liked it though, and after checking out a few more wordly-type shops, jumped back in the car and headed north towards the Kennedy School.

I've mentioned us eating and having a few drinks at these McMenamins places around town. Well, the Kennedy school is part of that chain, though it's definitely something different that what we've ever seen before. Years ago, it used to be an elementary school, dating back over 150 years to when Portland was first being settled. As times progressed, the school was eventually shut down until McMenamin's purchased the property and remade the building into a mix of a hotel with restaurants, small pubs, a theater, and a variety of party/meeting rooms. It really is a cool place, with most of the original signage. I mentioned to Steph that we should stay here the next time we're in town, but the fact that the rooms are old classrooms and that they still contain the original chalkboards kind of freaked her out. I can understand that, as it does have a bit of a creepy vibe throughout the entire place, but it'd still be really cool. Oh well, at least we got to see it.

Arriving back at the hotel, neither one of us were feeling all that well, so we laid down a bit and after a short nap, I came back down to the lobby, grabbed a beer at the bar next door and worked on getting all of the photos uploaded to the Flickr site. I took a ton of the hotel that probably won't be uploaded until tomorrow, but we'll get them up here soon enough.

We have an early start this morning, as I'm actually getting ready to jump in the car here in a few minutes to get us moving on our way to Astoria. More updates to come, as I expect today's photos to be some of the most beautiful and interesting we've taken yet. Till then.