Arriving in Portland

We had a pretty decent start in the morning, both of us waking up by 8:30 and getting our stuff all packed and ready to go in order to be out of the room by 10:00 am. We checked out, jumped into the car and started driving south towards Portland. Almost immediately we recognized the timing as a good decision seeing that Seattle's incoming traffic was completely gridlocked. For those that aren't familiar of the layout, unlike Cleveland, or even Cincinnati for that matter, Seattle basically has one freeway artery into downtown, and one out; I-5. Traffic can be a nightmare, especially when everyone and their brother is trying to commute into downtown for work. We breezed out of downtown with hardly an issue and continued our trek south through Tacoma.

It was a really pleasant drive, almost lasting 3 hours, but it really didn't feel like it. The only downer was that we weren't able to see Mount Rainier in the distance due to some low-hanging clouds immediately about the mountain (the rest of the sky was mostly spotted or clear), but we both know that we'll be heading that way towards the end of the week, so we weren't too bummed about it.

We got into Portland at about 1:00 or so and immediately got ourselves checked into the hotel. Driving down, we were both exhausted, so we knew our first day in town was going to be somewhat of a leisurely one. For a momemt I thought the experience was going to be interesting as the deadbolt to our door literally fell apart as I turned the key, but within a few minutes we had a maintenance worker come up and fix it to good as new for us. On that cue, Steph laid down for a nap and I took care of the Parking.

Before I walked up to the room from the parking lot, I took a quick stroll around the neighborhood, locally referred to as the Pearl District, immediately noticing a distinct difference between Portland and Seattle. Portland is a really cool city. It's great for people watching and it sports this vibe that I've never quite seen before. I mean, it is a city. There's a fairly established downtown, and there are a few skyscrapers dotting the skyline...but, I don't know what it is. It's almost as if it has a small town feel to it, though I'm not sure why. Steph pointed out later in the day that it seemed as if everything was really close to the street, so maybe that's it. Regardless, it's very charming and it's easy to feel at home here.

Exhausted as well, I came back up to the room and relaxed for a bit, reading some of the books I picked up in Queen Anne and catching a few minutes of sleep before dinner. At about 5:30 or so, we left the room and did some exploring of the neighborhood together, eventually finding a neat little noodle place to eat that reminded me all too much of Tea House Noodles in Cleveland. It had a largely health-driven menu, which was a nice source of protein to help us recover a bit from being so worn out.

After dinner we walked around a bit to some of the stores, but most had started to close around 7 since it was after all a weekday. We made it a point to check out more of them tomorrow and got back to our room around 7:30 or so to chill out at the hotel for the rest of the night. This may sound like a waste of time to some, especially considering that we're only here for a few short days, but in all honestly, the Ace Hotel in Portland is kind of like this little hipster hangout. People come here during the day to get away from work and just chill downstairs in the lobby with their friends or just to get a change of environment, and at night there are people in and out of the main entrance, taking advantage of the books downstairs or just to recover for a bit between bar hops. It ended up turning into a really nice, relaxing evening. Tomorrow however, we have a few more aggressive plans. Considering it's supposed to rain most of the day, we may be doing quite a bit of driving as opposed to walking, but I think we'll have to play it by ear. Portland has a lot to offer, so much in fact that regardless of what we end up doing, it'll be hard not to take advantage of it.