Seattle to Portland Pt. 2 (Aug 1st - Aug 3rd, 2021)

It's very rare that I find myself with almost unlimited time on a trip. Usually we're trying to catch a train, plane, dinner reservation, or check in at a hotel. 

We wanted to check out a few locations while we were in the northwest. So we rented a car for two days to get out to the suburbs of Seattle and to drive to Portland which is only 90 minutes away. 

We were kicked out of our Seattle hotel at 11 am and couldn't check into our Portland Air BNB until 4 pm. So we had time to kill. 

We kicked around the idea of hanging out in Seattle for a little longer and getting lunch somewhere. 

We kicked around the idea of going to Portland early. But we didn't want our luggage sitting in a car while we had some beers waiting to get into our Air BNB. 

So in a very rare instance, we made up a road trip as we went. 

We thought about going to Aberdeen and seeing the birthplace of Kurt Cobain, but other than the bridge that "Something In the Way" is inspired by and maybe a statue, there's not much else to do there. 

So I started looking around the map, I put a pin on a sleepy fishing town called Astoria. 

"Well Dan," you might ask, "why Astoria?"

Well, that's a very simple answer, the Goonies. The Goonies took place there. 

So we started driving that way. We were going to make it to the area well before we were going to be hungry. That's the best part of a road trip, make up stops as you go. 

I think it was Sal that found our first stop, which is the Wreck of Peter Iredale in Fort Stevens State Park. This was a 100+ year-old ship wreck that still sits on the beach, slowly rusting away. 

The beach was gorgeous. The day was very gray, so it's not your typical sunny beach hang. But we had been in a car for two hours at this point, the fresh ocean air was incredible and revitalizing. 

Our stomachs started growling, so we headed back into Astoria proper and stopped at Astoria Brewing Company for a beer and some appetizers. It was fine. Just fine. But the doors were wide open, it was on the Columbia River. And we got to smell the ocean and watch ships come and go. 

But what came next was some of the most fun I've ever had. Everyone in a great mood, the soundtrack was perfect, and we just cruised through some of the most beautiful nature I've seen in my life. 

We stopped at Young's River Falls Park because why not? Waterfalls rule. I will always stop to see one. 

And from there, Nick and Mariah got to cruise through the mountain side on all sorts of curvy and fun roads. (While I sat in the passenger seat, white knuckling, and trying not to throw up)

This was the most free I had felt in years. There weren't any calendar entries popping up or birthdays or errands. It was just us, on the road, with no real plan. 

I loved it so much that Sal and I are doing a road trip later this year. (2022)

The tank was running near empty as we made it to the outskirts of Portland. We found a gas station with likely 30 miles or less of gas left. 

We entered Portland with a full tank, ready to see what this Air BNB situation was.

Sal had found a really cool part of Portland. It's about a 10 minute train ride from downtown and is where people actually live and eat and drink. Lot of artists in the area. 

The problem is, we arrived in Portland on Sunday night around 6. Options were limited. Luckily, we found this great spot called The Rambler that server food until 10 only a few blocks from our Air BNB.

One of the big things Sal and I agree make good travel partners is realizing you don't have to do everything together. We're grown ass adults and we can go our separate ways if we want to.  

Mariah wanted to sleep in and that's fantastic. Get at it girl. 

The rest of us drove out to Multnomah Falls before we had to return the rental car. (And to beat the
crowds)

Until I went to Hawaii this year, this was the most impressive force of nature I'd ever seen. The falls are 620' high and spray an area of about a half mile in mist. 

And you can hike to the top of it, which we did. Nick peeled off about halfway because the path up was about one person wide. So vertigo was a real thing. If you happened to glance off the side of the path, you started feeling dizzy. 

Sal and I made it to the top. We were exhausted. Our muscles hurt. But it was worth it to stand in the ice cold river that feeds the fall and look over the edge. 

The three of us dropped the rental car off and went to a world famous brewery (Deschutes) for a quick bite to eat before catching the train back to our Air BNB. 

We started for Predinner Cocktails at a place called the Sweet Hereafter. It was a cool bar where everything was made of wood and have a very fortune teller/carny vibe to it. They had vending machines where you could buy mystery party bundles. It was Sal's birthday, so I bought her one, and it just so happened that it was a birthday themed bundle. 

Sal and I try to make it a point to have a really leisurely nice dinner anytime we travel. Nick is not a huge foodie. Mariah is a bit more. So we wanted to keep that in mind when looking. 

Sal nailed it. She found this incredible place called Laurelhurst Market. It's a butcher shop and restaurant. So every cut of meat was butchered by them. Just incredible steaks. 

I think Nick said something like, "this is the best meal I've ever had in my life."

We had a quiet evening in that night. We had been hitting it hard for the past week and the next day was our last. 

Our agenda was to visit the large Japanese Garden and maybe zoo. But this Monday (August 3rd, 2021), for some reason, everything in Portland was shut down. 

So losing an entire day worth of itinerary, we found ourselves with time and no agenda. 

If you can't go to the giant Japanese garden... why not try a much smaller Chinese Garden. It was gorgeous, but all four of us agreed, it was very expensive for what it was. 

We tried to go shopping and bounce around to various museums, but everything was closed. 

While trying to come up with a better idea, we stopped at Backwoods Brewing (my favorite stop in Portland) and Von Ebert Brewing. 

We didn't really come up with any better ideas, but the area by our Air BNB was largely unexplored, so we decided to just walk down the street. And to our surprise, we ended up actually finding some local shops open. We found another brewery, Stormbreaker Brewing. And we found this fantastic pizza place where we got to listen to live Jazz called The 1905.

We ended the night early at The Victoria, a cocktail bar. 

The next day was an early flight out. The ride home was boring, which when flying, is exactly what you want. We got home, all feeling like the trip was the perfect length. We could maybe squeeze out another full fun day, but we had covered something like 60 miles by foot in 6 days.