Portland Trip

Katie and I used Memorial Day weekend to check out Portland and most importantly to do some shopping for still-unnamed Baby Vickery. The drive from Boise is long and unexciting but fortunately we had a XM radio receiver to increase the entertainment factor. By far our biggest shopping commitment was at Ikea looking for nursery furniture and various other household items. That store is special because after 2+ hours of looking at stuff I was totally exhausted, particularly mentally. Too much discussion of household decor I think. At any rate, we picked up a few items for the nursery which Katie will be blogging about soon!

While in Portland, we ate at a few interesting restaurants. Upon arrival, the Deschutes Public House was our first stop and along with the top quality beer I really enjoyed my elk burger with a soft pretzel that we shared as an appetizer. We were both amazed that the place, despite being very large, had huge lines the entire time we were in the area. After our great meal, we walked around downtown and then spent some time in Powell's Books, easily the biggest bookstore I've ever been in. Their technical book selection is impressive and I ended up getting a book on functional programming. We also stopped by the Whole Foods before retiring for the night.

On Saturday we visited Pine State Biscuits for breakfast and had some amazing biscuits - our order included them with sausage, chicken, and jam/butter and every combination was outstanding! This nice repast was followed by marathon shopping and a side trip to see the Capitol at Salem. Dinner was at Dove Vivi, which featured some amazing pizza on a cornmeal crust like nothing either of us had ever experienced. Finally, I insisted on a brief stop at the Bridgeport Brewpub for a beer. The beer was definitely good and the menu looked comparable to Deschutes' offerings. It is definitely somewhere to go in the future! We had also hoped to attend a Portland Timbers MLS game on Saturday, but tickets started at $60 on the secondary market and that is just way to much for a soccer game!

On Monday we did some more shopping, visiting Katie's favorite store Trader Joe's and also the Uwajimaya where Katie found lots of exciting Udon noodle varieties. Before leaving town we had a quick lunch at Burgerville which is a pretty good quality fast food place in the greater Portland area.

Despite a lot of driving, it was a very enjoyable trip. I didn't know that much about Portland but I was definitely impressed with what we saw and Portland's beer options are the best of anywhere I've seen. Also, as of this past weekend, we've finally finished getting rid of excess furniture and we can now start the process of assembling all the new furniture we bought and setting up the nursery.

Oregon Pictures! (sorry, the only pictures we took were in Salem)