The Friday afternoon trip did not begin well. What should have been a 2 ½ hour car ride turned into a 4 hour ordeal with stop and go traffic starting in Seattle and lasting all the way to Olympia. Just as the travelers reached Oregon, they encountered the rush hour traffic in Portland. Fortunately the drive to Portland was the worst part of their weekend.
Upon arriving at their hotel, "The Nines", Ray and Traci were quite impressed with their room. Their hotel occupies the top 7 floors of the downtown Macy's building. When making an advance reservation, the Nines ran a weekend promotion cutting the internet rate 25% so Ray and Traci decided to take advantage of the good deal. They were given a large corner room with modern décor and a spacious bath. Furnishings included a 42" LCD TV, a table with chairs, a desk, and a chaise lounge. The only bad part of the hotel is the $32 per night valet parking fee.
After checking in, Ray wanted to have dinner at a noted Portland steakhouse, The Ringside. The meal consisted of Caesar salad, rib eye steak for Ray and rack of lamb for Traci. Because it was Ray's birthday, the restaurant also gave Ray one of his favorite desserts – a hot fudge sundae. In a word, the food was fabulous. And for $80+tip including drinks, by Seattle standards it was a great deal! Portland does not have a restaurant tax (and Oregon has no sales tax) making many things a 10% off bargain!
The stuffed travelers decided to walk around the Pearl District next. The Pearl District looked like Seattle's Belltown with more families and less nightclubs. Many nice residential buildings surrounded parks with bistro type restaurants at the street level. On their journey, Ray and Traci encountered several parking lots with lunch trucks and food booths set up – kind of like a miniature "Bite of Portland" with a wide variety of ethnic foods at cheap prices. Mobile trucks were set up next to very temporary tents and more permanent appearing shacks. Also in the Pearl District was the famous Powell Bookstore, the largest bookstore Ray had ever seen. Multiple floors contained new and used books of every genre imaginable. In this era of e-books, it was refreshing to see a vibrant bookstore. On the way back, Ray and Traci passed the Pioneer Courthouse Square where a summer festival was taking place. Along with food vendors and a local band, teams of sand designers built amazing structures out of exclusively beach sand and water.
Before retiring for the night, Ray and Traci visited Voodoo Donuts, a food channel favorite donut house. While the shop had a large variety of donuts, they purchased some of their more famous styles – the Voodoo Donut with a pretzel stabbing the human shaped donut leaving raspberry drippings, a Bacon Maple Bar, and the Portland Cream Donut.
Saturday began with Ray running along the Willamette River. Like many cities, Portland has a riverfront park between downtown and the river. Several different bridges cross the river, and one can run a loop using bridges to get from one side to the other. Portland is a very bicycle friendly city with defined bicycle lanes. Most of the downtown streets are one way making the streets safer for both pedestrians and bicyclists. It is a bit confusing to walk around downtown due to the lack of crosswalks and pedestrian signals – people simply wander across streets when they clear. After the run, Ray and Traci headed out to look at shopping areas (free of Washington's 9%+ sales tax). Nordstrom's anniversary sale was going on its second day although the store looked pretty empty. Niketown appeared to have relatively more customers. Ray and Traci stopped for a light lunch at the Pioneer Square Mall which contained a food court with a wide variety of meals – Ray had soup and salad, Traci had a bagel and a fruit cup. After lunch, the travelers headed out to Hood River for the wedding. The trip to Hood River was quite scenic and the actual event took place with a beautiful backdrop of the Cascade mountains. After the joyous celebration, Ray and Traci returned to the Nines hotel and the brief weekend in Portland ended the next morning with a much quicker drive back to Seattle.
