Pacific North Wonderland Day One: Portland

When Travis and I were talking about where we wanted to take our fall trip this year, the Pacific Northwest kept popping up. One reason was we hadn't been there and I'd see gorgeous photos of the scenery. The main reason might have been that the concentration of vegan restaurants is so high in Portland. You will definitely see a LOT of food photos in the Portland posts. It was all too delicious!

I know, I know, this isn't the famous Portland carpet, they replaced it, but it still felt like I needed a photo to say we'd made it. I had the brilliant idea to schedule our flight out of Nashville at 6 am so we would arrive in Portland before noon. That totally happened, but we were so tired we felt terrible the whole day! Not to mention we had stayed up too late trying to get a possum out of our house, but that is another story for another time.
The best thing that happened on the flight was once we got on the plane in Denver, a family with a toddler sat next to us. I'm fine with that, and the kid was being pretty good, but when the plane took off the mom played the song "Butterfly Kisses" outloud, SO LOUD, on a speaker! Who does that? It would have been really annoying if we hadn't been laughing so hard at what a lame song that is.
After about 6 hours in the air we landed in Portland and got right to eating.

We had brunch at a place called A.N.D. Cafe. Travis got a Feast waffle, which was stuffed with vegan sausage, covered in gravy and topped with a tofu scramble. Not my thing but he really liked it, along with his side of biscuits and more gravy, which came with steamed kale. I got a garden grilled cheese that was so yummy! It had spinach and avocado, along with some kind of herb cashew ricotta. It came with tortilla chips which seemed weird and plain when you have nothing to dip them in. But overall we enjoyed this place. It was suggested by an instagram friend!

We were close to Voodoo Doughnut Too,  so we stopped by and waited about 25 minutes in line. There were a bunch of vegan doughnuts in the case, but the girl working told us she only had two kinds (and one was maple bars, blech!) so we just got one of each instead of the dozen we planned. I liked the one we got though (voodoo doll/jelly filled). Can you believe I didn't take a photo of it??

Straining to read the menu. I guess it doesn't matter though, because they are going to just give you what they have.

Cutie with the doughnuts. 

Our next stop was the Museum of Contemporary Craft! My good friend Dana suggested it to me. Their current show was Alien She, which they described as: the first exhibition to examine the lasting impact of Riot Grrrl on artists and cultural producers working today. Right up my alley!

I'm glad Dana suggested it. I don't usually look up art museums or exhibits when we travel and it was a nice stop.

There was a lot of Miranda July work which I always love. They had an exhibit showcasing her project where women would send videos to each other through the mail, almost like a chain letter? It was very cool!

I'm a big fan of Bitch magazine so I was excited to see this case full of covers, and the art they used to make them. Sometimes it was illustration, sometimes a sculpture, sometimes a medical model, etc.

As we were leaving we ducked into Augen Gallery to see the Jim Riswold show they had up. I really enjoyed it! I hadn't heard of him before (since I left art school I don't pay attention much), and it made me want to check out the galleries in Nashville to see what they have to offer.

Will You Be My Valentine, Chairman Mao?

After we left the gallery we walked to a nearby store I wanted to check out. There were so many fun shops in Portland! I tried not to bring too much home!

Budd + Finn

Hand-Eye Supply was the shop I was looking for. I knew that they had knives (Travis' favorite!) and I really love these safety posters they sell! They have them on their website here. I love the Ice, Elevate, Vacate one for severed digits!

After a little shopping we went to check into our Air Bnb on Sauvie Island, just north of town. It was the cutest little house on an organic farm! There was even a very friendly dog to pet! I have a few more photos of it to show you later.

Like I mentioned before, we felt TERRIBLE after our early morning flight. We got dressed to go out to dinner, but felt so crummy we decided to stay in. We went to Whole Foods, bought some soup and immune boosting supplements then came back and watched Netflix in bed. It was kind of disappointing since our vacation had just started, but I think going to bed early help us get back up on our feet the next day. It was still a great first day in Portland!

(I can't wait to go back)