Pacific North Wonderland Day Two: Portland, again!

Coming back tomorrow to finish that post turned into two weeks, oops! Things have been so weird and great and terrible lately. But that is another story for another time. I need to tell you more about our Pacific North West trip! Because it was amazing, and I'm so glad we didn't cancel it after the insane October we had. 

So, back to where we were. This is the second part of our first full day in Portland. You can see part one here. We join our heroes at lunch, at Vtopia, the vegan CHEESE SHOP.

I was very excited about visiting this place. Fancy vegan cheese is usually amazing! We ended up not getting a cheese plate, which I kind of regret. I would have especially liked to try that macadamia and cashew Camembert.

The best thing we had was the fancy mac and cheese. Oh man! It was so creamy, and whatever they used for the "bacon" was just perfect. If we lived nearby I would be getting a big bowl of that to go whenever I could. Mmmmmmm.
To the left you can see my little trip journal. I usually forget, but it is so fun to make one with Travis. We write down everything we see, funny convos we overhear, food we eat. When I read back over it there are so many things I've already forgotten about!

We also got panini sandwiches that were just ok. I really wanted to try the soft pretzels, but another couple in the shop got the last order! Maybe next time. My favorite thing on that plate was the salad, which is weird because it was just greens with olive oil and I think pink sea salt, but it tasted so good!

The big plan for the rest of the day was shopping! There were tons of stores I wanted to check out in town. First on the list was Fat Fancy, a vintage plus size shop! I've wanted to visit for years. I tried on gold lame hot pants and caftans and sweaters and loved it. I never find vintage in my size, here I had options! And there was a Miss Piggy shrine. Perfection!

After we had paid I noticed a "Large and in charge" Latrice Royale pin, so I had to make another purchase! She is one of my favorite queens! "Funky yet Chunky".

I bought this caftan. And a cute sweater that will make an appearance in another trip post.

This place, Ray's Ragtime, was really close to Fat Fancy so we stopped in. It was packed to the roof (literally!) with vintage clothes! And elf shoes....

Travis ended up with this cute plaid jacket. He was so excited that it was lined. See the dresses hanging on those racks? They went around the entire store! So many!

What followed was hours of walking up and down Mississippi Avenue going in cool shop after cool shop. Here are a few of the things we saw, I didn't take many photos.

Reading Frenzy (zines!!)

Travis got a hair cut. Said he wanted to look good for my photos, hah!

This tea shop and a whole page of different kinds of chai! I picked the black forest, it was ok. I would love to try more of them. And I love that sign. 

Travis told me "That looks kind of seamless!" when I put on this mask, so he took a photo to show me. I guess he was right!

After all that shopping we were starving and went to dinner at the Black Water Bar. A bar will all vegan food?? Don't mind if I do! Like several vegan places we went in Portland, there was no mention of all the food being vegan on the menu, so I double checked the Happy Cow listing. It seemed too good to be true! 

The BEST thing was the mozzarella sticks. They were so good, I don't even understand how they did it. I had a seitan barbeque sandwich that was great, and Travis was in love with his Western burger. I also had a Cock and Bull ginger ale, but it was TOO spicy. While we were eating they were playing the Hobbit on a big screen, with the sound off. We loved it so much we ended up back there again the next night.

Per Rae and Travis vacation tradition we had to see a movie while we were out of town. We picked Goosebumps, it was delightful! There were several laugh out loud moments, though we were disappointed the evil sponge from "It Came From Beneath the Sink" didn't make an appearance.

 

After the movie we headed back to our little farm abode and fell asleep. It was a good day.