Fall Visit To Portland, Oregon: Day 1

Getting There

Four days of West Coast beer, hiking in the woods, and tasting delicious food sounds like a great mini-vacation, right? I thought so too, when I booked a trip to Portland, OR for us on a bit of a whim in April. Portland is a city we thought we would like, and we've been meaning to get to the Pacific Northwest for a while, ever since we spent a day in northern California in Sea Ranch at the end of our San Francisco/wine country honeymoon.

What made this trip even more appealing was a free hotel stay. Thanks to the sign-up bonus from our Marriott Rewards credit card and some transferred Ultimate Rewards points from our Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, I was able to book us five nights at the Courtyard Portland Downtown/Convention Center for absolutely nothing. That was a savings of $1,311 compared to the cash rate. Nice!

It was actually cheapest for us to fly from the small, regional airport in Madison, WI than the larger hub in Milwaukee (we purchased our flights). This turned out being particularly convenient because Aaron has switched jobs since I booked this flight, so we were able to leave work on Friday and be at the airport in five minutes, in plenty of time for our 6:30 p.m. flight. That gave us time to enjoy our first beer of the trip! On our way to the airport bar, we passed by the gift shop. In true Wisconsin fashion, they were offering cheese samples.

We made our way to the bar (which is actually an airport outpost of the Great Dane, a local microbrewery) and ordered a beer. Unfortunately, the beers were $10 each (although they were 20 oz) and did not taste very good. I'd say it tasted like Blue Moon at best. Aaron's face clearly shows how he felt about this beer.

We boarded our Delta flight to Salt Lake City, which was blissfully uneventful, and then had two hours to kill during our layover. We managed to find another place with local beer (Gordon Biersch, although there were many options in SLC), although Aaron was even more excited to find out they offered free Golden Tee. Side note: what's with the sloped floors in SLC? We weren't ready for hiking yet!

We sleepily boarded our flight to Portland around 10:30 p.m. MDT. Another uneventful flight—on which I caught a bit of a nap—and landed in PDX at about 11:15 p.m. PDT. We waited for our bags, then caught a cab. I know we could have taken the MAX Train, but I was tired, it was dark, and I didn't know the way on the street to our hotel. Unfortunately, that cab ride was about $40, and the MAX train would have been $5. Lesson learned. We arrived at the Courtyard, picked up our keys (which were ready because I had checked in using the mobile app), and hit the hay around midnight. We had big plans for the next day, so we needed to get some rest. It was worth it, though, to get all the travel out of the way after work on Friday.

Day 1 in Portland

We had an early wakeup call (6:30 a.m.) because a local guide—my friend Mikaela—was picking us up at our hotel at 7:30 to go to Pip's, one of many hip and trendy doughnut places in Portland. They opened at 8:00 a.m., and we wanted to avoid the line. At 7:55, we got out of the car to stand outside the door, and a line began to form immediately behind us. People were streaming out of cars, nearby businesses, and from neighborhood streets. It was quite a sight.

Pip's Original Doughnuts

Pip's offers six varieties of doughnuts—five standard (cinnamon sugar, honey sea salt, Nutella, dirty woo—a combination of all prior flavors, bacon) and a seasonal, which was blackberry when we visited. They are mini, deep-fried doughnuts, so we ordered 18—three of each.

They were all quite good, but my favorite was the Dirty Woo. Aaron preferred the bacon, which was actually done with a very tasteful bacon-maple jam. I managed to limit myself to one of each flavor, but only because I also got the chai sampler.

This tasting of Pip's original house-made chai included five flavors: Smoky Robinson (yes, smoked chai), Ginger Rogers, King and I, Heart of Gold, and Emmylou. Here are the details of each flavor.

I didn't dislike any of them, but none of them really wowed me. To be honest, I prefer the chai from Rishi tea, a local company, that is served at our local coffee shops.

AM Beer Tasting

After breakfast, Mikaela was kind enough to drive us to the Saturday Market. Since it wasn't yet open at 9:30 a.m., we ventured down city streets to see what we could find. The first thing we saw was a long line at Voodoo doughnuts—out the door and around the building. No thanks! We opted instead to stop at a local brewery (Pints) that just so happened to open early because it doubled as a coffee shop. We entered to find out we were the only customers, and they were happy to serve us a tasting. Hey, it was almost noon Wisconsin time!

This was our first of two tastings. We tried everything they have on tap. Pints has a small brewing system that is totally exposed in the back of the bar/restaurant. While brewing is in progress, I bet it would be quite entertaining.

Fun fact: In Portland, every establishment that serves alcohol must also offer food. While a few places just offer something minimal, most offer a full kitchen with a fairly ambitious menu. We tasted so much beer on our trip that we rarely had to find a restaurant for lunch or dinner—the food offering at the breweries was quite good.

Saturday Market

After finishing our tasting, we wandered back to the Saturday Market (which is also open on Sundays). Aaron got three packages of jerky that were marinated in local beer and wine. Honestly, I couldn't taste the marinade, but it was good jerky. I'm sure his beer nerd friends will get a kick out of it.

Next, we started looking at art. One artist, Pterylae Designs, created beautifully-patterned art with thread. We intend to order a custom piece once we're moved into our new home. Then we stumbled on Roxanne Patruznick's booth. She created a series of paintings capturing gummy bears. They were so whimsical and unexpected—we had to buy one! We purchased a painting of gummy bears in an eye-witness lineup. What did they do? Which one was guilty? Did they face discrimination because of their color? We will ponder that for years as this art hangs in our home, I'm sure. We've got the painting, but you can buy the print on etsy.

Gummy Line Up, by Roxanne Patruznick

Then, we stumbled across Francesca Berrini's booth. This artist creates digital art by combining unrelated photos—many of which were religious scenes with dinosaurs. We bought a magnet (which I intend to give to a dino-obsessed co-worker) and some greeting cards. I'm sure we'll follow up with her to get a larger piece once we move. If we were local, or if we weren't flying home with small suitcases, we would have bought much more art at the market. I'm glad we got the cards from the vendors we really like so we can follow up later. This was an unexpected benefit of our trip to Portland!

Chinese Garden

After the market, we walked past an even longer line at Voodoo towards the Lan Su Chinese Garden. I timed our arrival so we could catch one of the free tours offered by the docents. We hung with the tour for about 45 minutes and learned all about the symbolism and meaning of the garden.

This little statue is a money frog, which Chinese people keep in their homes to attract and protect wealth, and keep away bad luck.

This beautiful room was the scholar's office. We learned that traditional Chinese gardens are actually created by and for scholars. They spend years and year training, and are then able to spend their days pondering beauty and nature, creating art, and writing poetry. If only that was what waited for me after getting my Ph.D.!

The grounds were beautiful, and contained ponds, bridges, and symbolic buildings. After almost an hour of history about the garden, I lost interest and we visited the tea house. We enjoyed a formal serving of smoked black tea.

We also had a few snacks that basically functioned as our lunch: edamame, vegetable dumplings, and turnip cake. All were delicious, and I was especially surprised by how much I enjoyed the turnip cake.

As we exited the tea house, we found a room that would reveal our fortunes! You take this container full of wooden sticks, and lightly roll/shake it until one stick is protruding from the container more than the others.

The stick has a number on it, and you open the door with the corresponding number to find your fortune. Here's mine:

I'll take it!

Afternoon Beer Tasting

From the Chinese Garden we walked to Bridgeport Brew Pub. It was a little over a mile away in the trendy Pearl District, but we walked by the Greyhound station and Amtrak station and I did not feel 100% safe en route. Turns out that Old Town/China Town is a popular place for homeless people (fairly harmless, and seem to have a good system of social services) and drug addicts (slightly off-kilter and a bit more menacing) to congregate. We were never threatened, but I would avoid this area in the future and just take the bus or street car.

We tasted eight beers at Bridgeport, then hopped the street car back to our hotel around 3:00 p.m. It already felt like a long day, and we had evening plans, so we grabbed a short nap.

When We Root We Root For The Timbers!

Around 5:30 p.m. we were off again—to Providence Park for the Timbers game. These are hot tickets apparently, and when I tried to purchase them three months earlier I had to go to StubHub. We took the MAX train to the park, arriving early because I'd read that the stop closed one hour before each game.

Before entering the stadium, we grabbed dinner at a KOi Fusion, a food truck. We walked right up and ordered, but within minutes there was a line. We were starting to see a pattern here... I had a rice bowl, and we shared some sweet potato fries. Delicious, but I was not hungry enough to eat all that food!

After a quick walk through the stadium (there wasn't much to see), Aaron purchased a scarf and a local beer and we settled into our seats. We were six rows from the field, and had an excellent view.

We were six rows from the field and had an excellent view. We were also about three sections over from the Timber Army (the supporter section). I probably equally split my time between watching the action on the field and watching the chosen Army members that led the chants/songs from raised platforms. They oozed Portlandia—a woman in cargo pants, a black shirt, and hair cropped short on the sides under an orange mohawk, and a man with a fuzzy black beard and flannel shirt. I actually enjoyed watching the game, but the Timbers were unable to pull off the win.

The game ended a bit after 9:00 p.m., and we decided to try to go to Salt and Straw—what we were told was the best ice cream in Portland. After walking over a mile (past a recreational marijuana shop that was open late), we found a line snaked around the block. We definitely didn't want ice cream that bad, so we hopped a bus back to our hotel and called it a night.

Apparently biking in Portland is very dangerous.

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