5/7–Portland

We truly had no idea what we wanted to do in Portland, other than explore the city and drink beer .  Rather than wander aimlessly through town, we ended up finding a free walking tour with Eric, who runs The Secrets of Portlandia.  The reviews looked good, and heck, it was free – so we’re game. 

We had breakfast then headed for the train to go into town with tons of time to spare. On the walk to the train, a woman from our hotel rolled by us on a little knee scooter – think of one of those Razor scooters for kids, but where you put your knee on the platform and push off with your other good foot. She was motoring past us with her daughter keeping time next to her (foot power!) – and then suddenly she wipes out. On the ground, scooter turned over.  We ran over and helped her up, then stood with her for a while as she composed herself.  She skinned up her knee pretty badly – but otherwise wasn’t too badly hurt – just shaken.  After making sure she was all right, they decided to go back to the hotel for a bit and we continued onto the train.

Once in town we were about an hour early – always!  So we wandered a bit, then hit McDonalds for coffee and the restrooms. Caffeined and emptied, we headed back out to meet Eric – only to find our kneed scooter friend!  Talk about small world – and this time in a wheel chair they managed to procure from the security guy in the mall next door to our meeting place.  Amazing! 

Eric’s tour turns out to be a blast.  He is a stand up comedian, has tons of interesting and fun facts about Portland (of which I remember almost none) and is an excellent tour guide – successfully managing a large group (almost 30) through streets, across intersections and the like.  Never once losing his cool or his herding skills. 

The tour lasted 2 hours and we made the circuit around the Pioneer Courthouse Square, walking past the daily market of crafters and vendors, then on up to the Portland Art Museum where we learned about the free drinking fountains and how they came to be (when the city was being originally built workers would get thirsty and drink beer, so construction owners erected the fountains to make everyone drink water)….

….then on to the Historical Society Museum where the penny that was flipped to decide the name of the town is housed (Portland or Boston – you can see which won)…past the Heathman hotel which is haunted……

past the Portland building to look at the Portlandia statue, the second largest copper statue in the U.S., after the Statue of Liberty….

….…and on past world trade center and onto the smallest park in the world (which has a really sweet story about an Irish newspaper reporter who looked out his window everyday at a hole where a light post was never placed, it grew weeds, so he took it upon himself to plant flowers there.  Then he started writing about what he called “the world’s smallest park” in his column, telling about events there, etc.  The park was dedicated on St. Patrick’s day in 1948, and has had St. Patty’s day events there ever since).

The tour ends up across the street from the famous Voodoo Donuts (which surprisingly enough does not have a line out the door).  We decide to eschew the donuts for a bar Eric recommends with lots of different craft brews on tap.  The Thirsty Lion Pub is exactly what we needed – great atmosphere, huge bar, comfy bar chairs to rest our weary legs … and of course tons of great beer!  We wanted to wait to eat until we got to Deschuttes brewery a few blocks up – but since it was closing in on 2pm, we didn’t think we could wait that long – so we got snacks to go along with our drinks. Fried artichokes and scotch eggs (to channel King James Public House in Asheville!). Awesome – but totally filling – snacks.

So now we’re stuffed – but we figure we’ll walk it off.  We wanted to go up to the “Brewery Blocks” in the Pearl district to do a little pub/craft brewery crawl – so we headed in that direction.  Turns out the “Brewery Blocks” are really just a bunch of retail stores in what we guess were old Brewery buildings? The only brewer up there is Deschuttes where we did stop to have a beer and wine, but there was nowhere else to go for different craft beers.  That stinks!  We made our drinks last as long as we could without hogging space for other paying patrons, but eventually we had to head on our way.

We walked back toward Pioneer Square trying to figure out our next moves.  We weren’t sure what to do for dinner, and since it was still early, didn’t know quite what to do next.  Obama was scheduled to visit the city, so we as we walked we started seeing the beefed up security and road blocks that come with any Presidential visit.  We wasted time at the Starbucks on Pioneer Square, then finally decided to take in Happy Hour at the Portland City Grill.

Located on the 30th floor of the office building at 5th and Oak street, this place was hoppin’!  We barely got a seat at the bar – but it was so worth the effort.  The view was spectacular…

…and the food equally good – we shared seared Ahi Tuna and a grilled sirloin steak sandwich that were delicious – and reasonably priced for happy hour.  A couple of beers and wines later and we were ready to go collapse back at the hotel.

Of course, getting to the hotel became a bit problematic. We had hoped that we spent enough time in the Grill that we missed all the Obama hullaballoo– we weren’t so lucky.  When we made it back out to the street, the light rail was still not running.  We were standing at the train stop when we actually saw the Presidential motorcade go by.  Ok – great – we can go now.  Not so fast. The trains were still stopped, and a transit cop was giving everyone directions on how to make it out of the city. We ended up following her instructions and hopped on a bus to take us to the Moda Center where we were able to finally transfer to a train to take us back to Delta Park where our hotel was located.

Finally back, we managed to make it to our room and fall onto the bed, fully sated from a great day of touring, eating and drinking.