Portland: Take Two

Alright, I am finally getting around to writing about Becca's visit. Part of the reason it has taken me so long is that we did a lottt while she was here. You will be hearing about it for the next two weeks. Which is good, because I had to work 10 days in a row after her visit, so I haven't been doing anything interesting or exciting.

Becca flew in late on a Friday night, shortly after finishing the last assignments of her 1L year (congratulations, by the way). It is about a 90 minute drive between The Dalles and Portland, so we got a hotel for the evening. We had plans to see the city the next day, and it is quite a bit of driving to go back and forth.

We slept in on Saturday and went again to the Saturday Market. It was a bit more enjoyable this time. There were more vendors, it was almost warm, and it was not raining. I am, however, still not much of a market person. Becca browsed and I followed, my interest consumed by the food carts. Many of the lines were pretty outrageous, but I found a Guatemalan vendor with good-looking food a relatively short line.

I ordered a Pupusa. A Pupusa is essentially a corn tortilla stuffed with fixin's (in this case pork and cheese) and cooked on a griddle. It was served with cabbage salad, pico de gallo, sour cream, and lots of sauces (the key to my heart). It was delicious.



Becca got a crepe with homemade sausage and mushrooms. It was pretty good, but it was no Pupusa.

After the Market we went to the Columbia outlet to get Becca outfitted in some proper rain-gear. Until this trip Becca did not own a raincoat. I thought this was a bit wacky back in Williamsburg, but you really need a raincoat out here. Especially if we were planning on camping with the questionable forecast.

So, as an early birthday present, I outfitted Becca with a full set of rain-gear. Water repellent (if not waterproof) pants, a nice softshell, and a proper, completely hydrophobic, rain jacket.

Here's a picture of Becca from later in the week wearing all her new rain-gear and roasting some peeps over the fire.

These next couple pictures are of some neat art we passed at a gallery near the Columbia outlet. The same artist was at the Saturday Market, but lots of folks get upset when photograph their art there. This stuff was all sitting outside, so I figured he wouldn't mind.



Shopping took quite a while. I insisted we go to a second store so that we could look for more pants. The first outlet didn't have any factory irregular pants in my or Becca's size. The second did. I ended up getting a pair of very light water repellent pants which will be good for when it gets hot, and a pair of completely waterproof shell pants, which have already proven useful. I now have a full set of waterproof shells that I can keep in my pack all day at work in case the weather turns.

Anyways, after we finally finished shopping we thought we'd go check out the International Rose Test Garden. It is supposed to be stunning. In June, we soon found out. There were no roses yet. But the park is nice, and there were a number of other flowers in bloom around the area, like this pretty one below:


To round off the day, we headed over to the Rogue Public House for dinner. This was not my first visit, but they have probably 25 of their own beers on tap, so I had barely scratched the surface. For $6 you can get a taster tray with 4 small (4 or 5 ounce) beers of your choice. As the driver for the evening I restricted myself to one, but Becca got a couple and I tried a sip of all of the beers. They are pretty talented at Rogue. I don't think there was a beer in the twelve that I didn't like. The food was nothing to write home about. Just good, greasy, pub food. Clearly the beer is where they put their energy.

With full bellies and shopping bags we headed back to The Dalles for the night. Tomorrow we would set off to camp.