Portland Adventures

The last day of our trip was spent enjoying the city of Portland.

We started out the day with a fancy breakfast at a french restaurant called La Provence.

I should note that I have eaten at fancy, expensive restaurants like La Caille, in Utah.  La Caille is good, and it has a beautiful atmosphere, but there was something about this restaurant that made me feel like I was in Paris.  They brought us a croissant with jam and a fancy brie cheese.  We were seated in the outdoor seating, and between the outdoor atmosphere, the gentle breeze and the taste of the croissant and cheese, I had Deja Vu to when we were in Paris.  I have never had that strong of a feeling that takes me back somewhere, but this restaurant really brought that to me.  I know that the restaurant is actually trying to emulate Provence, France and not Paris, but I haven't been there, so for me it took me back to Paris.

After the croissant, they brought me my omelette filled with stretchy cheese.  Sooooo goood!

The first major landmark of the day was the Portland Temple.  As most of you know, we have been going on a tour of all the LDS temples near us and we love to make the temple part of many of our vacations.  This temple was really beautiful.  I wrote a little more about it on my temple blog.

After the temple, we headed in to downtown Portland. The first and most important landmark we wanted to hit was Powell's City of Books.  I can't express to you how awesome this place was.  I tried to get a picture to show how big it was, but there isn't one picture that captures it.  It has about a dozen "rooms".  Each room is roughly the size of the Barnes and Noble in my hometown.  Here is a view looking down on a small portion of one room.

I wandered around for a bit, I looked at the rare books room which was super cool.  It was fun to look at books that were being sold for thousands of dollars.  Finally I came to the important room which had science fiction and fantasy.  Robyn and I had separated to look at different genres, but she knew exactly where to find me when she was done.  She snapped this picture (below) of me perusing the excellent selection of stories.

When we got out, we had to snag a picture of us in front of the store.  I didn't buy tons of books, I limited myself to books that were either out of print, hard to find elsewhere or were cheaper because they were used.  (They had both new and used books in the store.)  Below is a picture of me with one of my spoils.

After Powell's it was time for dinner.  We asked Foursquare where we should go and it suggested a place called Oven and Shaker.  It was a pizza place and I figured the title was for the oven where they cook the pizza and a shaker for parmesan cheese or something similar.  It turns out that the shaker part was for mixing drinks.  Apparently, they are very famous for their alcohol.  The waitress was kind of blown away that we ordered water.  Who drinks water at a place famous for its alcohol?

Mormons.  That's who.

Robyn posing with delicious pizza. 

Me with delicious pizza.  (And my pitcher of water.)

Finally, it was time for dessert.  We had heard of a super famous ice cream place called Salt & Straw.  It's somewhat of a Portland icon, so of course we had to head there.  When we got there the line wove around inside the building and then went out the door and wrapped half way around the block.  I have never seen such a long line for ice cream.  That's what happens when the place is super famous.  We decided to wait in the line and I was super impressed with how fast it moved.  I looked at my watch and there were only 22 minutes from the time we got in line to the time I was holding ice cream in my hand.  Not bad!

Showing off my delicious find.

Look at that cutie and her ice cream.

After ice cream, we decided we had experienced enough of the city and headed back to our hotel room for the night.

The next morning it was time to begin the long drive home.  We stopped off at one last landmark on the way out of town.

I wanted to go to Multnomah Falls.  It's been on my bucket list for a long time.  We had tried a few days earlier when we were done backpacking, but the parking lot was so packed that we would have had to park miles away.  We figured we'd give it a go early in the morning in hopes that there would be at least one parking spot.

We got there pretty early and the parking lot was less than half full.  So we got to make the super short hike to see it all.

By the sign on the way in.

Looking up at the falls

Of course we hiked up to the bridge.

Selfie on the bridge

The waterfall from the bridge.

An animation from Google

A fancy version from Google.

Our total time at Multnomah Falls was probably less then 30 minutes.  After that, we got back on the road and drove to Boise.  Our final landmark of the trip was the Boise Temple.

Here's a fun silhouette of the temple.  You can see more pics on my temple blog.

We spent the night in Boise and then completed the road trip home.

Unfortunately, that meant our trip was over.  That also means I'm done blogging about our trip.  I know that saddens your soul.