After a full day of shopping, we were pooped and did not want to go through downtown Portland, in case of protests, even though they were mostly peaceful in that area. We ended up driving back east to Hood River, and decided to grab a quick pizza to go from Pietro’s Pizza. There was a full arcade from the 80’s or 90’s with a claw game, racing games, ball toss games... H and I were a bit too exhausted from the stress of driving to really care, but it was definitely a good way to keep guests entertained while the food was in the oven.

The place was pretty empty, but what do you expect for a Monday night? Foot ball was on. There was a family with a toddler girl, who was screaming her head off, and another young couple who looked like they were also from out of town. With the help of one of the ladies there, we only took 5 minutes to order off their extensive menu. I apologize for not remembering what we had, but it was half of something with Canadian bacon, and half of something with Alfredo sauce. While the pizza was cooking and in our haze of fatigue, we ended up winning an adorable penguin stuffy from the claw game! It was extremely huggable.

We ended up giving it to the little girl, who immediately gave it a biiiiiig squeeze and stopped making that horrible sound. Adorable. Hope she has a bright future ahead of her.




The next day the rain cleared up a bit before we hit the road, so we had a chance to walk around Westcliff Lodge:



Nice little place to stay. People here are warm and friendly, everything is clean. I’d come back in a heartbeat, there’s so much to explore around here!

WAKE UP IN THE MORNING, FEELING LIKE… not shopping.

The day was ruined by rain. I had originally hoped to hike a bit more in the Mount Hood area, but we ended up driving down to the outlets instead (le sigh). And we ate, of course.

Before that, we had to find some food to fuel the hard work that is shopping. It was past 10AM by the time we reached Portland, and H was HANGRY. How could I tell? He stopped talking. He stopped smiling. He scared a random pedestrian while storming down the street, on the hunt for food. He’s pretty scary looking when he doesn’t smile (it’s the beard).

Comfort food for breakfast at Bijou (right next Stumptown Coffee, 1 street away from Voodoo Donuts).

Left: Biscuit with ham and sausage gravy. Egg in the middle of it all.

Right: Korean pork on rice. Egg on top. Kimchi somewhere.

There was a hair in the rice.

It was still good and we were hungry so we finished it. No shame. After wolfing this down, we hit the road and made it to Woodburn, where we shopped and shopped.

..and shopped. Dinner was interesting too. More on this tomorrow.

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Breakfast at Milo City Cafe:

Top plate: Salmon hash with sourdough and scrambled eggs

Bottom plate: Sourdough, Italian sausage, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns

In the middle of it all: COFFEE

Extremely friendly service and loads of comfort food. Go if you’re staying at the Hilton.

We started early so we could go farther. We were out of Portland before 9AM. I had so many hopes for the outdoors scene in this hood, but wet weather and lack of vehicle hat can drive over everything dampened my hopes just a bit. I wanted to visit either Lost Lake or Mirror Lake, but we made it to neither lakes… We drove through part of Mount Hood National Park, made it to Government Camp, but we really didn’t go too far because of forest service roads that my poor baby wouldn’t be able to handle. We stopped here:

Parked close to this view, where there were a few trailheads. H and I stood around, trying to decide which path to take, until 2 girls came out of the bush. They were super friendly and helpful, so we ended up going along what I believe is Buck Peak Trail. We
saw this:



Not sure if that was supposed to be the end point with the “good views of the mountain” that the girls told us about (I don’t think it was), but it was also getting dark and we still had a ways to go to get to Mt Hood. Back to the car.



No lakes today. Instead, we found the waterfalls along the Columbia Gorge!

Multnomah

 Horse Tail

Would’ve been more breathtaking if we were not already exhausted from the day’s travels and if there weren’t busloads of tourists roaming around. It’s all about perspective.

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Cannon Beach, one of my favourite places in the world. The first views of Haystack Rock from the road are simply breathtaking – H and I paused in mid sentence, then… “woah”. This is only my 2nd time here, and clearly it still had the same effect as the 1st.

 

So cold and windy I wore 4 layers... 

We still had coffee from Seaside, but Sleepy Monk, which is found here, is where the beans were roasted. Cute little coffee shop that I’m sure we’ll visit again some other time though. I still want to catch a sunrise on this beach, maybe explore the woods in the area, and visit the brewery there.

Fast forward to arriving in Portland, after visiting the Beaverton Trader Joe’s, H bought a few things from the local Scout shop and we were just in time to see the Portland Farmer’s Market close for the day at 2PM. We were starving by then. Good thing food carts were just a few streets away!

Lamb donair.

Meat lunch special with na’an, chicken curry, and zucchini (I think?) curry.

I’m a horrible blogger – I didn’t get the names of the carts. They were just OK, and hunger certainly helped us polish these off quickly.

The next day...

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By the time we drove over the Astoria bridge, and arrived at Coast River Inn, it was already pretty late. They say there’s wifi, but it’s so slow that there’s basically no wifi. We ended up watching the news (protests and riots in Portland downtown) and then hit the sack.
THE NEXT DAY… we walked around Seaside, looking for coffee and donuts. We found Liberty Cafe (beans from the Sleeping Monk at Cannon Beach), within walking distance of where we were staying, then we found THIS:

I almost ate the whole thing and forgot to share with H. There were chunks of bacon over a very fresh and fluffy donut base, topped with a maple frosting. Make sure you go to Dundee’s Donuts if you’re in the area.

We walked around a bit more and enjoyed our sugar + caffeine high, and luckily, the weather held up so that we could discover the breathtaking, natural beauty of the coast:

Very windy, but people still out and about.

Tourist town.

It would be so nice here in the summer when it’s warmer and the wind doesn’t try to bite your face off.

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