All About Trey

Portlandia (Part 2)

Have I mentioned the rain?  Oy vey.  A big November rain storm hit so it basically rained all the time.  Let's see, where was I? 

On Sunday S came by and we had breakfast at a cool diner/cantina like place in the Pearl.  It was delish, but I was not really that hungry after the foodie dinner the night before.

After breakfast, we continued our exploration of Portland.  First we headed up to the Washington Park which is on a hill overlooking the city.  We went to the Rose Test Garden which overlooks the city.  There were still a few roses hanging on, but most of them were gone.  But I guess Portland is the city of roses and there are a group of people who help tend the garden who are called Rosarians.  Kind of cool.  Love the statue.  Now, I had to ask about the test garden.  Apparently they test out new hybrids of roses to see how they do before the roses enter the commercial market.  Never thought about that.  Kind of cool.  After the rose garden we drove around Nob Hill which has some just amazing homes.  Uber expensive I'm sure, but it's the really steep hills that surprised me.  Apparently they do get ice storms in Portland and I'm not sure how you would get up those hills.

After the driving tour, we headed down to PAM, the Portland Art Museum.  We kind of did the tour in reverse so we saw the impressionists first, which I loved.  But then we went into modern art.  Which I'm not a huge fan of.  Basically, if it's "art" that I think I can do, then I just don't think it's art.  Having said that, I would never create a life size statue of an overweight man sitting on a small chair.  When we first saw it, from the back, both S and I thought it was a real person doing some weird performance art bit.  It was that life-like.  When we figured out it wasn't, we couldn't stop laughing.  I shared the pic with Museum Man and he made an interesting comment.  He said: "If Marcel Duchamp can hang a urinal on a wall an call it art, then this attempt to recreate a person as realistically as possible - to the point of making the viewer uncomfortable then the artiest has achieved his or her objective."  I guess.  But PAM's special exhibit was "Bodies Beautiful" which was basically about ancient Greek art.  So I prefer my male statues to look a little bit more like this.

Dinner was another foodie adventure.  A place call "Beast."  Chantalle mushroom soup (I don't like muchrooms), a charcuterie plate that include some weird (but good) rabbit sausage, foie gras (ugh), and some weird (and not good) terrine, then a palate cleanser, beef cheek on Gruyere cheese infused potoatoes.  Seriously delicious.  Spicy arugula salad with hot almonds and goat cheese.  Yumm.  A cheese plate that include some wildflower honey.  Which as amazing.  And then a spice cake with creme fraiche and rum raisin ice cream.  I wanted to lick the bowl.  Way to good.  I did not do the wine pairing.  I think I was still in recover from the night before.

Monday was the day we were going to go to see the Multnomah Falls.  And have I mentioned the rain?  Wow.  After a great breakfast (S definitely knows the best breakfast/brunch places), we headed out to the falls.  One of the really great things about Portland is that there is so much natural beauty so close to the city.  We were basically out of the city in 15 minutes and in the country another 15 minutes after that.  We had planned to take the historic highways that sort of goes along the Columbia Gorge but it was closed.  So we ended up taking the highway which meant we only got to see 3 of the main falls.  But there was so much rain falling that there were several smaller falls cascading off the gorge walls.  Just totally amazing.

We did hike a little bit to see some of the falls.  All of the trails we used were paved which was good because it was slippery as sh!t.  But it was really great.  And the falls were unbelievable.  With all of the rain, the amount of water was just incredible.  And hearing the water hit the rocks and the water below was like a constant roar of thunder.  Totally cool.   And even though we were getting soaked, I was having the best time.  S was a real trooper to go out with me in the rain.  I would totally love to come here in the summer when the weather is nicer to go on some real hikes.  But in this rain, not so much right now.

After that we headed back to town and I took a long, hot shower.  And then I did some work, I did grad a bit to eat at a diner, but then I was back in the hotel early.  My train to Seattle was early in the AM.


Portland has potential as a possible future residence.  We'll see.     

posted by Trey @ 12:42 PM