Portland

Big day today...we left the house this morning and didn't get back until super late tonight.  And we stayed up way too late last night.  :)

First stop was Emily's GORGEOUS backyard.  I can't imagine what it would have looked like a few weeks ago at peak color!  And how unfortunate that the beautiful, grey, cloudy atmosphere there makes my hair look super grey itself.

Next stop was to drive to Multnomah Falls.  There's a hike up, only a little over a mile up or so?  Absolutely beautiful there.  The weather was perfect.  Chilly enough to be hiking in comfortably, the only water to get on us was spray from the falls.

The view from the top out is just as beautiful as the falls itself.

So the trees there are maples, I think, based on the leaf shape, but I have NEVER seen leaves this big.

And then we found an even bigger one on the ground that Kim obliged putting her hand on to give it some scale.  They're like prehistoric maples or something...

We didnt' see this sign until we were leaving, and for some reason Emily didn't want to have her picture taken there...

We raced into the city to meet Stacey for lunch.  Stacey was also back in Minnesota circa the rest of us, but has since also moved to Oregon.  She recommended Screen Door, where we had brunch.  Fabulous, particularly the maple pecan bacon.  Seriously.  Thick sliced bacon coated with sticky delicious pecans.  So good.

We met Stacey's new husband and said hello to her children, who have shot through the roof since we saw them!  And it would appear one of them enjoys photo bombing.

Stacey had all kinds of other food recommendations for the city, and honestly, Portland is a foodie's paradise.  They have little food carts all over the city...normally I associate food carts with sketchy food that no health permit is watching over, but I guess there are so many people with serious food talent and not enough capital to pay for overhead.  So they cook and serve food out of the carts.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to any of them, but we hit several of Stacey's other recommendations.  First was Salt and Straw, where we got ice cream.  Their salted caramel ice cream is crazy...the ICE CREAM is salty, and the caramel is sweet.  So good.

She also recommended this place.

They have drinking chocolate that is served in tiny little shot glass size mugs.  It's basically milked down melted chocolate bars.  Mmm.  We entertained ourselves there for a good 45 minutes at the window, where at one point the people outside were staring at us as we made spectacles of ourselves.  I can't imagine why...

We wandered around downtown in the evening, shopping and looking at all the cool stuff.  I don't think I've ever seen so many people in the streets as there were in downtown Portland.  I was astounded.

A fun day for sure!  Kim is thinking she'll go home earlier than planned tomorrow as she's flying standby.