- Sights - Rugged coastline, lush forests, lots and lots of dogs
- Sounds - Waves
- Smells - Campfires
- Touches - Wearing a fleece when it is in the 60's. We've lost our Chicago heartiness
- Tastes - Voodoo Doughnuts, Pinot Noir, S'mores, the spiciest meal of my life at Pok Pok
Background
In June of 2011, I had back to back trips to Portland, Oregon. It is about a four hour flight, so I decided to schedule them back to back and have Andy join me for the weekend.Portland
Our time in Portland was limited. We stayed at The Nines, a surprisingly cool hotel considering work usually places us at Hamptons'. The roof bar is the perfect place for happy hour, especially when the weather is good (which it was). We visited the Japanese Garden, which was remarkable even though it was raining.
You can't go to Portland without visiting Voodoo Doughnuts. Given the time difference, we were up early so we headed over to the east side location (Voodoo Doughnut, Too!). Yep - there was a line out the door. Not much will make us wait in line for food, but we were intrigued by people carrying out buckets - yes, buckets - of doughnuts. The line went pretty fast and the doughnuts were definitely worth the wait.
Cannon Beach
Our destination for the weekend was Cannon Beach, a one street town located about an hour and a half east (kind of northeast) of Portland. We stayed at the Cannon Beach Resort, which is right on the sand providing great views of Haystack Rock. Yeah, the location of this place is great, but the best part was that they would build you a fire on the beach in the evening and provide a bucket of s'mores fixings.
We spent most of our time hiking in Ecola State Park, which was unbelievably green and had amazing views of the Pacific around every corner.
