After an amazing trip to Mt Rainier we drove into our campsite at Barton Park fast and furious. The UK-Florida game was kicking off and we were determined to catch the start. Fellow campers must have thought we were a NASCAR pit crew when we pulled into our spot because we had to have set a personal record for unhitching, leveling the trailer and getting set-up. Then we hopped back in the truck and drove to Nuts on Sports Pizza in Boring, OR (unfortunate name, huh?) to catch the game. The game ended like many in the lore of UK v Florida with a Wildcat Championship loss, but we got great tips from a table of locals – let me repeat, I Love. Locals.

Taking a page out of “Travels With Charlie”, rather than spending the following night in our the camper, we opted for the comforts of a hotel in Portland. We rationalized it by the fact our campground was about 45  minutes from Portland and instead of driving back and forth, the only way to truly explore the city was by staying in the city. Regardless how we came to the conclusion, it was a great call. Making it even better was Nikki’s travel savvy and her Marriott rewards points that scored us an upgrade to our room. 

We rolled-in like a scene from the Beverly Hillbillies, complete with two chock-full bags of laundry, all four of our bikes hanging out of the tailgate and makeshift luggage from whatever spare bags we had in the camper. But Portland is an extremely funky town, so something tells me we aren’t the first people to make that type of arrival.

Once we got settled in, we set off to explore. Our first stop was  Powell’s City of Books. If i’s not the largest bookstore in the US, it has to be close. We spent the majority of our morning there and could have spent the whole day. Everyone left with at least one book – not counting the additional textbooks we bought for the TinCan Academy of Homeschooling.

After lunch we headed to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (aka OMSI) to see a good, but shockingly short, IMax film on migratory Monarch butterflies. As we work our way down California’s coast we hope to to see them with our own eyes, but for now the Imax had to do.

The OMSI also has its own a planetarium. Having already encountered a few dark skies on the trip, we wanted to learn a bit more about the constellations we’ve been looking at. The show focused on the stars and their positions in September’s night sky. It also gave some tips on how to locate many of the constellations by using the few more easier identified stars as starting points. We’ll see how much we retain when we hit our next dark sky park. 

Portland (and hotel living) was fantastic. So fantastic that after spending one night, we negotiated for a second. Since breakfast is the most important meal of the day, we began our second day with VooDoo Donuts. VooDoo Donuts is an iconic Portland bakery known for its massive, crazy combinations of donuts. It lived up to the hype. My enormous Memphis Mafia (banana, chocolate and peanut butter) was a donut fit for the King himself. Not too surprisingly, none of us were able to finish our donuts, so we walked back to the hotel with their bright pink to-go box in hand.

Food was a big part of our visit, especially after realizing how great of a food town it is. I had maybe the best sushi I’ve ever eaten at a place called Bamboo. Thanks to a recommendation from our neighbor (and former PDXer) back home, we had a snack of oysters at Dan and Louis who’ve been proudly shucking since 1907. Add in the two dinners we had while there, Portland was a great food-cation.

Nikki had promised Maya that we would have her hair professionally dyed at some point in the trip. With its artsy, funky vibe, Portland seems like a city with stylists who have experience creating mermaid dyes. Since we had and additional day, it was the perfect time to have it done. The trickiest part was finding an opening on such short notice but with a bit of persistence Nikki found an opening for 6:00 on our last night. Guestimating how long it should take, we made dinner reservations for 7:45. For obvious reasons, I’ll be the first to admit I have no idea how long things should take when it comes to hair, but let’s just say we were way off.

When Nikki texted things were taking a bit longer than anticipated, we pushed things back to 8:45. The restaurant was across the street from our hotel, after Wyatt and I walked over and were seated, Nikki texted again to let us know the “process” still wasn’t finished. So we stalled. And waited. And ordered a delicious appetizer. I had a second round. And then we let our waitress know we might need a bit more time. Finally Nikki texted us their orders as they Ubered over. At roughly 9:45 we ate, but not after we marveled at Maya’s fantastic new doo. Like Rome, fantastic mermaid hair is not created in a day.