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Published: January 30th 2015
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Most of what I knew about Portland prior to our visit this summer was based entirely on the satirization of hipsterdom in Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's
Portlandia. I came expecting streets lined with cyclists, coffee shops and anarchist bookstores, but beyond this knew not what to expect. The trip was conceived as a way to visit the Oregon Brewers Festival where local craft breweries offer up their finest and most innovative brews, and while many a unique craft beer was consumed on this journey, much time was spent exploring the incredible neighbourhoods (Downtown, The Pearl District, Hawthorne and the Alberta Arts District), eating delicious street food, and attending live music (
Polyphonic Spree at
Mississippi Studios and
The Budos Band at the
Wonder Ballroom). Portland is a shining example of civic pride, city planning, and sustainable living and as a result has attracted progressive minded migrants from across the United States and beyond who come to be surrounded by like minded people. The result is a city where Kambucha is on tap at most restaurants, where built heritage is respected and preserved and where even the homeless need to know that the food they are being given is being locally and
ethically sourced.
Our first 2 nights in the city were spent in the wooded suburbs of Portland at a couchsurfer's home. Our hosts, Charlie and Katherine, had designed and built a eco home complete with geothermal, solar power and a LEED Platinum certificate on the wall. The home was an opportune departure point to explore the surrounding old growth forest at
Tryon Creek State Park and the historical campus at
Lewis and Clarke College, both within a short walk of our home stay. After two relaxing evenings of drinking beer in a neighbour's garage, and cooking lasagna together with our host family, we departed for the downtown neighbourhood of
Knob Hill where we were to meet up with friends for 4 more nights in PDX. These days are a blur and my most vivid memories seem to be mainly of consumables: unbelievable ice cream at
Salt and Straw (
Goat Cheese Marion Berry Habanero anyone?), cheap and tasty chile rellenos at
Cha Taqueria, locally sourced, free range burgers from a rancher named Cory Carman (yes,
Dick's Kitchen let's you know the ranchers name), vodka cream sauce, roasted garlic, goat cheese and basil pizza from
Sizzle Pie, and countless variations on
the taco from food trucks across town. This, in addition to a litany of West coast craft beers that ignore the once sacred Reinheitsgebot purity laws in order to conduct so many miraculous forms of mouth magic: blood orange IPA, honey raspberry ale, and coconut chocolate stout stand out amid so many other hoppy concoctions.
This is a city where Charles Bradley sings sweet soul music live to an amphitheatre overlooking the elephant sanctuary at the Oregon Zoo, where it is not unusual for an entire bus to begin giving tourist advice should they overhear that you are not from the area, and where "young people go to retire." And while I admit that I tend to wear rose coloured sunglasses while travelling and often fall in like or temporary love with many cities I visit, by the end of day three or four in the city, the logistics of our future move to Portland was beginning to occupy large tracts of my mental space.
This may have made me me a slightly less attentive parent, since on day 4 of our trip, I took our son Henry for a walk outside of
Dick's Kitchen while our friends
finished their high end diner meals. Henry's recent ability to walk and his obsession with vehicles drew him without thinking towards the wheel of a recently parked truck. His curious fingers reached past the rim and spokes where they met scolding hot disk brakes fast burning the pads of his fingers. After a half hour of inconsolable crying, and a call to our travel insurance we made our way via taxi to a burn unit on the opposite side of town. While Hank's blisters required nothing more than popping and Polysporin, the bandage stump they insisted would keep out infection made him even cuter than he was before and drew sympathy and smiles from friendly locals. We quickly grew to love the stump. So much so that we affectionatley nicknamed Hank "Stumpy" for the remainder of the trip.
Little Stumpy was a champ and seemed in excellent spirits despite his rather large stump. He trekked on to
Washington Park to the impressive
Oregon Zoo and the
Portland Children's Museum. He perused the stalls of the
Saturday Arts Market and watched skate boarders enviably at
Burnside skatepark. He drank breast milk while we drank craft beer on the riverside at
the Brewers Fest... and at
Deschutes Brewery... and at most other places we stopped in between sightseeing. After our friends returned home, Dennie and I rented a car and spent the better part of 4 days exploring Oregon's impressive geographical bounty; hiking at the
Columbia River Gorge, driving the winding 101 from
Cannon Beach to
Bandon Bay, stopping to play in the crashing waves at
Cannon Beach, visiting the
Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, eating too much Cheese at the
Tillamook Creamery, hiking the Oregon Dunes, eating great diner food and sleeping in cheap motels with amazing ocean views. We stopped for an overnight in
Eugene in order to drink Kambucha, eat
Voodoo Donuts and consume more
Sizzle Pie before returning to Portland enroute to Saskatchewan.
Oregon works. It works because its great climate and beautiful geography has, over time, attracted progressive people who do cool things to make it better. They have turned a cultural corner and a positive feedback loop fed by craft beer and locavore street food is fueling exponential coolness in the form of creative city planning, sustainability and the development of unique complete neighbourhoods who are busting at the seams with civic pride and
committed to the ideals that continue to make Portland, and all of Oregon weird.
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taracloud
Tara Cloud
A progressive paradise!
How inspiring to learn of Portland's progressive ways--I immediately went to Portland, craigslist to check out rentals. What a fantastic holiday you had there--music, museums and Kambucha, fab pizza, Tillamook, and beer that could even convert this Californian wine-drinker. Your little Stumpy sounds like a fab traveler--congrats! Maybe I'll see you there someday.