Portland 2021

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Realizing I have neither the time nor the bandwidth to re-write about Shobhit's and my anniversary weekend trip to Portland with anywhere near as much extensiveness and detail, I am copying and pasting here the email travelogue I sent out to my distribution list last night. The only notable variances would be any embedded videos, which cannot be done in email. ]

Saturday: Nutty Narrows Bridge I can't even remember now how I learned about this; I just know I added it to my list of desired stops on the way to Portland when I learned about it last February: "Nutty Narrows Bridge," which has been spanning Olympia Way in service of squirrels since 1963, when one Amos Peters put it up after seeing too many of them getting hit trying to cross the street. Now, for the record, I hate squirrels. Why? Well, squirrels are rodents and ALL RODENTS DESERVE DEATH, what are you, new? Anyway! I thought maybe I'd get lucky and find a depressed squirrel coming here to end its miserable existence like it's a miniature Golden Gate Bridge, but no such luck. (Its name is clearly inspired by the Tacoma Narrows Bridge anyway.) But anyway, my irrational fear and hatred of rodents aside, I actually loved the idea of a miniature bridge span (it claims to be the narrowest bridge in the world) and so I wanted to see it.

Saturday: Multnomah Falls Hold on, Multnomah Falls—30 miles due east of downtown Portland—is Oregon's most visited site? Who knew! I only first heard of its very existence a year or two ago; I fully intended to make it a major part of my next Portland visit—which, incidentally, was first scheduled as an anniversary trip with Shobhit in 2019. He threw his back out at work that year, though, and couldn't go anywhere at all. I was like, "Fine, we'll go next year." And then the next year? 2020 happened. Fucking twenty-twenty! (Last year we went to a far more isolated cottage in Long Beach, WA instead.) Anyway, the theme of my 2020 calendars made as Christmas gifts in 2019 was waterfalls, and I had thought I would include one of my own photos of this waterfall, but, too late! Now, as you can see, I have some great ones.

This shot was taken of the falls from the bridge seen in the previous photo, but also using the wide-angle lens feature on my iPhone camera. That feature doesn't always enhance a shot the way I'd like, but I was very happy with this one, as I feel like it offers a pretty great overview of the natural beauty at the falls. Incidentally, regarding this being Oregon's most visited site: this is clearly a very touristy spot, but I don't think that should discourage anyone from visiting—although you can find a lot of web pages suggesting you go at non-peak times, on weekdays outside of the summer months. As to how it was this past weekend, I'd say it was relatively crowded, but honestly not too bad; I'm guessing any day this nice in mid-June any other year, when we aren't still coming out of a pandemic, is probably far worse. The bridge viewpoint is an easy quarter mile up a paved switchback path; you can also hike all the way up to a spot nearly level with the cliff height of the falls (at Oregon's tallest waterfall, this falls 620 feet; that's 15 feet taller than Seattle's Space Needle), but I'll have to do that on a return visit another time. Shobhit and I just had too many stops to make on Saturday, so for our purposes on this particular day, this was enough.

Saturday: Pittock Mansion This is the spectacular panoramic view of the Portland skyline, Mt. Hood in the distance, as seen from the West Hills of Portland, in front of Pittock Mansion, a beautiful 46-room estate on 46 acres constructed in 1914. This was actually a last-minute addition to my list of points of interest for this trip, replacing the Portland Aerial Tram, which I also only learned of a few years ago and slated it for my next visit to Portland. The problem is, the Aerial Tram gives people a lift to Oregon Health & Sciences University, and although COVI-19 restrictions have been largely loosened most places (hence allowing for this very trip), they are still limiting passengers on the Aerial Tram to people with employee badges or with appointments. That doesn't include me, dammit! Well, as always, in recent years I have learned to google "best views of" whatever place I am visiting, although I discovered this one a different way: the Wikipedia page for Portland Oregon includes a shot of this view in its collage at upper right, and when you click on the image it identifies it as the view from Pittock Mansion. Hello, what's this? A view probably even better than the one from the Aerial Tram? Sign me up! Side note: some of you might notice that none of the buildings in Portland are especially tall, particularly for a city its size. That's not an accident, as Portland has height restrictions even more strict and intricate than those in Seattle. The four tallest buildings in the city, of which none of these even exceed 42 floors or 546 feet (that's 59 feet shorter than the Space Needle, which is itself merely the ninth tallest inhabitable structure in Seattle), all exceed current height restrictions—including the one seen at center in the photo above, Park Avenue West, only allowed to be built to 30 floors and 460 ft in 2016 in exchange for hiring union janitorial workers, which apparently they didn't do and it resulted in controversy and lawsuits.

Turn right around from the viewpoint overlooking downtown Portland, and there is Pittock Mansion itself. Long preserved and offering tours inside, Shobhit and I very nearly purchased the $12 tickets for ourselves—but, they are doing timed entry ticketing and we got there right when they were done selling them for the day. Oh well; I really just wanted to go see that view anyway—although when I inevitably return to Portland for another visit (this one was my fifth time to Portland, since 2001), seeing the interior of this mansion will remain on my list.

Saturday: International Rose Test Garden My previous visits to Portland were in September, March, January, and April. The last time I went with Shobhit was in March 2010, and it was the only other time I ever went to this site—of course, in March, none of the roses were in bloom. Some online research this year revealed they tend to bloom between April and October, with peak bloom typically in June. Hey, that's this month! How lucky is that? And hey by the way, after actually being there under these circumstances, I would recommend, like, not ever coming to Portland any month besides June.

The International Rose Test Garden, located inside Washington Park and less than two miles from Pittock Mansion, is widely known to be one of the top places to see in Portland. It really was awesome, which as you can see meant I fit right in!

Saturday (through Monday): Royal Sonesta Portland Downtown Hotel Every time Shobhit and I take an overnight trip somewhere new, we do a lot of research finding the best lodging for the best value in the area we want to stay. When we travel to big cities, downtown is always our first choice of neighborhood to stay in. Browsing through Hotels.com, we came across the Royal Sonesta, with its very cool and very colorful interior design (check out its main lobby area). I love the wallpapers in the rooms, covered in flying birds.

For some reason the room only provided one bathrobe, but the zebra print robe it did provide cracked me up . . . so I had to pose in it with my cocktail (made with juice and vodka brought in a cooler). Credit to Shobhit who directed me to throw my head back for this shot.

The Royal Sonesta was formerly known as Hotel Monaco, formerly known as Fifth Avenue Suites, to which it was converted in the 1990s from the original Lipman-Wolfe and Company Building, built in 1912 to house the flagship Lipman-Wolfe and Company department store, and now both a Portland Historic Landmark and on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Sunday: Powell's City of Books We might not even have stopped at Powell's this visit, actually, except that Shobhit found a popular brunch spot on Yelp called Chery's (which really was excellent), and we could only get put on a waiting list, which we were told was a 45 minute wait and it took a full hour for them to seat us. In the meantime, Shobhit and I just walked a bit around downtown nearby, and happened upon Powell's. We first arrived about 15 minutes before they opened at 10 a.m.; we walked some more and returned at about 9:55—at which time this socially distanced, but still large line was already waiting to be let inside. Portland apparently likes their books . . . or at the very least, they sure as shit like this particular bookstore.

Sunday: dinner with friends Hey guess what, I now have friends who live in Portland! I've been friends with Evan (she's in the funny glasses) for several years now; we had long been movie buddies in Seattle, and she was always who I went with to see the annual Dina Martina Christmas Show, which we did almost annually between 2014 and 2019. (She had been going many years longer; eventually while going with me she picked up now-fiance Elden, here to the right of her.) Anyway, last year the branch location of the grocery store chain she worked for closed down mid-pandemic, and instead of facing a job search under those circumstances, she simply accepted a transfer to another location in greater Portland—Damascus, if I recall correctly. Elden was easily able to transfer with his own employer as well. They've actually lived there a full year next month, and I messaged her months ago that when Shobhit and I come down for our anniversary maybe we'd meet up. And it almost didn't happen, because of their respective work schedules, but in the end we barely managed to coordinate all of us and find a place to eat in downtown Portland for dinner on Sunday. We had aimed for Mexican on Evan's suggestion, but she wanted a sit-down place with margaritas . . . who knew it would be so difficult to find a non-fast-food Mexican restaurant open on Sundays? Is that a thing? Or just a thing in Portland? Anyway, we all met at a Mexican place only to find they were only taking reservations for a $46-per-person five-course meal. Uh, no thanks! Luckily we found this Italian place called Allora just a couple of blocks away. Also it took a minute for me to realize this, but I'll bet anything now that it won't be that long before I visit Portland again, now that I have friends who live there. This was my first time back in seven years, but I really doubt it will be that long again, especially since I am now far better at figuring out fun and interesting things to do there—I used to find the place a lot more dull; in fact it was Evan who once said to me "Portland is just a sad Seattle," which always cracked me up. (She's still kind of not wrong, but I'm discovering that Portland has more to offer than I previously gave it credit for, if you just know how to look.)

Sunday: Stag DID YOU KNOW? Portland has more strip clubs per capita than any other major city in the U.S.! The reason why is fascinating: The boom in strip clubs can be traced to State vs. Henry, a landmark Oregon Supreme Court decision in 1987 that protected all-nude stripping under the First Amendment. This includes gay clubs, which means Shobhit always wants to go to one or two whenever we are in Portland; I basically just go along, although I'm not going to act like.I have any complaints either. The photo above was taken at Stag on Sunday after dinner and parting ways with Evan and Elden; it was about half an hour before the show started (I'd have gotten very busted if I took photos during the stripping, of course). This was actually after we had already gone to Silverado on Saturday night—where the male dancers were strikingly diverse in both ethnicity and body type, which left a very positive impression on me. Those dancers would strip all the way down, but here at Stag, they only stripped down to briefs. Shobhit was disappointed. (Actual pole dancing talent really varied among performers at both places, although I'd say they were actually better at the dancing here at Stag, where several of them performed genuinely incredible feats of strength pulling themselves up and twirling around that pole.) Adding the diversity aspect, a few of the dancers at Stag were trans. Both places asked to see our vaccination card before we went in, by the way. Anyone without one was still asked to wear a mask.

Sunday: White Stag Sign Another thing I found online just by googling things to see downtown Portland: after an hour at Stag, This sign atop the White Stag Building at 70 Couch Street, with its huge flashing lights, came up. It was not too far off of our walk back to the hotel after spending about an hour and a half at Stag, so we went ahead and walked over so I could take a couple of pictures. At first I got a photo and brief video clip of it from directly across the street, but then we realized the rain, which had been quite heavy almost all of Sunday (thankfully the weather was really nice on Saturday, partly why we crammed so many outdoor activities into that day), had stopped. And so we decided to do what we thought about earlier but hadn't because of the rain: walk across one of the many bridges across the Willamette River so I could get some other skyline shots from that direction. We were walking across the nearby Burnside Bridge when I then got another couple of shots of this sign from up there.

Sunday: Across the river At first we had thought we'd do this walk across the bridge, and then back downtown via the next bridge upriver, on Monday morning before heading back home. Boy were we glad we opted instead to do this when the rain stopped on Sunday evening! It was raining even more heavily Monday morning. I sure had a good time on this trip though, in spite of the amount of rain that fell. Ironically, Evan was telling me it was sunnier way more often there than in Seattle . . . only for it to be really rainy the weekend we came to visit. (Hmm, let's check the stats: Apparently Seattle is slightly sunnier on average than Portland, 152 sunny days per year vs. 144. Maybe it just seems different this year. It appears Portland gets just a few more inches of rain per year as well, 42.8 inches vs. 38 inches.) Oh, I guess I'll mention this too: I took this as our "anniversary photo" (even though it was taken a day early, technically). As of Monday June 14, Shobhit and I have been legal-married for eight years—and it's also the seventeenth anniversary of our first date. Happy anniversary to us . . . suck it, everyone who thought we wouldn't last!

Some asshole tossed a rideshare scooter into the Willammette River!

Monday: Pip's Original Doughnuts & Chai Okay, I won't lie: Shobhit and I did stop by Voodoo Doughnuts on Sunday (complete with doughnut markers on the sidewalk for social distancing in line). But! As great as Voodoo Doughnuts undeniably are, I was sure there must be other great doughnuts in Portland, and I don't want Voodoo to overshadow them completely and I was determined to find them! I found this place recommended online, and so we stopped there before heading back home Monday morning. These doughnuts are all very small, and they also have several interestingly flavored chais. The chai I got had a smoky flavor in it that really overwhelmed the overall flavor palate, so I wasn't the hugest fan of that—but these doughnuts were indeed fantastic, especially freshly fried. (This place is about five miles northeast of downtown.) Honestly, after this visit to Portland, I look forward to visiting again more than I have after any of my previous visits. I call that progress! [posted 12:30 pm]