Kate and James' Great Western Road Trip: Day 15: Portland is still cool

I think Portland might be my favorite spot so far. Day 15 was basically a continuation of day 14, checking out a series of different fun/cool/tasty spots around the very manageably sized downtown, with some side trips.

We both started the day out early, with Kate taking a run along the Columbia River while I drove out of town to the Salmon River in Mt. Hood National Forest. Kate and I both value these little fishing trips, as they give us a little space to ourselves--we don't get a lot of that in the car.

Kate saw some neat stuff while running

Running across the Columbia

Meanwhile I was here. Lots of cool trees. Fish, not so much.

I made it back in time for lunch. Portland has a ton of interesting places for lunch. We thought about going to the Food Truck City, but recalled this fun looking place from our wanderings the day before:

Fancy place...

... fancy sandwich. This cured Italian meat sandwich rocked.

After lunch we used much needed downtime to look at where we might head next. We are trying to figure out how to get to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon during some very limited windows of opportunity (seems like there is only 1 hotel there?). Stay tuned on that one...

Next, we met our friend Lee, who lives in Portland.

Lee and Grey

It was great catching up with her, and she had some interesting perspectives on life in the Rose City (that's Portland's official nickname. I haven't seen a rose yet). Grey was extremely well behaved, which we enjoyed.

After our early dinner/happy hour snack, we popped over to Lee's to check out her roof deck.

Portland skyline. Squint and you can see Mt. Hood

Dropping Lee off at home, we proceeded to poke around the town a bit more, stopping in the Virginia Cafe. The cute little bar has a long and somewhat colorful history, having been around since the early 1900's in various locations in downtown Portland.