Today we took Bean out and explored the town on Max, Trolley, and foot. We started out at Ken’s Bakery (again), then headed to a park. Winding our way back to our hotel we discovered Sahagun Chocolate, a tiny woman-owned chocolate shop in a very unlikely location downtown. Then we headed over to see the inside of a couple hotels; the Mark Spencer and the Westin. Then we played with some doggies at a shoe store downtown (the owner had two pugs which came to work every day). After I grabbed some shorts at the Gap in the mall, we got kicked out - no dogs allowed! Oops!

Next we chilled out a little bit before we met friends on Alberta Street for “Last Thursday”. After doing a quick gawk up a few blocks, we met at Tin Shed Garden Cafe where they even had a dog menu! We were treated to a live rock band of 12-year-olds for a benefit concert (which can be good or bad depending on your frame of mind). After dinner we decided we had an appropriate number of us to head to the Amnesia brewery for a quick pint. The guy running the sausage grill came over and gave Bean a leftover-overdone sausage. Not only are dogs allowed in restaurants, they’re SERVED. Like I say - Bean loves this town.

After a day of interviews we headed out for a late lunch and then over to Joni Kabana’s photography studio. I had been introduced through a mutual friend and wanted to meet her in person. She’s got a great studio space and she’s a real inspiration.

This evening we headed out to the Laurelhurst neighborhood to check out their excellent dedicated dog park that I discovered from the website www.portlandpooch.com. What fabulous resources! We met a really nice couple with a beautiful Corgi, and Bean had the absolute time of his life running around with the nice doggies in the huge expanse of long shaded grass. He rolled around and practically did cartwheels! I’ve never seen him go nuts like this - he really likes Portland parks...

Since we successfully wiped him out, we tucked him in for the night and headed out for dinner on the north side of town. We were told about a brewery called Amnesia on Mississippi. It looked cool but not much of a menu (unless you want sausage & beer) and it was fun for a crowd but not for two. Then we found a place just down the street that looked cool--a little taqueria called ¿Por Que No?. It’s a little hole in the wall that serves $2.50 tacos made with love, crème fraîche, and meat & produce from local farms.

Happy Anniversary to us :)

This afternoon we took Bean to Green Dog for a little shopping. Then we headed out to see some roses and throw Bean’s new squeaky ball at Peninsula Park. It was a nice lazy day...

Tonight we headed out for dinner in the Pearl at a place called Everett Street Bistro. It was nice to sit in the big windows, enjoy a twilight meal and do some people watching. It seemed everyone who walked by had a dog! It gets dark really late this time of year here; sunset doesn’t set until 10p! It really makes you want to stay up late.

After dinner we walked across to the other side of the Pearl for an Amuse Bouche, chocolate fountain, espresso & port at Via Delizia. We had fun running around and seeing all the cool lofts going up in the area - there is so much construction in this part of town that it really must suck to live or operate a business there right now.

Portland is known for it’s happy hours, so much so that often a bar will have two; one from 3-6p and another beginning at 10p. So we obliged ourselves a house martini at District Bar before heading back to our hotel (on foot) on the opposite side of town.

Road trip to Portland from LA

We completed our trip from Culver City, CA to Portland, OR in 15.5 hours (averaged 63 mph according to our GPS).

Last night in our hotel was pretty rough. Although we loved the Hotel Lucia from our last trip, we booked a room at a cheaper hotel this time. We stayed at the Four Points by Sheraton overlooking the Tom McCall Waterfront Park. This was a huge mistake. Our stay was awful and we heard they have since changed ownership!

This morning we headed directly to Ken’s Artisan Bakery for our fix of Stumptown coffee and pastries. Our friend met us there and took us for a driving tour through Hoyt Arboretum. Weather couldn’t have been better! In the afternoon we grabbed a slice of Pizza at Hot Lips and then went for a quick hike in Mt. Tabor.

Since Portland is known for it’s breweries (28 - more than any other city in the world) we thought we’d make this week a bit of a pub crawl. So this evening our buddy took us out to one of his favorite brew pubs, BridgePort Brewing Company, located in the Pearl district. Excellent!