Weekend in Portland

This holiday weekend has finally given me a chance to catch up on some pictures from a recent weekend trip to Portland. Once again Uncle B hooked us up with a hotel room at a Marriott, which was located just north of the city. It was beside the Expo Center, where there happened to be an RV show that very weekend. As you might imagine, Emily was trying to convince me spend the whole day looking at RVs, but I told her I was eager to go shopping in downtown Portland. In the end we boarded the light rail train and began the thirty-minute ride into Portland. One of the last stops was Rose Garden Arena, home of the Portland Trailblazers, who are coached by former Enloe High School (and NCSU) baller Nate McMillan. I was on the lookout for Nate to see if he'd hook up a fellow alum (Class of '96! Go Eagles!) with some courtside seats. Alas, the Blazers were in Oklahoma City that weekend. Next time, Nate!

When it came to giving directions, downtown Portland was very forthcoming.
Here's the courthouse.

We visited Friday afternoon and all day Saturday. The former was spent just walking around the downtown getting a sense of the place. We also took a nice walk along the Willamette River (accent on the "a").

The following day, Saturday, we got downtown early and met up with a Jesuit friend we know from Weston. He is originally from Portland and now is the principal of a school there. We walked around the Saturday Market with him and later got some coffee together. It was great to catch up.

Our next stop was the famous Powell's Book Shop, which I think is the largest bookstore in the country. It was truly enormous and full of new and used books. I restricted myself to the sections on the Bible and ancient history, and that alone took over two hours. It would take weeks to go through the whole store.

At one point, Em and Michael went downstairs to get some lunch and Michael became friends with a young man sitting at a nearby table. As the guy left he handed Emily a CD for Michael, saying that he himself was a musician and he had a good feeling that Michael would be, too. Let's hope he's right. We still haven't listened to the CD yet; we're just hoping it's suitable for innocent ears. We also hope it's appropriate for Michael.

Apparently, Portland is famous for its coffee shops and its microbreweries. Since we had already been to a coffee shop, it only made sense to take our late lunch at a microbrewery. We decided on Deschutes Brewery, because we saw a few families inside and they had college football games on several TVs.

We were all quite hungry, including Michael, who wasted no time shovelling puffs into his mouth.
Even when he took a break, he kept his food in place to resume in short order. Emily thought that Michael's hair in this picture was uncannily similar to his dad's "style." He's a lucky boy if he's got my bedhead gene.

Soon Michael was looking for something to wash down his snack. He wanted an IPA but settled for some of mom's water.

Eventually, he bypassed the hands altogether and went all out for the puffs. I'm sure the tables were clean; it is a pub, after all.
The highlight for me was the extensive gluten-free menu offered by Deschutes. I had already ordered a glass of wine -- Wine in a pub?!? Tacky, I know, but what can I do? -- when I realized they made a gluten-free beer there at the brewery. So I knocked the wine back quickly and had then bring the gluten-free beer. It came with its own headband, which made me feel very special, and it was pretty good. It was much better than Red Bridge, though like that beer, there wasn't much of a finish; a lot of flavor up front but not a lot of linger. Still it was probably the best gluten-free beer I've ever had.
Equally delicious was the burger that I ordered and which came on a gluten-free bun. All of their burgers could be made gluten-free, which left me many options to choose from.
I cannot remember the last time I was able to sit in a pub, eat a burger and drink a beer. Needless to say, it was an awesome way to spend a rainy afternoon in Portland. We'll definitely get back to the city sometime soon and will no doubt make another stop at Deschutes!