I realized I'm going to need to pick up the pace on these travel posts if I'm ever going to get through all my photos from 2016! Continuing on our west coast summer girl's trip, we hit Portland, OR.
Portland was super hot when we arrived (almost 100 degrees), we were feeling super poor after Seattle, and we were only there a day and a half, so we didn't really get to fully explore the area like we wanted to. We got plenty of relaxing girl-time in though, which worked out perfect since this was our last stop as a group of 4! I'm excited to come back here at some point (perhaps during some cooler temps) to see all that we missed.
*Cue Portlandia theme song music*
We stayed in the Alberta Arts District, which I highly recommend if you're coming into town. We were near some great restaurants, shops, and breweries (definitely try Tin Shed for brunch). Not to mention, the neighborhood is everything you envision Portland to be (our neighbors had a small farm in the backyard, which you know excited me!).
One of my favorite stops of the entire trip was to the Portland Rose Garden. Some of the most beautiful roses I've ever seen and the city views weren't too bad either.
We were all obsessed with the color of these hydrangeas!
In case ya'll thought I looked cool and chic while I traveled. Nope.
Powell's books was amazing! Definitely worth an afternoon to spend wandering through. I only wish I had more room in my suitcase to grab a bunch of design books.
Voodoo doughnuts - we had to right? It was blazing hot, we waited in line outside for an hour and felt super rushed when ordering. Needless to say, a doughnut did not sound super appetizing by the time we got through the line, but they made for some good photos (and were pretty tasty once we got out of the heat!).
Now if you want doughnuts, this is where it's at. On day 2 we went to Coco's doughnuts. The place is an instagrammer's dream with all the penny tile and all-white and pink everything. I loved the simple glazed doughnut with the coffee I had there!
We rented bikes from one of those kiosk bike stands you see in most cities now. I'd never done it, but when I heard a guy call out "Biketown, yasss", I knew I was touristing right. Seriously though, this was an awesome way to explore our neighborhood - definitely want to do this again next time I travel!
We spent the afternoon wandering down the riverwalk before hitting up lunch at the food truck square downtown. SO HOT...have I said that yet?
Bless the Ace Hotel, which is dog friendly, has AC, and let us wait around in the lobby until the cocktail bar next door opened up. Aivy was so happy!
