Day 2 in Portland

On our second day in Portland, we slept in to the glorious time of 8:30am! (It's such a parental-luxury to wake up naturally). We got ready and headed out to tour the Pittock Mansion. Just a lovely 15 minute drive through the forest and at the top of the hill sits a real live Downton Abby. Well, not the real one, but SO similar. It was breathtaking. 

*a tiny piece of my favorite room in the mansion

We took the guided tour and it was awesome! Maybe we're just getting old, but it was one of our very favorite things we did in Portland (if not THEE MOST favorite, for BOTH of us). I didn't get a lot of great pictures inside, but it was so cool to see how these amazing people lived at the turn of the century - at the cusp of old world appliances and modern technology. Throughout the tour I was reminded of Downton Abby SO much, I kept leaning over to Ryan and whispering, "This is JUST like Downton Abby." He might have been annoyed. I'd love to go back with a sister or mom or girlfriend who would get as giddy about it as I did.

 

The grounds outside the mansion were beautiful too. The house sits on top of a hill so you get a breathtaking view of the whole city. Everything is so green and covered in moss, I felt like I was in the secret garden.

After the Pittock Mansion, we went to lunch at a burger joint our Portland friends had suggested to us, called "Bread and Ink." I don't know what they do to the food in Portland, but it just tastes different. Like, there's just a higher level of goodness achievable there. Maybe it's because everything is organic, free range, grass fed, yadda yadda yadda... (there's even a joke on the satiracle show, "Portlandia," where the customers at a restaurant are introduced to the chicken before they eat it and told which farm it came from and what it's name is). But whatever their doing there, it's working!! I'm not much of a burger person, but hot damn those burgers were insane. 

Around the corner from Bread & Ink is the waffle window! We walked off our lunch downtown in & out of some little shops then came back for lunch dessert. (Every day in Portland, we had dessert after each meal, not just dinner. There were too many yummy treats to try). The place is literally just a window. But the waffles were scrumptious and filling and after eating so much we went back to the hotel and took a loooonng nap (is it sad how much we enjoy sleeping?). In Portland, we didn't eat until we were full, we ate until we were TIRED. We even skipped dinner that night, we were so stuffed. 

 

That evening we walked around downtown and went BACK to Powell's (three mile wide) Bookstore (we went there at least once every day).  I noticed a lot more "environmentally conscious" details, some of which are pictured above. I don't know why I got such a kick out of all the recycling, it was just everywhere. Then we went to the movies. Anyone who knows me knows I love going to the movies. So pretty scenery, yummy food, lots of sleep, and a movie- basically it was my perfect day.