Exploring Portland Day 2

This morning we awoke slightly earlier than yesterday, and I grabbed coffees at the motel’s front desk. After taking a look at the different locations for Pine State Biscuits, we decided on their new location on NE Schuyler (pronounced Skyler) – mainly because we could easily get there by transit. This is our seventh visit to a PSB and our fourth location. This location was only slightly larger than the original location on SE Belmont, but for the sixth year in a row, we lucked out and, not only had no lineup but also found seating. Mum had a biscuit with honey and I had a Reggie with the biscuit on the side. I, unfortunately, can’t share any pictures of the food as we were so hungry that we both starting eating as soon as we got our food. I am able to tell you that it was absolutely divine. One thing that I would also like to mention is that the price for a Reggie hasn’t changed since we first came here in 2011 – that is quite impressive considering the popularity of the restaurant.

After breakfast, we jumped back on the streetcar and headed across the bridge to downtown. Not long after we crossed the bridge, we were informed by the driver that there was a fire blocking the tracks and they had to stop the streetcar. Since it wasn’t too far to Powell Books, we decided to walk. We have never explored the Pearl District before so we took our time walking the eight or so blocks that we had to go.

Powell Books is another requisite stop on our trips to Portland, however, today we only spent 45 minutes browsing. I still have several books to read from our last trip and Mum found the one book that she was looking for – a Del Shannon novel that she hadn’t read yet.

After Powells, we headed to Blue Star Donuts for, well…a donut. It was featured on Best Ever (Best Breakfast Ever). I grabbed a Maple Bacon Donut. I would say that it was better than Voodoo Doughnuts, but I’m not sure if I would say that it is better than Dynamo Donuts in San Francisco.

After Blue Star, we were ready to head back to the hotel and then go to the Lloyd Center for more shopping. We walked the few blocks back to the streetcar and were just able to jump on before it left the stop. One stop later, the driver informed us that there was no power on the tracks on the east side of the river so we would need to transfer to the #77 bus. This turned into a ridiculously long search for the proper bus stop. We asked a person sitting at the stop where we got off and she directed us to the Office Max a couple of blocks away, saying there was a stop outside. When we couldn’t find a #77 stop by the Office Max, I used my Transit PDX app and found that we had walked several blocks in the wrong direction. We headed towards the place that the app said we could catch the bus but once we got there, I noticed that the stop # wasn’t the one that the app said it should be and that we had to walk back two blocks. I apologized to Mum – who, by this time, was sick of walking in the sun – and informed her that we had to go to the other stop, or at least I thought we did. We decide to walk to the stop and concluded that if it was the wrong stop, we would just have a tour of Portland as we made our way back across the bridge. We got on the bus a few minutes later and after riding several blocks, found out that we were, in fact, on the wrong bus and that it would not be making the loop back across the river. We got off the bus, crossed the street and waited, yet again, for the bus. While we waited the fifteen or so minutes, we struck up a conversation with a nice older lady who had gotten rid of her car almost a decade ago and now enjoys being able to ride rather than drive. To be honest, I don’t blame her when it comes to downtown Portland. We finally made it back across the river and walked a couple of blocks to the hotel.

We chilled at the hotel for a couple of hours and then headed to dinner. Although Mum isn’t a big fan of BBQ, we decided to go to Podnah’s Pit. Mum had a 1/4 rack of rib with red pepper mac & cheese and cucumber salad and I had the brisket with mac & cheese and dirty rice. It was soooo delicious, and luckily I have enough leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch.

After dinner, we went looking for Oregon Growers & Shippers Honey which was supposed to be sold at Safeway. We were unable to find it so we decided to head back to the hotel and call it a night.

Tomorrow we are heading to Ashland and seeing Twelfth Night at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Thank you for reading and I will talk to you soon.

L