PVS pt. 1: Portland

The view of East Portland from the hospital on the hill.


Did I mention it was a zero-gravity hospital?


Washington Park (in Oregon)


Japanese Botanical Garden at the top of Washington Park


Jason contemplating at the top of the Ira Keller Fountain

I have too many good pictures from my vacation, so this is just a small sample. If you want to see more, look at my Facebook albums. If you don't have Facebook...you should.

Of the 3 legs of my vacation (Portland, Victoria, and Seattle), Portland was the most fun. There wasn't a whole lot of touristy stuff to do there, but it was good to have a free, unstructured weekend with a couple of my best friends. I don't like writing long stories, so here's a day-by-day breakdown of the trip:

Thursday - Went to LAX straight from work and met up with Jason and John Paul at the Portland airport. Since it was late and Jason had work the next day, we just spent a couple hours playing darts and Cards in Hat before going to sleep. (For a brief history on Cards in Hat, try searching it in my blog's search box.)

Friday - John Paul and I spent most of the day wandering around the northwest side of Portland taking pictures and looking for excitement. We found a supposedly haunted pizza place for lunch, then walked/hiked up to the Japanese botanical garden at the top of Washington Park. Once Jason got out of work, we went out for a wild night of Mazatlan margaritas and Voodoo donuts.

Saturday - With a mission in mind to find good Portland food, the three of us set out to explore the southwest side of the city. After several hours and miles of walking, we unfortunately gave up and ate lunch at the mall food court. However, I must admit that was one of the best meals I had on my whole trip. At night, we went to the local baseball stadium to see the minor league Portland Beavers take on the Salt Lake Bees...and I realized the only sport more boring than major league baseball is minor league baseball. After that, we went out for a bit with Jason's coworkers and got the inside scoop on Oregon politics.

Sunday - As you can see from the first picture above, we drove over to the OHSU hospital and took the skyrail thing up to the top. There isn't a whole lot to do once you're up there, but it's worth it for the view of the city. We then took a quick drive through the east side of Portland to check out Apizza Scholls (pretty overrated) and to take John Paul to the airport. Jason and I took it easy for our last night and hung out at a coworker's apartment for dinner.

Monday - Took the early-morning train out from Union Station. To be continued...