Blankbaby

If you're my friend on Flickr then you already know I spent some time in Oregon recently. It was my mother-in-law's 70th birthday so Marisa arranged for her entire immediate family (her sister and her husband, their kids, her parents, her, and me) to spend some time in Portland and the Oregon coast.

We rented this house:

For a couple of reasons. It had the right number of bedrooms, it wasn't too crazy expensive, and it is right on the ocean. What is the point of renting a beach house if you can't see the ocean from almost every room?

This is right out of that gate that you see above:

Walk down a little dune and you're on the beach!

Growing up I spent the vast majority of my summers on the beach, which has meant that I pretty much have no interest in the beach now. However, spending some time in a beach town felt like coming home! Of course the Oregon coast is very different from the beaches I'm used to on Long Island in New York. You mostly don't swim, which is wacky. And the beaches really don't have that many people on them.

The water is sure pretty though. And it was nice to sleep with the sound of the ocean at night.

Once we were done at the Oregon coast it was back to Portland. I only had one requirement: we stay somewhere other than Marisa's parent's place since it was going to be so crowded.

Marisa agreed and decided we should stay on a houseboat! Here's a view of the marina:

And the awesome bridge down:

There were all sorts of houseboats docked here. Luckily ours was just straight down the pier, so no need for complicated directions.

I don't know if this means it was the 14th houseboat in Oregon, but is is a neat picture.

And here's the houseboat we stayed in! It was very nice, and made me momentarily think that we should buy a houseboat. The reality is probably less attractive than staying on one for a couple of days, but it was nice.

I've already blogged about the doughnuts on the trip, but here are the Blue Star doughnuts again (very tasty):

And here's a nice picture of Marisa before she ate her doughnut (and before a nice man at Blue Star gave her a free doughnut because the one she wanted was sold out):

The sunset over the marina:

We didn't plan on going to OMSI, which is pretty geared towards kids, but we parked in their parking lot and had to pop in to pay for it. And that's when we discovered they were having a Pompeii exhibit. We had to go.

A little volcano stamp! I'll write more about the exhibit later.

The reason we were even near OMSI was so we could walk across the Tilikum Crossing, which is the bridge in the distance.

And guarded by this sculpture:

That's what we are looking for! This bridge is only for buses, trams, people, and bikes. No cars, thank you very much. Oh, Portland.

The bridge is quite striking, as are the views.

Someone drew little faces on these signs. I approved.

Then we took a break so Marisa could be famous on TV.

And followed that by getting some doughnuts.

And we ended our Oregon trip with a solo excursion (well solo as in Marisa and myself) to Mount Hood, where we stayed at the lovely Timberline Lodge.

There's Marisa sitting on a fake ski lift.

We arrived, checked in, and then went for a walk in the twilight. It takes a long time for the sun to set, but we took some pretty good pictures.

Here's Marisa the next morning slightly annoyed that we missed breakfast. Almost every meal we had at the Lodge was great, except for this one. We were both in the mood for breakfast but had just missed it so we had to make due with a crappy turkey sandwich (for Marisa) and a poorly constructed sausage sandwich (for me).

But the lodge rallied by making some good drinks and offering up a sweet little nook we could take over and sip our cocktails and read.

Then it was time for some hiking!

We took the ski lift up the mountain, which was terrifying. I've never been skiing, so this was my first time on a lift. As it was moving I was gripping on as tightly as I could thinking it couldn't get much worse. And then the lift stopped! And we were just dangling there. I didn't know they stopped!

I was not a fan. And we walked back down the mountain (though we planned to do that anyway).

There was still a good bit of snow, and lots of snowboarders.

And the views were great.

As was the flora.

I really like this picture:

Someone was really into stacking rocks.

A little mountain side selfie because honestly.

After all that hiking we were tuckered out, so we headed to the Lounge and lounged about reading.

I couldn't get enough of the views!

Or of this pizza! And amazingly, I didn't gain any weight on vacation (I lost like .2 pounds, which I was very ok with).

Some of the doorways were exactly my size.

A view of were we were reading.

Some fun facts about the lodge, on the lodge.

And then we headed back to Portland for a day of hanging out. We took a 10pm flight, so we could have some more time in Portland. Of course that included some conveyor belt sushi (with a cameo by my new hat).

Overall, the trip was great. Marisa planned it very well to allow me some decompressing at the lodge before we headed back to reality. Plus I bought lots of books, so what's not to like?