We spent a day in Portland that started with brunch at a
restaurant called Tasty n Sons, which, at 10am on a weekday, was still very
busy. We had enough time for two
touristy activities in the city.
First, we visited Powell’s City of Books, which is a branch of a local
bookstore chain that claims to be the biggest independent new and used
bookstore in the world. The store
itself is certainly the largest bookstore I’ve ever been in, with entire rooms
for each genre.
Later, we walked to the Lan Su Chinese gardens, located next
to Portland’s Chinatown, which is a scary, Chinese-less incarnation of
Chinatown. In the place of
restaurants and smelly fish markets, there were boarded up buildings and,
instead of tourists, there were hobos.
The gardens, however, were really very nice.
We drove out to Crater Lake the next day to see the bluest
freshwater either of us had ever seen.
The lake was formed when a volcano erupted and collapsed in on itself
almost 8000 years ago, forming a basin that collected rainwater and snow melt.
We took the boat out to Crater Lake’s island and hiked to
the top of the cinder cone volcano that formed a little after the initial,
violent eruption.
On a side note: dear god, there are a lot of hornets in this
part of the country. We eat practically
every meal outside and always have the unwelcome company of at least one buzzing,
stinging guest. Lester’s record is
now five dead hornets during one meal.
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