Friday Faves {#214}: PNW Vacay Part 1: Portland

Hello and happy Friday.

I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July.

Like I said on Monday, July days just hit different. As Friday is already rolling around, I’m trying to savor these summer days!

As always, I’m linking up with Erika and Andrea (assuming they are hosting today) for this week’s Friday Favorites.

Well, one of my favorite things to do is to see new places, and Travis planned a really fun and different vacation for us, and I’m going to share a part 1 of this trip when we were in Portland.

This vacation began because of my family’s love of track and field…and the Olympic trials were being held in Eugene, Oregon. Travis took that idea and ran with it planning a little bit of everything: Olympic trials, outdoors time, hikes, beach time, and city sight-seeing. While I’m not trying to drag out these posts, we did visit Portland, Eugene, Rockaway Beach (and other cute towns), Olympic National Park, and Seattle. So, I could see this vacay recap being quite a few parts.

My apologies in advance, but I do think of these posts as a scrapbook of sorts. Anyway, here we go!

So, we were supposed to leave on Saturday, June 22, but about a month before our trip, they changed our flight which made us have a seven hour (or so) layover in Dallas. So, when Travis got online, he was able to schedule better flights on Friday, June 21. By going this route, we still had a layover and would still be arriving late, but at least the layover was quick, and then we’d have a bonus day in Portland that we weren’t necessarily going to have. We knew we could use this day to sleep in and do whatever we wanted.

As we pulled out of our driveway to head to Cincinnati, Travis got the text that our 7:30 PM flight got pushed to 8:30. We went ahead with the hour and 15 minute drive and made a stop for an actual dinner at Cheddars since we knew that would be our last meal of the day. We did leave at 8:30, but in Denver, our quick layover turned into a delay. Originally, we should have landed in Portland at 11:00 PM (PST), but instead we landed at midnight (PST).

Honestly, I guess not bad overall. We rented a car, drove to the hotel, and fell asleep at 2:00 am…that’s 5:00 am EST (woof!).

Travis always gets up early, but he likes to get the lay of the land…and honestly, I’m grateful for that. I woke up at 9, and we got the kids up around 10.

We got ready and walked to breakfast at Grits and Gravy. We were ready to fill up on some good food. We had all the good stuff: bacon, eggs, French toast, biscuits, gravy and more!

After that, we went back to the hotel and got ready for the day. Travis had found some hiking trails about 45 minutes away on “Waterfall Alley.”

The first waterfall was Latourell Falls, and it was so pretty.

A kind lady offered to take our pic. The kids had so much fun exploring.

Then, we got back in the car and drove a bit to another stop, the Vista House, and this was the view with the Columbia River down below.

We got back in the car and drove to another stop: Bridal Veil Falls. At this stop, we did quite a bit of walking…

…and the kids were more adventurous. “Hi, mom!”

Then, we made our way to “Horsetail Falls,” and that was a very pretty way to end our waterfall trek.

Hayden jokingly said, “I’m in my hiking era!” haha

Of course, Travis can find a brewery anywhere, and Oregon has many great ones. The good thing about breweries is they tend to have great menus, so the kids were happy.

We stopped at Thunder Island Brewing, and this was our view:

We got a table looking at the beautiful scenery. We had a few apps, and then the kids walked to get ice cream.

After that, we drove about forty minutes back to the hotel, rested, and showered before going to dinner. Of course, we were tired, so I was thankful for the early dinner.

We walked to Midtown Beer Garden because Travis had read about their food trucks. The weather was so nice, and it was great that there were so many options. Hadley got shrimp fried rice, Hayden and Travis got burgers, and I got some sushi. We all thought our food hit the spot.

Then, we walked back to the hotel, watched TV and went to bed by 10.

Sunday morning, Travis and Hayden got up early to drive to Beaverton, Oregon, so that Hayden could get his workout in at the Nike Headquarters. The Michael Johnson track is there…

Hayden had a great workout, and a fun experience. He can be a boy of few words, but he smiled as he told me about the track and how it’s built in the woods.

While Travis and Hayden were gone, I hit up the hotel gym to get on the elliptical since I knew we’d be in the car driving to Eugene for quite some time. Then, Hadley and I walked over to Starbucks.

Once we all got back to the hotel, we walked to the famous Voodoo Doughnuts. There was a short line, and we went ahead and picked up extra donuts for Monday morning too. I got the “Homer” which had strawberry frosting and was delish!

We walked back to the hotel, showered and packed up to head to Eugene.

We stayed at the Dossier Hotel, and it was beautiful and very convenient to places for us to walk to.

Before we left the hotel, Hayden mentioned that parts of Stand By Me were filmed in Brownsville, Oregon. Travis had looked on the map, and it was basically on the way. We drove about an hour and a half and arrived. We parked the car by Carlson’s, and walked around. Hayden was so excited. We even walked into a store that was filled with pictures from the filming. The ladies were so kind, and they even took us to the crosswalk where the put a penny every year as a nod to when Vern finds a penny.

After we left that store, we walked past the Coca-Cola sign, and then on to the bridge.

This was a cute little pit-stop in a sleepy, cute town. I was glad that Hayden added that to our agenda.

We drove about another hour and a half to Eugene. Travis found a cute house (duplex) for us to stay in. The owners were right next door and really nice.

This is where we stayed for our two nights in Eugene:

We got unpacked, and went to a nearby pizza place for an early dinner. After dinner, Hadley and I checked out a few stores while Travis and Hayden went to the grocery store. It was nice knowing we had a fridge and appliances for a couple of nights.

Then, we came back to the house to change and head to Hayward Field for the Olympic Track and Field Trials.

I will pick up there next time…Eugene was a cute college town, and the kids and Trav were so excited to be there. Me too…but as we all know, I’m the only non-runner in the family. haha!

Share Our Lives:

We have our monthly link up on Monday, and of course we hope you’ll join us.

This month’s topic is…day in the life: summer edition. I always love sharing and reading day in the life posts, so I can’t wait to read what others have to share on Monday.

Weekly Recap:

I had a couple of posts this week:

Speaking of posts, I might try to get part 2 of our vacay posted tomorrow as well as a Summer Sunday post on Sunday. We’ll see. I’ve had a bit more downtime this week because I’ve been in KC helping my dad after his knee surgery. He’s kept me busy too…haha…but not as much as being home, running errands, taking the kids places, etc.

Anyway, I hope you have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend!