Continuing on my series about our road trip, we left Seattle in the morning and headed south for the first time on the trip, towards Portland!
Before leaving the area, we made a stop in Tacoma, Washington. We went to just see the high school where they filmed 10 Things I Hate About You, which Jess really wanted to see. I’m glad we stopped, because it’s pretty much the coolest high school I’ve ever seen. We also grabbed a coffee nearby and then continued on.
It was a pretty easy driving day. Portland is less than three hours away from Seattle. So we got to Portland before lunch. We found a parking spot downtown and planned to wander around downtown for the afternoon.
As predictable tourists, we hit up all the main spots, starting with Powell’s books. I’m so jealous that Portlanders can get all their books here. It has the most impressive collection of second hand books. The Chinese studies section was really impressive! It went on and on, but we eventually dragged ourselves out of there reluctantly.
We also went to Voodoo Doughnuts, which continued our vegan food tour of the Pacific Northwest. They have some famous doughnuts, and also have a really good vegan doughnuts selection. I got a maple bar and it was so good!
We ate our doughnuts outside in the sunshine. The sugar fueled us for more exploring!
We walked towards the river and along the bridge over the river.
At this point we were ready to sit down and get out of the sun a bit. We were staying with a family friend for the night. We all sat around and had wine and made lots of delicious food on the grill!
The next morning, it was already time to leave Portland. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t spend longer in Portland, but we had 1,200 miles of coast to explore! We also wanted to leave time for all the natural wonders. This is the dilemme with a road trip!
The next morning we left and made a detour to go to Multnomah Falls, which is about 30 minutes outside of Portland. It’s really great because you drive all along the Columbia River to get there.
It was so busy there! It took us a really long time to wait for a parking spot and the little hike up was pretty crowded, but it was definitely worth it! It was one of my picks for things to do on the trip, so I’m glad the others also seemed to think it was worth it.
This time we had a more significant drive ahead of us! We were headed to Crater Lake! It was about a 5-hour drive (I think we took the scenic route). We got some pretty fantastic views of Mount Hood on our way!
So make sure to check out the next post, where we explore Crater Lake National Park!
