We had been to Portland before, a couple of years ago we flew to San Francisco and drove to Seattle via Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, and a few other places, spending a couple of nights in Portland. I can remember love love LOVING it, but then sometimes the mind can play tricks….. Maybe it wasn’t as good as I remembered through rose tinted glasses?

No tricks.

LOVE IT!

We had a lush few days, especially as on the first two the sun was shining, and the skies were blue. Rare in the Pacfic North West….. Delicious.

I got some great books from Powell’s, a couple on food, couple of crafts. The really great thing about Powell’s, is that you can find new, used, and rare books on a massive range of things. The main store takes over an entire city block, but we also went to the Home and Garden bookstore on Hawthorne. Fantastic stuff.

After that, I stopped off at Knittn’ Kitten, a thrift store for old fabrics, notions, patterns, and yarn, and got a few bits and pieces I couldn’t resist, then to JoAnn, where a got some yarn, and a couple of yards of fabric including some Star Wars fabric for something for Mr M.

Other than that, well we had some awesome food at Farm Cafe, Bijou Cafe, Mother’s Bistro, The Original Dinerant, The Saturday Market…………….. oh, and of course, Voodoo Doughnut.

We also went to Bricks Cascade 2013 at the Portland Conference Center. I groaned at the prospect, but it just happened to be on the weekend we were there, so it seemed rude not to!

Among other things we saw this amazing sight:

Yeah… that’s a pretty darn enormous Hogwarts. Built from scratch by a fan called Alice Finch from Seattle who wanted to make a big Hogwarts for her children to play with. It has little gaps in the walls so you can play with the things inside, including McGonagall’s classroom (during the lesson on Animagi – the cat McGonagall is on the desk), Flitwick’s classroom (while they are learning ‘Wingardium Leviosa) – each student has a white feather in front of them), and the Griffindor common room and boys dormitory! The level of detail is truly incredible, if you want to see more, check it out at her Flickr.

Also, there was a Lord of the Rings themed bit with Isengard, and also check out the amazing Helm’s Deep, completely amazing from the front, the texture of the rock and detail…. what made me laugh was the reverse:

Love the colour!

Mr M was in his element, checking out all the amazing creations, and vintage Lego sets.

On Saturday, our friend drove down from Seattle to join us, and we went for a walk in Mount Tabor Park.

We stayed, in part, in the Ace Hotel.

The beds were super comfy, there is an old photo booth in reception, and lots of fun little touches in the rooms, like tiny soap-on-a-rope, fun artwork (complete with stick on googly eyes), sewn fire exit signs, and lush toiletries from Malin and Goetz.

We also went for a nice walk before we left to drive to Seattle in Forest Park, part of the Wildwood trail.

Loved it. Wish we had more time to spend there, but was time to leave for more adventures in Seattle!