One thing that I find totally different than Minnesota, is that in Portland, you can get Tater Tots on basically any menu at any bar or restaurant. These things remind me of like 3rd grade lunch hour, they are salty as hell, not good for you in the slightest, yet really good, with ketchup or ranch..
One of my favorite things about Portland, is that the street names around where I live are named after Simpson’s characters! Matt Groening grew up in Portland, which is really cool to boot, but how cool is it to live on “Burnside” street, for Montgomery C. Burns 🙂
People probably think I am getting on the Simpsons Movie bandwagon here, since this is my 2nd Simpson’s related blog post in like a week, but I swear, I liked them before the movie 🙂 – Oh yeah, on a unrelated not, 7-11’s are turning into Kwik-E-Marts, but Portland isn’t one of the cities, WTF is up with that? Anyway’s – Here are the street names and corresponding Simpsons character.
and there might be more, that I just don’t know of. But it is really cool to say, yeah lets go meet on this bar, down on Flanders. Ahh, Flanders. I always think of the little ditty, “Hens love roosters/Geese love ganders/Everyone else loves Ned Flanders.” and Homer chimes in “Not Me!” and then they say “Everyone who matters loves Ned Flanders” – hilarious! 🙂
In Minnesota, you go to Target, or Walmart, or Shopko, or something else. In Portland, you go to Fred Meyer (wikipedia). Fred Meyer is a grocery store type Walmart but nicer type store. It usually has a Starbucks, electronics area, organic section, etc. There is one a few blocks from my apartment, and there are stores all over the city (all over the Northwest for that matter).
It is a refreshing change from running to Super Target every other day, or Walmart, or even Cub Foods or Coborns Grocery store.
Since I moved into my apartment here in Portland, there is one thing I noticed. They make it really easy to recycle. All the places I lived at in Minnesota, none of them offered recycling. Here, when I moved in, I was given instructions on how to do it, etc.
One small difference, but really a huge one in a way. Most apartments don’t recycle at all, and there are a ton of people who live in apartments. All the plastic and glass for sure is easy enough to recycle, so why not?
Around where I live in Portland, the Northwest District off Burnside Street, between 21st and 23rd avenue, it is filled with shops and restaurants and bars.
This is great for walking around, and even better when the block sizes are half-size city blocks (200 feet vs. the standard 400-foot).
My only guess is that when designing the blocks, they wanted to encourage walking, but also wanted to keep the sizes small for another (valuable) reason. Corner lots are worth tons more to developers than non-corner lots. I am sure many real estate developers have lined their pockets because of the extra cash they can charge for a corner lot, and in Portland there are twice as many!
here is a Portland block on the left, and a St. Cloud block on the right
You can see the Portland block is about half the size from north to south, but a tad longer on west to east. (This is not a scientific proof, I just pulled 2 random blocks from Google maps :))
To continue on my last Portland Differences post about gas stations, there is another thing different about gas stations. Booze. Well, not booze, but wine and beer. And it ain’t 3.2%.
Every gas station, 7-Eleven, or whatever store, they have tons of beer and wine for sale, pretty much like a liquor store.
In Minnesota, you can buy booze in the gas station, but it is weak 3.2% beer, which if you don’t realize it, if you start drinking it, you don’t feel it. Like water.
So, no late night jaunts to the liquor store in Oregon, just run and get gas, let the guy fill it up for you while you go get a bottle of wine.
In Portland, and I think in Oregon, it is illegal to pump your own gas. Here is a good article I found from the Seattle PI the does a good job of explaining it.
It really reminds me of being very young in Minnesota where all the gas stations had pump jockeys. You paid more for having them pump your gas and wash your windshield, or you could save a few cents and pump it yourself. Now, nearly all gas stations are self serve, except Oregon and New Jersey.
Just is odd when you go to get gas and they do it for you. I usually get out and just walk around and stretch my legs while I wait. Just one of the many differences between Oregon (and Portland) and Minnesota.
Well, it has been almost a month, and I want to finish blogging about my vacation. Yes I have been slacking 🙂
Saturday of that week, we went up the Columbia River scenic highway, and then went to a ton of waterfalls. Now, you might think, eh, waterfalls, but these were just cool. The scenery around them and the trails and just the atmosphere just makes it so awesome. We walked up the Multnomah waterfall trail, a mile uphill – whew! The view from the top was spectacular. 670 foot high waterfall. Just a great time.
After the waterfalls, went to a really cool place, the McMenamins Edgefield Manor. What this place is, is a old manor that a brewery converted into basically a brewery park. Pretty sweet, just an experience, I had a really good time, and we didn’t even hit all the places they have to see there.
Sunday, the 22nd, my birthday! 27 years. Was pretty low key, but fun, we hit a bunch of different places, one cool hippy house/bar or who knows what it is, but it was cool, also a nice Irish bar, fun time!
Monday was up to Astoria, home of the Goonies 🙂 God I love the Goonies, when I was young I wanted to be one. Anyways, on the way up we took a really scenic highway, which was nice, slow and different. In Astoria, we just kind of stretched our legs, got some lunch, and headed down the coast. The next stop was Seaside, OR. Here we went out to the beach, had some fun, just soaked it all up
After hanging out at Seaside, we drove down to Cannon Beach, aka the place with the rocks 🙂 We found a nice little hotel called Webb’s Scenic Surf. The owners were very nice, it was really a good experience. The room was on the second floor, just facing the ocean, man it was so cool! Open the door and hear the ocean, feel the breeze, just awesome. The next day, we walked down the beach to go check out the rocks, really reminds me of Goonies 🙂
After the rocks, we kept driving down the coast, stopping here and there to check cool things out. Then back to Portland. We met up with one of Emily’s friends and had some pizza (with broccoli? wtf?) and beer. Good end to the 2 day jaunt.
Finally, Wednesday, headed back up to Seattle, since that is where my flight was out of. Had a good time just looking for a place to eat lunch, and hit the sky. Sun Country is pretty good, I would recommend to anyone.
Overall the vacation was great, just awesome. I think now I should have taken more pictures, which then I think, I need a good digital camera, which then leads to other things. Some day 🙂
Like all vacations, it went by too fast. Many things we wanted to do, but just didn’t have time to get to. The problem is there is just so much to do in the area, you could probably never run out of cool things to do! Fun times!
So, to pick up where I left off. Walking around in Seattle, WA. We hopped on the train back to Portland. I can’t remember I rode in a train, probably in Duluth on the North Shore. It was cool, 3 hour ride. Something different, and you get to see the countryside instead of worry about driving. By the time we got back to Em’s apt it was around 6 or 7, so we decided to get something to eat, and hit a few places to see what was up.
We went to dinner at this place called the Doug Fir. (I like to call it the Douglas Fir). Anyways, it was a nice cozy place, cheap food, but really good food. We bought tickets for the music downstairs. Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer (and others) were playing. It was really hippy like, people sitting on the floor, just really laid back. It was good music. We then headed out to a few other places and then headed home.
Friday, was moving day. I helped Emily move! Oh how I love moving. I think we really did a good job. Thing is, WTF is up with U-Haul. They sent us on a wild goose chase to get a truck, way out of town, and it was some ghetto garage, and they told us to come back in an hour. Umm, no. We found a different one, and got the U-Haul, loaded it up, unloaded it, and good to go. Tired after that, but we decided to hit up some dinner and some beer joints around town, see the different places. Really fun time!
After I left MSP, I flew into Seattle, WA. Pretty nice airport, nicer than MSP anyways. Walked to get my stuff, then outside. A worker guy was like “You need a cab”? I was like, yea, so he called one. I wait and wait, and then all of a sudden this small limo pulls up, ‘You Steve”? yea – that’s me. Dang, pimp my ride. Gave me a ride to the hotel, and it wasn’t to bad, nicest cab ride I ever had. (And I have had some bad ones, 15 miles into Mexico anyone?)
Once I got the hotel, the Inn at Queen Anne, I met up with Emily and we had a glass of wine, talked with a nice older couple, which was cool. We then decided to trek it up the huge hill up the view over Seattle and that is where we took some pictures of the Space Needle, and the view.
After that, we decided to head to a district in Seattle, Ballard. We heard that it had some good things going on, so we checked it out. There was a bar/restaurant we headed into, and since we chatted up the guy outside, he bought our first drinks, good stuff. We had nachos and wings (my fave!), then decided to find some live music. We headed to this place called the Tractor. There was like a 18 dollar cover, but it looked like a ton of bands were playing. We went in and the band that was playing was just horrible, couldn’t stand it, so we decided to walk after a while. Umm, yeah, got lost in Ballard, but the T-Mobile Dash with Live Maps saved the day (it was like the first time out of 100 we used it). Got a cab back, then walked around the hotel area, found a cool little pub, had some beers, talked, just had a good time. Not to eventful, but it was fun.
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