headed south.

Well, considering my left foot hadn't felt the inside of a real shoe in nearly six weeks, and contrary to my hopes and dreams, the doctor did not advise me to snowshoe 2.5 miles for our HUT backpacking trip last weekend. We rescheduled for late March. This left a perfectly open weekend with no plans. No agenda. No list. Thursday night we decided at the last minute to drive down to Portland and stay with our friends Lindsay and Matthew.

Hippy bars and so many microbrews. Friday night we participated in a tasting involving a contest between California, Oregon and Washington. Three IPAs, Pale Ales, Stout/Porters and then three Mysteries - one from each state. In a blind test we sampled, discussed, ate our pallete-cleansing Oyster Crackers and marked on a card One, Two or Three.


After a few hours of morning Wii, we headed to brunch around 2pm at the Tin Shed cafe. I'm quickly realizing that brunch + coffee is probably one of the top ten best things to do in life and this experience only solidified that claim. Yum.

Then we toured around town and lazily walked the streets poking into random shops.


And of course only in Portland one would you across a tricycle made safe by use of a U-lock.


Saturday night we met up with Bethie and headed out to the Kennedy Elementary School. Again in true Portland style the old elementary school was actually reused for a bar instead of being torn down. Walking in, I immediately wanted to start flirting in the hall by my locker. Several of the rooms have been turned into different pubs for different purposes including a cigar bar, an outdoor courtyard with a fireplace, a soaking pool and the gym is now a movie theater. The old boiler room has been converted into a two-story art piece of old pipes and radiators. We hit up the soaking pool and relaxed in its hot water with a cool outside breeze.