Oregon- My Heart Belongs to You!

The wonderful holiday of Memorial day arrived and LauriAnn and I decided we could use a little coast time, so we hopped in my little Nissan Sentra and away we went.

Being from Utah, I had never really seen a river until I saw the Colombia!  Holy Crap!  This picture does it no justice! It is huge! 

We stopped on our was at this huge waterfall called the Multnomah Falls.

It was beautiful and Busy!

We got very wet just walking by.

We found this little cave and I decided if grad school didn’t work out, I could always make a little home here. I apparently was feeling a little Gollum at the moment!

Our next stop was the thriving metropolis of Portland Oregon!  It was so fun!

They have all of these food carts throughout the city and you pretty much decide what food you want to eat and then you find it!

We ate Gyros from an Egyptian cart.  The guy who helped us just couldn’t keep his eyes off of LauriAnn.  Those blue eyes he just couldn’t resist em!

That night we got all ready and went out on the town.  Our first stop was the cutest little Italian restaurant called A Cena which means “Come to Supper”.

I got a delicious pizza and LauriAnn got rabbit stew!

This above picture is me about to try the rabbit stew. (I was a little worried!)

BUT to my great surprise, it was DELICIOUS!  I’ll eat rabbit again for sure.

We stopped at the world famous VooDoo Doughnuts.

If you haven’t heard of it, it is a little doughnut shop that has all sorts of creative doughnuts (and really inappropriate names).

I got a triple chocolate penetration, which is a chocolate cake doughnut with coco puffs and then drizzled with chocolate.  (It was pretty darn good).

We got a couple others, but I’d be too embarrassed to write their names for the whole world to see! :)

Yes, that is a huge line waiting to get into VooDoo Doughnuts.  Apparently they’re always pretty busy!

After that exciting trip, we swung the other way and visited the Portland temple!

It was beautiful!

Did you know that the Portland temple doesn’t have any windows?  They’ve just cut the granite super thin so it lets light in.  Crazy!

The we took the scenic route to the coast. It was beautiful!

And guess where we went?

The Tillamook Cheese Factory!!!!!

Seriously, one of the highlights of the trip!  It was so much fun!

We ate lunch here!  That happy, little guy is fried mashed potatoes!  They were so good!

This, my friends, is the most delicious burger I have EVER eaten! 

Fresh cheese, fresh beef, fresh bacon!  Seriously A-MAZ-ING!!

We are sooo cool!

And of course Tillamook ice cream!  Soooo Good!

Then we continued down to Seaside. And of course, it is the Oregon coast, so it rained and rained!

It was really breathtaking at times though!

We stayed in the Crown Pacifiq Motel!  It was so ghetto, but it was cheap! 

The day was so moody, but it stopped raining long enough to really enjoy the beauty of it.

(Seriously, if you’ve never been to the Oregon coast, please put it on your bucket list!  Remember how much I loved Seattle?  Not even a comparison!  So amazing!)

This is what the Oregon coast does to a person!

You feel so free! :)

 

When we checked into the Motel, the clerk told us that during the month of May they contract local glass blowers (which there are a ton of glass blowing shops in that area of the world!) to make little glass globes that the city purchases and then drops into the ocean. The tide then brings in the globes and you can just walk down the beach and find then as they wash up on shore.

The last morning we were there we woke up super early to go down to the beach and find ourselves a glass globe.

We were serious die-hards, because it was raining pretty hard, but we walked about 3/4 of a mile down the beach in hopes of finding one.  Unfortunately, there were no globes to be found!

Although it was an adventure ending with 2 very soaked girls, but it was still a lot of fun and very peaceful!

Dear Oregon, I love you.  Please let me come back soon!