After I swore off pancakes for the rest of the year, we headed downtown to Powell's.
On the way, we stopped by a Buffalo Exchange where we scouted some amazing finds. As the world's largest independent bookstore, Powell's is definitely the place to see in Portland. If you don't like books, they have stationary, nifty gadgets, apparel, and is just one of those stores you can browse through for hours on end. I picked up some magnets, postcards, and a T-shirt on my first visit (yes, there were subsequent visits).
We then headed around town searching for caffeine and doughnuts. My friend recommended we check out VooDoo doughnuts, so we walked in the sweltering heat over. I have been craving a hibiscus doughnut since the amazing one from Dough in NYC, and I had to get theirs. Unfortunately they gave us one doughnut less from our order...which was my hibiscus one, so I had to squeeze through the line again to ask for it.
Can I just say it was very jarring to go from 13 C in San Francisco to 25 C in Yosemite and then 35 C in Portland? I'm not the type to easily sweat but I was sticky within minutes of stepping outside.
We then headed to a post office to buy stamps and send our postcards off; we met a very strange man (the only real weird person we met in Portland) who was very adamant that we line up to his left and left after cursing the postal workers.
We met some people from Baltimore who had no idea how to send postcards and were also outraged that we had to buy international stamps to send our mail to Canada.
We headed back to Powell's for a second time as I decided to buy another magnet, before we split up as half of us wanted to explore downtown Portland while the other half wanted to go hiking at the nearby waterfalls.
As half our group wanted to continue exploring downtown Portland, we split up and I decided to go hiking for waterfalls. Our friend entered the address of the waterfall for us and we parted ways and followed the GPS to our destination - which turned out to be someone's house. With no idea what the actual address was, we decided to follow signs we saw for another waterfall, and found ourselves at
It was quite a climb in the heat up to the falls, and honestly pancakes and doughnuts were the worst fuel for this activity. We finally made it up there and I must say the view was more magnificent at the base than the top...
We then headed back to Powell's for a third time, but were so hungry we went to eat at the Brunch Box - amazing burgers that you'd think would leave you feeling disgusting but surprisingly we both were left still hungry!
We then headed back to Powell's for a final time, where I finally bought a book. We stayed to read, journal, and edit photos for a while before heading for home. On our way out, a man kept complimenting my clothing: "You like Spanish painters?" (Mondrian) and we had the most laughable experience backing out of a nearly empty parking lot that I will leave in the memories of my friends.
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