This day was a big one for us, as we are supposed to see a whole new part of the country. The first part on our list was to head south from Tacoma and go to Mt St Helens. This proved to be about an hour drive from where we were staying that previous night.
MSH is a national monument and has a visitors center however it is located about 45 minutes from the actual volcano. This is famous for the tragedy that occurred in the mid 80’s when it erupted and destroyed much of the land around it and left many in desolation.
This drive from the visitors center is beautiful and contains a massive bridge over a Gorge where you could see the past destruction of the explosion. It was quite surreal to stand at the mid base of the volcano knowing how much damage it had done. Because the clouds were low that morning, we couldn’t see the top. We could however tell that it was a massive mountain. We both realized that the west had many volcanoes that are at the moment inactive. I actually looked on my map, and there is a direct belt chain of volcanoes, extending from mid California up to Seattle that are dormant.
After enjoying a picture (even though cold and overcast) and soaking in the scenery it was time to head to Portland and do a quick walk through the city. We would’ve hiked the mountain but could not due to time constraints. We ended up getting a prime spot near the ‘Keep Portland Weird’ quote which was evidently very famous. We left the car there because we knew that the parking area was near the famous Voodoo Donuts.
We passed voodoo donuts however hoping that the massive line present (as seen in pictures) would go away. However later in the day the line proved to be even longer. As we passed through, there were many homeless people and also hippies. These ‘Free’ folk roamed the street and exemplified the cities quote mentioned earlier.
Not far from Voodoo donuts we had our first culinary fare of the day at the Saturday market which is a weekly gathering of locals and vendors. I had pulled pork and Ashley had a hot dog and we took our food and explored the various crafts that were being sold and enjoyed our meal on the river park.
The main site for todays adventure through the city, was the international Rose Festival that was going on, as well as the Japanese Gardens which are a very popular tourist place to visit in the city. Below you can see various pictures of both places in the city. This took about 4 hours to get through both sites which were within walking distance of each. This was a must see while in town, as you can see some unique plants that most from the east coast don’t get to see.
After 30 minutes of this we headed back to the car to grab it and drive to the other part of town where there was a decent happy hour. We ended up going to a great place called ‘Bartini’ for great martinis and apps. I highly recommend this place, as the happy hours were about $5 a person. Also the food was good there but only a snack for us.
From this point we decided to head back to Voodoo Donuts and grab us some donuts, no matter how long the wait in line was. It still took us about an hour! This ended up making us tired for the day and once again we needed a hotel to have Ashley rest up. We ended up with Motel 6 again just outside the city.
However there was good news as we had the first episode of the new season of Game of Thrones to watch that had been released that night! So we ended up relaxing after realizing it was our best bet to stay in. Unfortunately the donuts were our dinner but they were delicious! The next day began a great part of our trip that we were both anticipating…..The Columbia River Gorge!
July 16 – Expenses
16.31 gas
6.67 snack
5.50 beer
7 parking
14 sandwhich
26.90 gardens
30 japanese gardens
45 martinis
82.99 motel 6
Total – 218.06