Portland - Day 1

we drove into Portland early the next morning and headed straight to the Saturday market which was right by the water. my brother served his mission in Portland and he said the Saturday market is where you can see the essence of Portland, and experience all the weirdness it has to offer. it wasn't quite as weird as I was expecting but it was a really fun market with a lot of interesting things. it reminded me a lot of the art festivals that they have every so often on Mill avenue in Tempe but a lot larger. I wish I had taken more photos of the art, food, and crafts at the market.

 these guys were really good and we spent a good 15 minutes or so listening to them. it made me want to move to Portland and get really good at guitar or fiddle so I could play with them :). it was really good folk music. 

 we walked around downtown and went to Powell's Books. that place was incredible and if I lived in Portland I would go there often.

 I wore black jeans because I was expecting it to be cloudy and cool but it was hot! nothing compared to Arizona but I usually am not walking around all day in the summer like we were. 

 we at lunch at a place called Kenny and Zuke's which was very tasty.

Jason told me to put my finger up and look like I was talking to someone and he took my pic. he wouldn't tell me what it was for and then I got a group text he sent to my family that said, "is your chicken free range? may I speak to the chicken's caretaker to ensure it had a good life?" if you've seen Portlandia you'd get it, but it's basically making fun of Portland hipsters. we were laughing pretty hard at it, and how it actually looks like I'm saying that :) 

we went to the Ace hotel that is a beautiful hotel with eclectic decor in a historic building. we couldn't afford to stay there so we were only able to see the lobby, where we took advantage of the vintage photo booth. 

 

we stopped at Blue Star donuts which had delicious donuts and impeccable design. I want my kitchen to look like the store with white subway tile, butcher block, and fresh donuts all the time :) 

 we continued to do our favorite thing while traveling, walking around exploring.

we went to see the cool Portland Oregon neon sign. I read up about the history of the sign which is interesting. the sign was originally put up in 1940 advertising White Satin Sugar with the outline of the state behind it, and the sign would light up showing the state filling up with sugar.  in the 50's it was used to advertise for the White Stag store and the stag was added to the top. then in 1997 it was changed to Made in Oregon in order to receive funding to keep it lit. the sign was almost dismantled in 2010 but the city bought it, changed it to say Portland, Oregon (for $200,000!!), and is now a historic landmark. they light up the stag nose red in Christmas to be Rudolph :). that is the history, if you care! I thought it was interesting at least :) I am glad they were able to save the sign because it's an awesome sign and part of Portland history. 

 we decided to camp that night and started driving east of the city. we had planned on finding somewhere to camp on the Columbia River Gorge but since it was a Saturday night all of the campsites we checked were full. we continued driving and started heading toward Mount Hood. we drove about 2 hours and it was getting late so we were afraid all of the camping everywhere would be full. we were very far outside of the city so going back wasn't an option, but the worst that could happen was we would boon dock somewhere that's not an actual campsite. 
at least the drive was beautiful with Mt. Hood in the distance. 

 after stopping at one full campground we decided to try one more. we drove up and down it and weren't able to see any open spots but we decided to ask the camp host. his name was Art and he was one of the coolest old men we had ever met. you could tell he is living out his dream being able to live in the wilderness. he was very talkative and told us how he's been living in his RV for decades and has camped all around the country. his stories were very interesting and he has learned how to survive outside of society. although all of the camping spots were full he was nice enough to let us set up camp at his campground which we were super grateful for. we were exhausted and it was almost dark at that point and we didn't want to have to driving around looking for somewhere to camp. we said thank goodness for Art, and that became our saying for whenever we had good luck for the rest of the trip :).

our camping spot was right by the river which was great. we were feeling super happy about the way things turned out that night.