I love Portland

This weekend Bryan and I visited Brian and Kara Connelly, the most wonderful hosts ever! We were so lucky they were both off on Sunday and we got to run around all day.

We arrived on Friday. Bryan had spent the day the day walking downtown and enjoying the local brews. There are a ton of microbrews in the area...so he was in heaven. I was a little delayed coming over from San Francisco (staffing the Gaming Developer's Conference)...so we took it pretty easy that night and hung out at the Bagdad. There are all these cool places around Portland owned by the same company...McMenamins. They take historic buildings and do a great job keeping their original character and converting them into restaurants, bars, movie theaters and hotels...one even has a bath house!

Saturday, Kara was still at the hospital working (ps, she's my hero staying such a sweet, kind person with great values and goals when she could opt to just make lots of money!). Brian was the best and took us all over Oregon. We travelled the Columbia River all the way to Hood River stopping along the way to see the Wahkeena, Multnomah and Horsetail falls. They were all so impressive! And Multnomah is the second tallest fall in the US! We grabbed a quick snack in Hood River...check out the cool mural on the wall. :) Once we were home, Kara was up and ready to go! We went to the Schnitzer Concert Hall and saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones with the Oregon Symphony. It was awesome to see something so unique and he rocked the banjo! After the show, we did a little bar hopping and stumbled across this awesome door!! It screamed photo op! Thanks all for humoring me! ;)

Sunday we explored the city of Portland. We got to visit Kara's home hospital and see the new gondola that travels up the hill. We visited the Nike town store with the special Air Jordan room, Brian's Northface store (where I got the BEST backpack...I can put my notebook into the very back and it's so easy to get to in the airport, my second home). Then we visited the largest bookstore in the US, went up to the top of the tallest building in the city for the cool view, had snacks at Henry's and visited the Pittock Mansion. Check out this night view!!! Spoooky!

One special 'feline' host I haven't mentioned yet was Simon...the coolest kitty on the west coast! He is mostly Bengal and has the bestattitude! He jumped, chased, relaxed with us...and we even did a little Simon photo shoot. :)

All in all it was a great long weekend and thank you again to the most incredible hosts! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Hope to see you again soon :)