Portland Rocks, Final Edition

On Sunday we hopped on the Max to pick up our rental car. That morning, I learned true meaning of the old adage "you get what you pay for." Way back in January when I booked the reservations for our trip, I was so excited to get a sweet deal on our car -- only $25 a day. When we got to the airport, we waited and waited for the shuttle to take us to the car lot. After a series of annoyed calls, I found out that the rental car company shares a shuttle with the Holiday Inn. It was clear that hotel passengers were a priority. After waiting 45 minutes for our pickup, we were dropped off in a back parking lot behind the hotel. The rental car "office" was a folding table situated next to the hotel pool with a fax machine and paper shredder. The woman at the card table was nice enough, but as Graham would say, our cheap car rental was definitely not a good value.

On the bright side, our rocky start mean that the day had nowhere to go but up! We drove down to Hawthorne Street, which was a lot more like our neighborhood in Adams Morgan than anyplace we had seen so far in Portland. By the time we got there I was starving. We stopped in at the Cup and Saucer Cafe (recommended by Eric) and had a delicious meal of eggs, bacon, and LOTS of coffee. With a nice coffee buzz and a full stomach, we set off to explore the neighborhoods. We walked, and walked, and walked, zig zagging up and down streets to scope out places that would be fun to live. Along the way we picked up flyers at houses up for sale to figure out if Portland is was place that we could afford to buy. And it is! I think I found at least a dozen houses in our price range that were cute as a button.

Once our legs felt like they might fall off, we hopped back in the $25-a-day car, and drove around some more. We finally landed at our hotel around 4pm, the Kennedy School. The hotel was converted from an old elementary school and still retains all of its charm. Needless to say, one night was not enough, but we'll back!

We had a drink and a snack at the Detention Bar and then Brian and Anna picked us up for a late dinner. We drove over to their neighborhood and had an awesome meal at Doug Fir's. After dinner they gave us an evening tour of the area and showed us a couple of houses that they have been thinking about buying. While driving around we discussed life in Portland, as Brian and Anna both made very good sales pitches as to why we should hurry up and move already. By the end of the night we had worked out a timeline for luring all of our friends to Oregon.

On Monday we did a bit more driving, but were mostly in a daze from Saturday and Sunday's epic amounts of walking. All we wanted to do was relax on a couch with a good book and read. Besides, by that point, my mind was set. Portland is the place, now all we have to do is find a job or two!