Oct
22
2009
Getting Away
Author: Kyle
Portland Is Weird
I don’t think I even realized how quickly my departure date was coming. It felt so soon, but then couldn’t have been soon enough. As I wanted, it was a relatively quiet see you later to most people and a FaceBook status change for others. We had a small office going away dinner, thanksgiving at my parents place and thanksgiving at a friends place. I left October 15th as planned with my friend and we headed down to Portland.
As my friend is vegan (see her website) we ate almost entirely at vegan/vegetarian restaurants including Blossoming Lotus Pearl, Blossoming Lotus Irvington, Bombay Chaat House, Sweetpea Baking Company, The Tao of Tea, Bye and Bye Pub, Bay Leaf, and the Van Hahn Vegetarian Restaurant. I may have missed a few, but they were all delicious.
Pittock Mansion
We also visited the Pittock Mansion, a beautiful place with kind and wonderful staff who really cared about the house and it’s history in Portland. Also we had a lot of fun saying its name… Either way I would definitely encourage anyone visiting Portland to take a tour of the house as it is like a blast from the not too distant past with an amazing view.
Only a couple days later, October 20th, we had an emotional little drive to Seattle where I was to catch my plane to San Diego and my friend was to meet her dad and continue on home.
I stayed two nights in San Diego, only one day. I had a quick bean burrito and went out to a bar to talk to some local people and find out what I should do for the day that I was in town. I got two suggestions, one was to go jump of a cliff (a fun pastime of mine) at Sunset Cliffs and another was to rent a bike in Mission Beach and go along the sea wall.
Mission Beach San Diego
After a really bad nights sleep as ADA regulations made the nearby crosswalk to constantly announce when people could cross the street in all directions I decided to take both options. I rented a bike for $15 for the day and started biking up Ocean Beach towards Mission Beach. It was quite a beautiful and scenic ride. But 4 hours later and on the return swing of the trip I decided against heading to the Sunset Cliffs as I was feeling quite exhausted and returned the bike 2 hours later. Next stop “the happiest place on earth: Tijuana!”(Simpsons reference)