Portland, 26-Jul

This was a travel day for us, going from Ashland to Portland. When we arrived, we dropped by to see the troll at Nordic Northwest, then went to a few places we frequent in Portland.

We were getting into a rhythm of packing up the car to go to the next city, so getting onto the road didn't take us long. The first part of the drive was the same as when we went to Medford, but it didn't take us long to get past that.

Our lunch plan was to stop at a BBQ place in Albany, a bit more than halfway from Eugene to Salem. The place ended up being takeout-only, but there were some picnic tables where we ate. Then it was back onto the road.

Since we were so close to the Portland troll, we decided to go there to use up some time before we checked into our hostel. We had seen the trolls at the National Nordic Museum in Ballard and in Lincoln Park in West Seattle, and this one was definitely from the same artist, Thomas Dambo.

This troll is named Ole Bolle and looks like he had pulled up part of a building's roof so he could look inside. You can walk all around the troll and even go inside the house to look up at Ole Bolle.

We then drove to our hostel, unloaded our bags, then looked for parking. The hostel doesn't have its own parking, so we would need to park on the street, which would be metered until 7 p.m. but then free that night, all day Sunday, and Monday until 9 a.m., so we just needed to cover a few hours.

The spot we found was around the corner from the hostel, but had a four-hour max, which would leave us about 40 minutes short. I wasn't able to extend the time, so we planned to move the car at about 6:20.

We grabbed our bags and headed toward Powell's Books, which we try to visit each time we are in the city. We started in the café and spent some time there, then we wandered through to the bookstore section for a little while. We then walked over to Grassa, a pasta shop we found several years ago and really enjoy. They had expanded the restaurant and also now have more stores. That meant the restaurant was nowhere near as packed as when we had been there before. The pasta was great, and while it was more food than we normally would eat, we finished it all.

Since it was time to move the car, we walked directly to it, and got there within a minute of when our time expired. We went to the gas station, then to Trader Joe's to get some items. The store was on the same block as our hostel, so it felt strange to park in their lot, but we were able to stall long enough that it was only a bit before 7 when we parked again, coincidentally in our same spot.

Parking handled for now, we walked up to Salt and Straw for ice cream. They have stores in Seattle, and things have settled down where we rarely need to wait in a line. This one, however, has always been popular, and there were about 20 or 25 people in line. It seemed to be moving quickly, and we had already walked a while to get there, so we just joined the line and were eating our ice cream before we knew it.

The walk back to the hostel was nice, and we settled into the room for the night.