A few weeks back Julia decided to go visit her friend Carly in Connecticut. I decided to take advantage of the few days off from work so I texted a few friends to see if anyone could take a few days off of work to go with me on a trip. Luckily, my friend Clayton (Checkout his website) was available and we collectively decided to go to Portland since it was a place we both had wanted to go but just had never been. We were blown away by the beauty that we found within a few hours radius of Portland and my pictures turned out great, so Julia asked me to write up a little post on my trip. I’ll start with our time in Portland, then share photos from Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival, then photos from the Oregon Coast and finally pictures from Hood River, OR.
Portland
We had a great time exploring Portland. The first morning, we made our way up to Pittock Mansion to check out the view of downtown and Mt. Hood in the background. During our stay we hit up as many restaurants as possible. Our favorites were Harlow, Tasty & Alder and Jam on Hawthorne for breakfast, Pok Pok for lunch, Masu Sushi for Dinner and Salt & Straw and Blue Star Donuts for Sweets.
In Portland, we stayed at the Ace Hotel. The rooms were a bit funky, kinda felt like a dorm room, but the location was ideal and the common areas were great. We were able to walk to dinner each night and on our final night it was warm enough to sit outside and have a drink after dinner.
Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival
I love to get up and shoot during sunrise. I had heard about Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival on Instagram a few days before leaving for Oregon. Clayton was happy to tag along for the early wake up and 45 minute drive from Portland. We arrived just in time. There was hardly anyone there and the sun was rising in the distance. As an added bonus, 2 hot air balloons launched, which we’ve been told doesn’t happen everyday. We spent a good hour taking picture after picture. I even texted a few to Julia on the east coast.
Oregon Coast
I’d heard nothing but great things about the Oregon Coast. A few months back we had made plans, but never booked, a roadtrip up the coast so I decided to see how much we could discover in half a day. We drove the hour and a half to Cannon Beach where we took the first right and found ourselves in Ecola State Park. There we were greeted with beautiful vistas. Next we went down to Cannon Beach and walk along the beach for a bit. Had we had time, we would have loved to rent beach tricycles to cruise up and down the beach. After Cannon Beach we drove south, stopping at different turn offs and beaches until finally making it to Manzanita. It was getting late so we headed home from there.
Hood River
Hood River is about a 2 hour drive east from Portland driving through the Columbia River Gorge, which is spectacular. The day we drove out there, we had very strong winds along the river so we decided to only stop at Multnomah Falls. Afterwards we made our way to Hood River. The pear orchards were in full bloom, they glowed beautifully in the bright sun. Our goal was to find this red barn with Mt. Hood in the background. It took us an hour and half of driving and asking 3 total strangers for directions. We only found it after using Google Photos to identify the location.