Portland 2011 - Day Four

[agt_spooky]

Our first stop today was the Chinese Gardens. While much, much smaller than the Japanese Gardens, it was still very, very pretty. It made you forget that you were in downtown Portland, for sure. 

After the gardens we took the aerial tram up to the hospital's observation deck where we got our first look at Mt. St. Helen's. It, too, was completely covered in snow. As we stood there looking at it we were trying to picture what it must have been like when it erupted. 

We needed some lunch after that, so we headed to the famous Grilled Cheese Grill food truck. If you've seen any food show about Portland you've seen this place. It was SO GOOD! LOL! I had the Gabby, which had four different kinds of cheese and I added avocado to it. YUM!  

Since we were in Portland during the Rose Festival, we wanted to go to the International Rose Garden, where there was supposed to be literally hundreds of different kinds of roses. Only one problem - nothing was blooming yet! The weather had been so bad recently that it hadn't been warm enough. So that was a disappointment. :-( 

We headed into the city to go to Powell's books and OMG, I could've spent DAYS in there! Amazing! I ended up with an m/m cowboy book and a Powell's t-shirt when I saw that it said "Established 1971", which was the year I was born. :-) 

The best part of the day actually happened late that night, when we took the Beyond Bizarre ghost tour. It was a two and a half hour walking tour through the city and we had BLAST. Our tour guide was fantastic and the stories he told about the haunted buildings were creepy and awesome. The coolest thing was that we were each given an EMF detector! We picked up ghostly activity in several spots, but the best came at the very end of the tour, in the basement of the haunted Old Town Pizza restaurant. They've got a ghost in the basement named Nina, who's been there for like, a hundred years. And I'll be damned if we didn't get her to talk to us via the EMF detectors! It was freaky and awesome and cool and I've never felt more like Sam or Dean in my life!  LOL! It was seriously one of the best highlights of the entire trip. :-) 

And now it's photo time again! Enjoy! 

Chinese Gardens:






















Taking the aerial tram:


















My first view of Mt. St. Helen's:




I loved how this photo of Mt. Hood turned out:




Lunch at the Grilled Cheese Grill! Yep, it's really a school bus!













Time for some book shopping!







Photos of the only two flowers blooming at the Rose Garden:







Eat your heart out, Sam and Dean! The Winchester SISTER is here! LOL!  Yeah, I look like a dork, but it's a freakin' EMF detector!

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Comments

[cadia58.livejournal.com]

Thanks for clarifying - my first thought "oh jeez - burnt, so not good..."... ;-))) Love reading about you three ladies having a great time!!!

[celtprincess13.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we were both somewhat horrified when we saw it as neither one of us is down with the burnt food. We thought there might be a fight on our hands!