Wonder. Wander. Repeat.
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Travel Tales

read about our experiences and stories from the places we go. You’ll find exchanges with people we meet along the way and personal musings of what it’s like traveling through the world as women and as a queer couple. 

Pack Up + Go Sends us to... Portland!

We took in some history, We took in some nature, We took in some beer..

After stumbling upon a company called Pack Up + Go - which sends you to a surprise destination - we had to give it a shot. You tell them when you can leave town, how much money you want to spend, and what you’re interested in doing on vacation (ie: museums, breweries, sporting events, etc) They do the leg work of booking your airfare and accommodations, and they give you a few itineraries of how to spend your time there. The catch is you have to be patient enough to wait until the day of travel to find out where you’re going! We thought it was thrilling to be going on vacation and have no idea where we were headed, although some people I told about the trip found the idea of not knowing where you’re traveling to be cringeworthy #controlfreaks. 

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We had some guesses where they might send us; Ashley was coming from Santa Rosa and I was coming from Scottsdale, and since this was just a three day trip we figured they’d keep us on the west side of the country. They sent us the weather forecast a week before departure, which was mostly cloudy and rainy. Our guesses were Portland and Seattle. Finally Friday rolled around we opened our package that revealed our itinerary for Portland!

We had a fantastic experience with Pack Up + Go! They mailed us a package the day before departure, and I was dying to look inside to learn the destination. I could faintly read through the package a piece of paper that said “Don’t peek!” The envelope was also full of maps, lists of restaurants, bars, and other fun things to do around town. They even arranged a few potential itineraries for us to pick from. The base price starts at $650 per person to “get out of town” and it goes all the way up to $5,000 per person for their “sweet escape” trip. We’re on a “get out of town” kind of budget, and we had great accommodations at the Paramount Hotel, which was very centrally located and easy to get around.

The public transportation was a breeze to navigate. We took the MAX Light Rail train everywhere. It took us from the airport straight to a block from our hotel, to the Japanese Gardens, and Pearl Neighborhood where we stumbled through four breweries. It even swung us conveniently by one of the many recreationally legal weed dispensaries. Thanks, MAX! 

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If you find yourself enamored by gardens and flowers like me, the Rose Garden and Japanese Garden are not to be skipped. Every hue of green that exists can be found in this place. People come from all over the world to photograph a magnificent little maple tree. It sits rather unassumingly at about 6 feet tall, and you wouldn’t notice its beauty unless you poke your head underneath the low hanging branches to see the curving trunk. I’ll stop waxing about the beauty of trees, but this is definitely the coolest one I’ve ever seen.

Right near the botanical garden there is also a small but poignant Holocaust memorial that is worth a short visit to remind us all of the damage one dictator in power can do. 

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After feeling like we had some culture under our belts, it was time to put some beer in our bellies. Our first stop was Deschutes Brewery, it’s a rustic place with elaborate wood carvings. We sampled - I’m going to be honest, I don’t remember any of the beers I had. Ashley usually orders a sour and usually order an IPA, and I don’t think we’ve come across any bad ones. Each of these breweries had great beer, and there is a wide enough selection to please most people.

One of the “interests” we selected with Pack Up + Go was breweries. Portland has been touted as the brewery capital of America, which is likely one of the reasons we ended up there.

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10 Barrel Brewery had a lively rooftop and tasty beers. Rogue, while you can find the usual suspects like Ales, IPAs, and stouts, is also known for some of their odd brews like “Hazelutely Choctabulous.” Another amusing aspect of Rogue is that the bathrooms are labeled “Hops” and “Barley” and watching people try to figure out which door to go into is quite amusing. They say, “Hops are bitter, barley is sweet.” But I can be sweet and bitter on any given day so that didn’t answer it for me. I guess you just have to take a leap and hope you’re right! 

The best thing to cure an IPA hangover the next morning are some VooDoo Doughnuts. They’re not the best doughnuts I’ve ever had, but it’s worth a visit just for the novelty of ordering out loud, “I’d like an Old Dirty Bastard and a Cock and Balls, please.” I mean if you’re into that kind of thing. The former is covered in crumbled Oreos and drizzled with peanut butter. The latter is - you guessed it - cream filled and shaped like a cock and balls. Try to go during off hours otherwise you’ll be waiting in line for about 30 minutes, and if you don’t make it to VooDoo in Portland, try hitting it up in Eugene, Denver, Austin, or LA. 

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One of the unique things our Pack Up & Go itinerary suggested was an underground tour. We thought we’d see some cool underground passage ways and learn some interesting things about the history of Portland, we were half right. This was not a literal underground tour but more of a figurative underground where we learned about some of the darker parts of Portland’s history. For example, there is quite a lack of diversity in the city; it’s 71% white due to a long history of segregation that has bled into today. Back in 1859 when the state entered the union, it denied people of African decent to live there (the only state in the union to do so).

Another terrifying prospect for Portlanders back in the late 1800s: Being “Shanghaied” or “crimped.” It’s the act of abducting a man and tossing him on a ship to become a sailor because ship captains needed more crewmen. It went a little something like this: An unassuming man would go out on the town for a drink or ten. A crimper would spot him in a bar and slip some knockout drops into his ale. After he was unconscious, he’d be wrapped in canvas as if he were a dead body and put on the deck of a ship to wake up the next day bound for China! Talk about a bad hangover. On the bright side, we learned how to pronounce the river that runs through Portland, “It’s the Willamette dammit.”

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We had a great time in Portland and a fantastic experience with Pack Up + Go! I fully recommend them to plan your next trip for you! Until next time, Portland, stay weird!