Portlandia 😀

We arrived in Portland on May 20th, for a 4 night stay to see friends, family, and to enjoy some great food and coffee. We rented a very nice little Airbnb, that unbeknownst to us was only a 5 minute walk from my Cousin Matt‘s house. We enjoyed several visits with Matt, his wife, Kristin and their adorable daughter, Zoe. It was so nice catching up with them, sharing some great food, wine and conversation.

We also had a great date night at a local restaurant, Tasty & Daughter, which was next door to some of the best coffee, Stumptown.

Had another great evening visiting with some long time friends of Jos’, Sadie and Josh, their adorable girls, and beautiful cats. As you know, I love cats, but Jos is terribly allergic. We spent a wonderful afternoon in their beautiful backyard, including pushing the kids on their swing set, before heading out in the rain for pizza. Check out the rainbow picture. Then we had to head out a bit early because the cats finally got to Jos. 🤧🐈🐈

We also spent a very enjoyable afternoon visiting the Japanese Gardens, where we met up with Evan, a friend of Jos’. We enjoyed getting a short tour and then spent some time meandering through the gardens and ponds.

Another evening, we met up with good folks Jos knew from WCBN, an Ann Arbor radio station where they all used to DJ, and my cousin joined us as well. A great evening visiting and drinking some great, local-made wine at Southeast Wine Collective. 🍷 🥂

A long-anticipated part of the journey was spending the day in Willamette Valley, a wine region just an hour south of Portland. We love some of the wines out of this region, and couldn’t wait to tour local wineries. With the help of one of Matt’s friends, we selected a few to visit, plus our favorite thus far, Shea. Shea grows some of the grapes that are used in so many great pinot noirs, including WALT Shea.

We had so much fun in Portland. We hope to return someday soon.

We had way too many nice photos, so selected a few of our favorites.