Double-Stacked Bookshelves

If you’re looking for a quaint neighborhood experience just minutes from a bustling city, look no further than the Sellwood-Moreland district in SE Portland, Oregon.   This little community has so much to offer if you enjoy low-key wanderings in picturesque, historic locales.   Located along the Willamette River and just over the Sellwood Bridge , Portland’s most southern bridge, the Sellwood area has a lot to offer its guests.   Boasting a unique array of restaurants, antique shops, boutiques, and the like, there is something for everyone.     Do you enjoy a good cup of coffee?   Look no further than Blue Kangaroo CoffeeRoasters on SE 13 th Ave where the beans are roasted on-site, the pastries are all made locally, the WiFi is free, and the atmosphere is relaxed and unpretentious.   I recommend the Cubano Latte.   If you are into something with a little more kick, then cross the street and hit up The Portland Bottle Shop .  ...

Whoopsidaisy...Guess my Saturday (and Sunday) got away from me and I forgot to post my X topic!  So here's to a little catch up :)  X is for... X Marks the Spot:  Shanghai Tunnels See what I did there?  Sneaky sneaky.  Anywho, moving on.  In the Oldtown/Chinatown area of Portland, there is a magical underground network of tunnels that are less...magical and more maniacal.  Comprised of a network of underground tunnels connecting the basements of several hotels and bars along the waterfront of the Willamette River, the Shanghai Tunnels were originally built to move goods from the ships docked along the waterfront into the basements of their respective destinations in order to avoid streetcar and pedestrian traffic. During the height of the shipping days in the Willamette Ports, unsuspecting drunks in the bars above the tunnels would suddenly disappear into the floorboards (through a strategically placed trapdoor), finding themselves...

The week is nearly finished, fellow A-Zers, and I'm looking forward to the weekend!  Today brings us to the letter V in our month-long alphabet challenge and I love what this letter represents in Oregon.  I'm actually going to go with two things today (cheater).  Without further ado... The Vortex In in the hills outside of the small town of Gold Hill, just north of Medford, there is a wonderfully mysterious site for the adventurous where brooms stand on their own, things that are smaller appear larger and vice versa, and where balls roll uphill.  The Oregon Vortex and House of Mystery is, essentially, a roadside attraction that is full of optical illusions which cause visitors to question the laws of physics.  The proprietors proclaim that the strange occurrences are due to paranormal properties, but I'll leave that up to the individual to decide.  The building on the property, a gold assaying office originally built in the early 1900s, slid o...

  Oh man, oh man.  P is probably my favorite topic in this month-long exploration of Oregon.  Not because it's my favorite letter (that would be Q or G...because they're my favorite to write), but because of what it represents for voracious readers like myself!  In Portland there is a place that I kindly refer to as the "Mecca of Books."  That place is... Powell's City of Books Located in downtown Portland, Powell's City of Books is exactly that, a city  of new and used books unto itself.  It is a truly glorious place to wile away the hours (maybe even days) perusing shelves upon shelves of alternate worlds.  Encompassing an entire city block, Powell's has something for everyone.  It is nearly impossible to walk into the store and leave without something in your hands.  Along with the main store (the Mothership, as I refer to it), there are five satellite stores (three around the city and two at Portland International Airpo...

  I'll admit that I've never been to my I Oregon destination...at least from what I can remember.  Ironic considering it's really not that far from where I now live or from where I grew up.  I guess that I had other priorities when I visited Portland; mainly Powell's, but that's for later on.  My mother would probably love to visit this place.  And now on to our topic for the day... The International Rose Test Garden Portland has several nicknames, but it's most well known as the Rose City or the City of Roses and for good reason.  Located in Portland's Washington Park , the International Rose Test Garden is home to over 10,000 plants consisting of nearly 650 different varieties.  It is also the oldest public garden of its kind in the United States.  Comprised of 4.5 acres and set up in tiers, the garden faces downtown Portland and offers spectacular views of the city, the Willamette River, and Mt Hood in the distance.  Within...

Well, we've done it fellow A-Zers; completed the A-Z Blogging Challenge and done so with style.  I stumbled upon so many wonderful blogs throughout this month and want to thank everyone who checked mine out.  Thank you for sharing your insights and thoughts with me and for allowing me to do the same.  And now for the last letter in this wonderful challenge....Z... Zoos There is something magical about zoos.  No matter how old you are, a zoo brings you right back to your childhood and fills you with this incredible sense of wonder.  Perhaps it has to do with the fact that you're looking at animals that you normally don't see walking down the street.  Whatever it is, I think that going to zoos should become more of a regular activity in our lives.  This can be accomplished relatively inexpensively in some places.  For instance, the Oregon Zoo is free for every visitor on Tuesday.  Granted, Tuesdays are not the most convenient, but it's a star...

P is for.... The Portland Timbers I am a HUGE soccer fan , have been since I was a child, and was incredibly stoked when Portland won the bid to host an MLS team, the Portland Timbers , a couple years ago.  I mean, poor Oregon...we don't really have any professional teams aside from the Trail Blazers , who might as well be a high school team the way they've played this season.  Finally we have something!  Back in the day we had a semi-professional team with the North American Soccer League, but that became defunct in the early 80s.  When talk started going around about adding another team to the MLS roster, Portland jumped at the chance to be their new home.  The Northwest, and Portland in particular, are hotbeds for soccer supporters and investors knew that having a team would be a lucrative business for the city and the state as a whole.  One of the conditions was finding a suitable playing field in the area.  Enter PGE Park, home of the Portland Be...

"I wonder how people think of Portland from the outside.  Is it a hippie haven where everyone reads Ken Kesey and hangs out at open mike night?  Is it the gray, grungy, junkie-riddled streets of early Gus Van Sant movies?  A cheap, trendy town full of myopic record labels and zinesters?  Sex worker paradise?  Bookstore heaven?  A place where New Yorkers come to feel important and/or relaxed?  Some wet old logging town that somehow became "one of the best cities in America"? Yeah, it's all that and a fancy coffee spilled on your Gore-Tex jacket (the same one you soiled with microbrew last night)."  ~Kevin Sampsell What a lovely...and TRUE...introduction to Portland Noir , a wonderful collection of seedy stories set throughout Portland, written by local authors.  The collection really does showcase the different sections of the city (Burnside, St. Johns, Mount Tabor, Powell, Oaks Bottom, etc.) and the sub-culture that is inherently threaded...

This week's teaser is going to be a little different than the normal installation.  I was in Portland at one of my favorite coffee shops this last weekend catching up with my German professor from undergrad and a dear friend, Jenna.  After our elixir of life get-together, Jenna and I decided to hit up one of my favorite used bookstores in the area (not Powell's...that's on the other side of town) and browse through the book-packed rooms of the establishment.  While on this adventure, I came across Portland Noir , a collection of contemporary short stories written by local authors, edited by Kevin Sampsell.  So, because this isn't a traditional book, I will be teasing a line from every selection!  Here goes: Karen Karbo "The Clown and Bard" "Now Charlotte's lying on my bathroom floor, wedged between the hot water pipe and the toilet.  Is it laying or lying?  Charlotte would know.  She has a master's degree and a daily subscription to the New Y...