Road trip day 2 - One Day in Portland

After going to sleep after midnight, we woke at 6:30 am to take the car in for an inspection.

The brakes!  Agh!
We could feel and hear the brakes grinding as we were coming into the neighborhoods of Portland late the night before.  As suspected, we needed new brakes.  Luckily getting the work done was completely hassle free and much less expensive than feared!  All parts were on hand and installed in about an hour.  Rather than waiting on the work we went out for breakfast with Brian to Pine City Biscuits.  Brian thought it would be a good idea to give Lauren a warm up of some southern style breakfasts.  We had breakfast sandwiches with homemade biscuits and a wide array of toppings.  Mine had fried chicken, a fried egg, bacon, and was all topped with sausage gravy!  yea!  This place was so good. We recommend it!
After breakfast, we picked up the car as it was already repaired. This delicious layer of grease prepped our stomachs for the beer tasting, which followed next.  We headed to a new brewery, Cascade Barrel House; a local maker of Sour beers.

Look at that variety! Cheers!

After beer tasting, we picked up Owen and Chet from school. We then made a stop at Voodoo Doughnuts; known for many of their specialty doughnuts, including the Voodoo Doll; the Old Dirty Bastard, and an array of other specialty doughnuts.

The Wayson boys at Voodoo Doughnut

After our Doughnut binge we did some pumpkin carving with the kids.  Luckily for us, Brian and Sarah have their own pumpkins growing in the yard, so we were able to pick them out fresh and go directly inside for carving.

Owen and Chet with their pumkins

For dinner, we walked from the house to the Kennedy School; which was really cool.  It's an an old Elementary School building which was renovated into a Hotel/Restaurant/Hot Pool/Movie Theater/Bar; this building actually contains several bars.  Really cool decor and atmosphere; a lot of thought was put into all of the rooms.  We definitely recommend it. Turns out there are several other similar renovated historical buildings by the same group, the McMenamins, sprinkled throughout Oregon. Hopefully we have a chance to go to another in the future.  Portland seems like a really cool town; cruising around and seeing the neighborhoods was fun; a ton of trees and houses with colorful paint schemes all stood out.  The neighborhoods we saw all seem like they have character and were really picturesque, as all of the trees are changing colors at the moment.  It really seems like a great place to live.

We've had a great time on our road trip so far. It's so awesome to know people that really go above and beyond to show us a good time. Brian and Sarah (and Chet and Owen); thanks for hosting us!