Portland Institutions...

You might be saying, "Jeez laweez...is she working for the Portland Chamber of Commerce or something?" I know, I know...this is my last Portland post. I promise.

Portland has a few long standing institutions. One of them being that it is super duper bike friendly. While we were down there, Jason and I participated in the Portland Century (actually we did the 1/2 Century...50 miles baby! ). Shout out to Mat and Laura for watching the girls.

Ready to ride...

1st rest stop. Still giving the thumbs up...

Several people commented on Jason's Deschute's Brewery jersey. One guy even went as far as taking close-up pictures of Jason without asking his permission. Jason looked a little confused as to what was going on until I explained that the man liked his jersey...

Rest stop #3. We have 42 miles under our bike shorts and we are still smiling. Though I just realized they do look a little forced...

We made it! We rode strong and finished really strong. It was great. Now bring on the free beer and food...

Another Portland institution is Voodoo Doughnuts. They sell all kinds of different doughnuts and people flock. It is small (no seating inside) and they play really, really, really loud heavy, heavy, heavy metal music. Couple that with four very, very, very excited children all talking at once about which doughnut they want to eat and you have two mothers who want to get out of there extremely, extremely, extremely fast...

From left to right...Extreme Sprinkles, Crushed Oreo, Bubblegum, Marshmallow. Anyone who says that sugar does not affect children's brains has not been around four children who have just eaten the afore mentioned flavors...

If you are looking for a Portland institution for the brain head on over to Powell's Books. It is something like 63,000 square feet of bookiness. We only made it to the children's section, but I am assuming they have all different kinds of books for all different kinds of people. I look forward to going back and branching out from the kiddy-lit...

The final stop on our tour of Portland's institutions is the food cart. There are a few different areas around the city that have food carts set up with all different types of fare. We chose a Greek cart. The owner was a very kind older gentleman who immediately gave the girls lolly pops and proceeded to tell me that I have ordered too much food. He didn't think that we would be able to eat it all, he doesn't like to be wasteful, and he hates to see his food in the trash. I paired down my order and we had a delicious lunch. However, we didn't finish our meal and I was full, but I felt the pressure of having to eat it all. I powered through and got most of it cleaned up and as I went to sneak my plate in the trash he popped out of his trailer and to see how everything was. Busted!!!

You may have noticed that Jason isn't in any of these daytime pictures. That is because he had to go to work. He has an office in Portland that he is going to have to go to more frequently and hopefully we can tag along and try out some more institutions. What fun!