Travel Log: Keeping it weird in Portland

Today I’m in Oregon for Oktoberfest and it reminded me that I never wrote about my trip here last month. After a week on retreat at Mount Angel, I spent the weekend in Portland:

I got to visit the famous Powells, a three-story bookstore covering an entire city block. I was so proud of myself, I managed to leave without buying anything – quite an achievement!

I spent most of Saturday morning visiting the extensive Saturday market down by the waterfront.

I also took an “Underground” walking tour of the city where I heard about some of the rather quirky history of Oregon’s most well-known city.

During our tour we went past one Portland’s iconic locations, Voodoo Donuts. The lines outside were crazy, with people waiting over an hour just to get a donut! During the tour we heard the story of how the business began. It turns out that a club owner created donuts which he said were hang-over cures. He could say this because the sugar frosting was replaced with crushed-up aspirins and the jam filling with pepto-bismol! The government discovered what he was doing and freaked out because he was putting drugs in the food he was selling. Rather than letting it sink his business, he then used the media storm as free advertising. He switched to making the kind of delicious sugar-filled treats they sell today and people flocked to buy them!

Finally, while in Portland I went to Mass at the Grotto on the outskirts to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. I returned the following day to spend some quiet time in the grotto grounds: