Travelling Hopefully - City of Squirrels

Portland really does have a lot of squirrels.  My hosts must have been getting sick to death of them by  the time I left as I insisted on mentioning them every time I saw them.  They were genuinely surprised that Australia doesn't have any squirrels of our own.  I mentioned that we have rabbits which cheered them up a bit until I added that we've been trying to murder them all for the last couple of centuries.

I appalled my hosts by dining at Applebee's one night despite the plethora of nice restaurants in the vicinity but they were more approving of my breakfast choice which was a rather nice diner/cafe five minutes walk (squirrels!) from where I was staying.  I had waffles with syrup, a side order of peppered bacon and a gallon jug of not terribly good coffee.  I felt incredibly American, I even left a tip.  Of course I pushed my cultural assimilation a little too far the next day (squirrels!) when I ordered French toast with peanut butter and grape jelly.  After that experience I scuttled back to the waffles and bacon.

My first day in Portland had been all about Powells Books.  On the second day (squirrels!) I just wandered around town.  I hit a couple of market which were selling the sort of things you get in markets; hand crafted this and ethically sourced that.  Plus elephant ears!  There was a food cart selling elephant ears and I bought one out of sheer curiosity.  Elephant ears turn out to be a monstrously sized wodge of deep fried batter dusted in sugar and cinnamon.  One diabetic episode later and I was ready to return to my accommodation.

My hosts, Meaghan and Kaylee were a charming couple who gave helpful advice, tolerated random squirrel rants and my Amtrak induced unreliability.  Amtrak would get a chance to redeem itself the next day (you already know how that worked out) but for now, squirrels!