Welcome to Portland

This past weekend, my husband and I took a long weekend in Portland, Oregon. With some interesting sights to see and even more craft beer than Denver (though that hardly seems possible), it seemed like a great place to spend a lazy, not-rigidly-planned vacation.

We arrived late Friday morning, hours before we could check into our hotel, so we jumped right in. Ecliptic Brewing is a place that distributes its most popular brews even here at home, but they had enough local-only options to make them seem worth a stop. From a tasty Guava Blonde Ale to an unusual Coconut & Vanilla IPA that was hazy enough for even my bitter-averse taste buds to enjoy, their taster flight was a nice intro to the trip.

Next up was Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland, a location that looked beautiful in screen after screen of photos online. Indeed, it is beautiful -- though hardly the overwhelming site that I'd been expecting. To reach those numbers of photos I'd seen, I'd wager every square foot of the place had been photographed. I suppose my "go go go!" vacation mentality is too at odds with the simple pleasures of relaxing in a tranquil garden. In any case, I was expecting to wander around aimlessly and get lost in the experience. Instead, it was a short 10-minute stroll around a meandering path to return to the entrance -- which you never really lost sight of along the way. We sat for some tea, but soon wanted to move along.

A short hike was next. Colorado has plenty of gorgeous places to visit, of course, but not many pristine slices of nature just plopped down right in the middle of Denver. Forest Park is a surprisingly large area right there in the middle of it all, and just a few dozen steps down one of its many trails transports you instantly into a thick, green forest unlike anything you'll find back here in Colorado. We walked along a trail to the so-called "Witch's Castle," a strange old stone house named in the spirit of the city mantra: "Keep Portland Weird."

At last, we were able to check into our hotel. (Half the time there seemed like it was spent waiting on the least efficient elevator in the world.) But we did head back out for two more beer stops before dinner. The first was at Three Mugs Brewing Company. It was one of those tiny, hidden-in-a-warehouse-complex type of places you get in the cities most deeply into craft beer. But it was also a "throw the garage door open and let the cigarette smoke do what it will" place, which made it hard to stay for long. I was intrigued by a sample of their White Chocolate Blonde Ale, but not enough to really enjoy it amid the smoke. So we quickly moved on.

Vertigo Brewing brought out the welcome committee. When we started asking the bartender about other good places we should visit, a local couple next to us eagerly jumped in to fill us in. Figuring we meant business, having found a spot like their favorite place-in-a-warehouse, they gave tons of suggestions -- while confirming some of the places to visit I'd researched in advance. One of them even insisted on leading us back to the brewing area to get a picture of us in front of the brewing equipment, then bought us a sticker to remember the place by. Raspberry Wheat was the beer we liked enough to bring back home, but there were easily several more we liked nearly as much. We would have gone back for more on another day -- but sadly, Vertigo was closed Sunday and open too late for our flight home on Monday. But it was certainly an early highlight of the trip.

Tired from travel, and from having packed so much into the day, we settled in early for the night after dinner. But there was more fun to come.