I went to Portland to buy some doodads

Last week, Melissa invited me on a girls' trip to Portland. The purpose was to buy a discounted Garmin and avoid sales tax, and although that fell through, we still had a great time.

Saturday morning I headed to Melissa's early and we picked up Tori and Paulina before starting the three hour drive to Portland. I'd never been there before but was pretty excited to scope out the gluten free scene. 

When we arrived, we had lunch at Mestizos, which is a fully gluten free Mexican restaurant. I had the fish tacos, and I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever had fish tacos because I'd can't usually have battered fish. They were impeccable.

Fueled up and refreshed, we stopped at Push Pull for a caffeine hit (I had their oolong tea and it was lovely) before walking along East Burnside and checking out Banshee for thrifting and Nationale (a bookstore/art gallery where I got a couple books of poems and a new copy of The Virgin Suicides). 

Finally, we popped into Tip Top Vintage, which ended up being a hit. I saw a couple decks of tarot cards and was weirdly drawn to one. I saw the artist had incorporated Hebrew letters into the design and felt I just had to get them! So with a deck of Stairs of Gold tarot cards in hand, we finally checked into our airbnb and got ready for dinner.

"She flies with her own wings" outside my bedroom's window.

We ended up choosing Mee-Sen Thai for dinner and I had a delicious bowl of tom kha soup, fresh salad spring rolls, and a Thai iced tea. Soup was absolutely the move—it's soup season, after all. 

On our walk to dinner, we'd passed Sage Crystals and wanted to go in, and after dinner we had 12 minutes to browse before it closed. The employee who was closing for the night was so helpful and informative. You could tell he loves his job. I'm not usually a crystals-and-tarot kind of gal but something about being on a girls trip reawakened the artistic weirdo who apparently still lives inside me. Honestly, I want to embrace that part of me because it feels like a vital connection to the wellspring of my creativity.

I got myself a desert jasper palm stone and a carnelian pocket stone, both with properties to fuel creativity, ambition, and determination. As we were shopping, we decided to put our new crystals to use and do tarot readings when we turned in for the night.

And that's what we did! It was actually a nice way to get to know each other better and also do some guided self-reflection. By the end, I'd had a good nudge in the direction of which race to choose for my birthday this year, but I think I'll save that story and the race reveal for a different post.

On Sunday, we grabbed coffee at Bastion then walked to Gravy for brunch. We chose it randomly but the line outside told us it was an extremely popular spot. We ended up waiting an hour...and soon learned why. The servings are absolutely giant and totally delicious. I had a sweet potato-buckwheat pancake with apple compote and vegan yogurt drizzle and scrambled eggs. Worth the wait!

On our way back from brunch, we had to make another stop at Sage Crystals because Tori's tarot reading surfaced a future we all really wanted to manifest, and Tori, as the skeptic in our group apparently, had not gotten any crystals the night before. She ended up with three—more than any of us!—and you better believe we're pulling for our manifestation powers to work.

From there, we popped by Gluten Free Gem, where I helped myself to a lemon blueberry scone, marionberry spice torte, and a slice each of lemon poppyseed poundcake and chocolate truffle cake. 

And then, finally, we were ready to go hiking! 

Melissa scoped out a hike ahead of time, and she picked a good one! The network of trails along Leif Erikson Drive were built in 1980 for the benefit of runners, and it shows. The trails are well-maintained, clear of rocks and roots, and we saw a lot of runners out there during our late-afternoon hike. There are benches and plaques dedicated to runners along the route.

Our hike took us along Wild Cherry Trail, Dogwood Trail, Alder Trail and Wildwood Trail in a figure-eight that I was in charge of navigating. The trails took us through Forest Park and were mostly flat with some little climbs and descents here and there.

We kept an eye out for mushrooms and moss, splashed through the mud, and just had a nice time enjoying the great outdoors. The hike wasn't hard, but it was over six miles long, so by the time we finished we were famished and it was quickly getting dark.

Post-hike, we were going to stop at a tea shop for the other girls to grab tea and fried goodies, and we just happened to park directly next to another gluten free (and vegan) restaurant I'd been curious to try, Harlow. Because I was going to require a separate stop for food anyway, I decided to go in and see what they had to-go.

Pauli and I got Stumblebee smoothies, and I couldn't stop myself from grabbing a giant peanut butter cookie, too.

And from there, our girls' trip came to an end. Melissa expertly navigated us through some rainy weather and shaved 15 minutes off our commute, and I was home by 8pm.

I literally can't remember the last time I've gone on a girls' trip. It may have been spring break my senior year of college, almost 20 years ago. I feel lucky that I've met some amazing women here in Seattle that I can call friends, but adult friendships rarely make space (or time) for dedicated time away. I can sneak in a dinner with friends a few times a month and that's really it! It was so special to spend a couple days away where I could lean into the fun, silly, delightful joy of just being around other girls.

We had a great time, and I do hope we plan another next year. We're thinking maybe Wyoming or Montana to pan for crystals.

Ali