A SECRET KEPT SINCE MARCH IS NOW IN THE HISTORY BOOKS.
There are so many things to show you I hope you are not overloaded.
I planned a getaway for our 30th wedding anniversary last March. It was so very hard to keep the secret since the person I was keeping this secret from is the person I tell most everything to. He is the one person who knows me through and through. He is the one that I share my pain and sadness with along with my joys and smiles.
Most of all we share laughter. We have been together for 37 years and married for 30 as of today.
I didn’t tell him where we were going until we were about 10 minutes away from the Canada/US border.
We were going to Portland, Oregon about a 5 hour drive for us. I was hoping everything would turn out okay since it was all on my head.
First stop across the line was for breakfast. We randomly picked a place called Boondocker’s in Marysville, Washington. Click on the name to see more on this restaurant.
What a delight. The owner is so personable and friendly. I wish we had been there for something other than breakfast because they have some incredible sounding curry dishes on the menu along with their regular fare.
I started with a Red Grapefruit Mimosa. Oh what a treat.
They cook with real butter and the eggs tasted so good. Part way through breakfast the owner came walking through with glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice for everyone in the place. Even the fellow waiting for his takeout food.
We carried on to our hotel in downtown Portland. The River Place Hotel is a real top notch hotel. This hotel is right on the river with a promenade all along the water. It is right next to a huge park. The area you see under the trees is a lovely porch where we spent some time enjoying cocktails. Their flowers were stunning as were those in and around the park and streets.
I had no idea when I booked our trip that the Portland Brewer’s Festival was taking place in the park right next to our hotel. How cool was that! We went for a walk over to the beer tents for a sampling. There were hundreds of brewers to choose from but the line-ups were soooo long for every one of them we didn’t stay long. We tried a brew after our own hearts from the brewery below thinking of our darling Maxine. We didn’t enjoy the aftertaste that lingered for a very long time. I think it would have been better with some food. We wandered around choosing the hot sun over the deafening din under the tents. The cold beer lasted until we got back to the hotel.
The main restaurant in the complex is Three Degrees. We had dinner here the first night after we had gone for an appetizer and glass of wine down the street at an outdoor patio bar. We were too hungry to wait for our 7:00 dinner reservation since we never stopped for lunch anywhere. Once we got back to Three Degrees we sat outside on their patio for our meal.
I had halibut with a creamy mustard sauce, roasted potatoes and carrots. My BB Guy had prawns and pasta. I am not allowed to photograph his food…lol. He says it makes me look like a whacko. The next day when out for breakfast another whacko was taking photos of her food too. I was going to ask her for the name of her blog because all of us bloggers photograph our food. After some more wandering around we ended the evening on that beautiful porch I showed you above. Here is something you may not know about the differences between drinks in the US and Canada. In Canada you can barely taste the alcohol in the drinks you buy. You don’t even know if you are getting what you pay for most times.
In the US you can taste every drop and they are likely twice as strong as the tightly measured cocktails we get. That being said we thoroughly enjoyed our coffee drinks on the porch and had a couple while people watching. We stayed there until after the sun had gone down. I will leave you with this for today! I will have more about our first day soon.