We've been talking about taking a day trip to Portland or Vancouver, Canada for months. We kept deciding to save the gas money and do something else closer. With the long Thanksgiving weekend and with gas below $2 per gallon we decided to drive to Portland this weekend.

We left pretty early and after almost 3 hours we arrived in Oregon. Our first stop was Multnomah Falls, about a half hour outside of the city. The falls were awesome and the area was beautifully green and misty. After that, we drove into the city and stopped at Escape from New York Pizza, where we ate possibly the best pizza we've ever had.

We had found a free parking spot in the area so decided to just leave the car there and take the convenient streetcar and light rail to Washington Park, where we went to the Oregon Zoo for the first time. Lesley likes zoos and really wanted to see the critically endangered Amur Leopard, however in the three times we stopped by the exhibit, it never appeared.

After the zoo, we took light rail back downtown and walked through the Portland Saturday Market, which had some neat crafts and stuff. After a brief walk along the waterfront, we walked back downtown and had dinner at Thai Peacock. It was very nice to be able to sit, drink, and eat.

We then walked through Portland's Pearl District, which, despite being one of the more walkable areas in the city, was pretty deserted for a Saturday night. We got some hot, black tea with honey and sugar and then walked back to the Northwest District, where our car was parked. After a short stroll, we got in the car and drove over to Hawthorne Street to check it out.

Since Oregon doesn't have sales tax, we wanted to pick up a couple things before we left. We bought a tree and a few decorations and the money we saved by not paying tax made up for about half the money we spent on gas. Speaking of gas, we had to refill on our way back, so we exited when we saw a sign and the gas station was like two miles from the freeway. Then, the signage said to keep going the same way on the street to get back to the freeway (as if the street looped back to the freeway) and it did, but it was literally 5 miles to get back to the freeway.

Anyway, it was a fun trip. Portland is a pretty neat place. Here are some photos; we'll post the video soon hopefully.