Biscuits and Donuts in Portland, Oregon

(Vancouver, WA) Hi 85 Lo 61 -- We’ve heard so much about what a beautiful city Portland is, so we took a drive today to check it out. On the southeast side of the city on the Willamette Riverfront is the Portland Aerial Tram. It goes from the riverfront up the hill and ends at the Shriners Hospital. It was $4.00 each for a round trip up and back. (Click on the pictures to enlarge)

Leaving the platform


Inside the gondola.


We passed the gondola going the opposite direction.


The ride gave us some beautiful views of the city and surrounding area.











We spent a few minutes on the open air terrace at the hospital.


It was cloudy, but we could still see Mt. Hood. Please click to enlarge the photo and you can see the peak of the mountain in the middle of the picture.


This is the view later in the day from the car on the trip home.


There are two eating places in Portland that are legendary, and we were told by many friends not to miss them. The first is Pine State Biscuits. It's a small shop that was started by a couple from North Carolina. They prepare all kinds of biscuit sandwiches, both for breakfast and lunch.


The line to get in stretched outside. But we didn't mind.


We struck up a conversation with the couple behind us who were visiting a family member that lives nearby. And I took a few photos of the kitchen through the window. This guy is rolling the biscuit dough. Their biscuits are scratch-made.


Spreading on the butter.


There were tables outside, but the first available table was inside, so that's where we sat.


Jim and I both had fried chicken biscuits, his with bacon, cheese, and apple sauce. You wouldn't think apple sauce would be good on chicken, but he said it was very delicious. Mine was a chicken club, with lettuce, tomato, and ranch dressing. And it too was yummy! For dessert we had two biscuit halves covered in locally grown cherries and covered in whipped cream. It was sooooo good! Oh, and Jim had real, southern sweet tea,s which is hard to find this far from the south.


The biscuits were so good we bought a half dozen to take home with us. They'll be good warmed up with butter and honey on them. Thanks Jim and Judy for recommending Pine State Biscuits. They were almost as good as Miss Alberta's (Jim's mom) home made biscuits.

The building next to us was so pretty I just had to get a picture.


The next place that came highly recommended was Voodoo Donuts. There are two locations, the original store downtown, and one across the river on the outskirts of town. We went by the downtown location, but it was so crowded that we couldn't even find a place to park, and the line of customers stretched for over a block. Boy, they must be some good donuts! So we headed for the other one, which was much easier to get in and out of.






They specialize in big, fancy donuts with all kinds of different icings and toppings. We're not much into all that fanciness, so we got a few normal donuts and headed home.


Portland is a very pretty town. It's very clean (the parts we saw anyway) and it wasn't difficult to get around. The drivers seem more courteous than most. It is a very health-conscious city, with lots of natural food stores, bike paths and walking trails everywhere, and something we haven't seen: Zip Cars. There are stations where several Toyota Prius hybrid cars are plugged in. You pay a rental fee and take one of the cars, then drop it off at your destination and plug it in.

We got back to the park and settled in for a relaxing evening. See you tomorrow.