Saturday, February 5, 2011

Quick trip to Portland

I rarely go anywhere these days and I'm not sure whether it's because I have so much to do, or whether my priorities are skewed, but my kid finally forced me out of the house, into the car, and down the road to Portland with the promise of a trip to the Waffle Window.
This time, instead of driving around in the dark--not a cool thing to do in Portland where most of the streets are one way, we simply GPS'd it.
love this place. Down a deserted side street. A window cut in the side of a blank brick wall. Fresh hot Belgian waffles.

I got the banana hot fudge and caramel sundae with cinnamon whipped cream, and if it hadn't been 45 degrees, rainy and already late, I'd have stopped to take a picture.

I did take few pictures around Powell's City of Books. My favorite, because I thought it was hilariously funny, Noodles and Company.

Just inside Powell's in the cash wrap area. That place is swimming in books. Way too many to look at in one day.
One of the signposts...
And pondered the question. "There are five floors of books. Why is romance stuffed behind the vegan potato salad in the cafe?"
I bought a couple of books, ate a pastrami sandwich and had a waffle sundae. In all, a very good day. I need to get out more.

6 comments:

Kaige said...

Sounds like a very waffl-icious trip!

Loved the pics, looks like Powell's would be a VERY dangerous place for me and DH. He keeps saying he wants to take me to the PNW, but I still haven't made it there. Someday!

deanna said...

Hey, my daughter was just up there last week. She'd love to work at Powell's (they even have another store, now; I didn't know...).

Glad you had fun.:o)

Unknown said...

omg, Kaige. The waffles made a getting-lost, driving to Tigard, rainy drizzly parking garage kind of day all better.

I had these pictures I took in Powells where the rooms all sort of tunneled because it's so huge it's something like a gadzillion square feet and there are reference desks on each floor and sub-reference desks and catalog kiosks, elevators going everywhere and...it's sensory overload. But anyway, the pictures were dark and blurred. *sigh*

Hi Deanna! You know...much as I've swung to the Amazon side, I still like Powells. It's just so amazing. And we visited the other store. My kid wanted to go. It's very clean and bookstore like. Right across the street next to Noodles and Co, lol.

Do you know we have two of the biggest on-line booksellers near me? In one of them, you can go in and buy whatever you'd like by the pound. I went in and bought an armload of books (and want to go back) and it came out to seven dollars! It's where I'm going to buy all the old cookbooks I've been wanting. BHG single titles and all the old Yan Can titles. :)

Nina Benneton said...

Jodi!

I finally figured out how to leave a comment.

Next time I'm in Portland, I have to check out Powell's.

I do think Powell got as big as it did in Portland because there's nothing else to do but read when it's raining all the time!!!

Nina

Hailey Edwards said...

Oh, man. I could so go for some of those waffles right about now.

Even though I live above my state's capital city, there is only one surviving bookstore. It's a BAM, and doesn't have the best selection.

Even if I wasn't a lover of eBooks, this economy would have driven me to them.

Unknown said...

lol, Nina! I'm glad you're here. :)Powell's is gigantic and it just keeps growing. I don't remember having to take the elevator the last time, but this time it was killer walking up all those flights of stairs

Hi Hailey! I totally bought a couple of really goofball books because they were right there in front of me (and used, and cheap) and now I'm suffering "I can't believe I spent 13 dollars on this book" angst. And five dollars on a small coffee. And it wasn't very good. Argh.

But you're right. I could go for some of those waffles right about now, too. :)