Like food? Beer? You'll like Portland.

In a way Portland was a perfect holiday spot. It isn't a tourist destination, so we weren't compelled to go and take photos of all of the 'must see' locations from guidebooks. Instead we spent our time wandering and, to be honest, eating.

Coming in from Hawaii we arrived late and needed food because we still felt like it was dinner time. The guy at the hotel desk recommended Paddy's, where they serve food til 2am and Ali got to have her first Mac & Cheese in the States.

It meant we got up quite late the next morning and had to find somewhere nearby for breakfast. A few blocks away was Mother's, where they were only too happy to split a hot breakfast and a bowl of fruit for us, which was lucky, because even that turned out to be too much food for us to finish. It was all for the best, because we were able to head to the world-famous Voodoo Doughnut, where we tried the Portland Cream and the Old Dirty Bastard.

Guess which is which.

We took the opportunity to get some shopping done. It was at or close to freezing the entire time we were in the city, so we both bought coats and then never left the apartment without them. Suitably rugged up we went for a walk along the river to take in some of the wonderful Portland weather which was... bracing.

There was no need to have lunch. Josh and Kate, heroes from the last American adventure, had arranged dinner, and had told us to come hungry.

It was good advice. They took us to Ox, and fed us crab and trout and skirt-steak and honey-glazed vegetables and oh goodness so many amazing things.

In return, we gave them Tim-Tams.

You'd be smiling too.

In the bistro under our hotel, a surly server brought us tea and we taught the Portlanders how to Tim-Tam-Slam, something I had promised to do for years.

Everybody loves Slams. Except my mum.

Since then I've received texts letting me know that they have introduced more people to the chocolate biscuit/tea wonder-from-down-under. Kate and Josh gave us a bunch of recommendations for the next day, and we took them all on board.

Seattle to Portland via the 101

We took Interstate 101 from Seattle to Portland because it took longer and was more scenic, we had been told.  That turned out to be good advice, and we were treated to more wonderful fall colours as we drove south.

The further south we drove, the more colours we saw.

Enough to make photos worth taking.

Otherwise we had a fairly uneventful drive.  We went the long way, out through Aberdeen (which reminded me a lot of Ballina) and Astoria, which had an awesome bridge to cross.  And a deer jumped across the highway in front of us, but I was driving and couldn't get a photo.

Behold! Biker dog!

We did a quick internet search for a good dinner spot, and were pointed to the Hair of the Dog, which was supposed to do some great beers.  What it did was strong beers, starting at 10%, as well as a tasty braised rabbit and some fantastic roast mushrooms.

Dark beer, dark chocolate.  Perfect dessert.

They also sold locally made dark chocolate, which we felt it was our duty to sample.  It was very good, and well complemented by the dark beer served by the brewery.