From Seattle we drove South to Portland.  While in Portland our good friends Ben and Ellen flew in and hung out with us for the week.   Friends Tony and Kristen who used to live in Tampa and now reside in Portland also visited with us throughout the week.

We visited the Japanese Gardens and Rose gardens up in the hills of Portland, then the next day we took a drive to see Mount St. Helens and a walk through and old growth forest.  The following day we took a driving trip to the beautiful pacific coast and had great views and fresh seafood.

Overall Portland is a great city that has absolutely amazing food.  It was great having our local friends Tony and Kristen give us recommendations and we were sure glad to see them.  We kidnapped Tony and took him with us from Portland to Tahoe so make sure to check the following posts and see our adventures.

Please click on the photo below to start the slideshow which will also have captions describing them.

Went to a huge dog park in Vancouver Washington. Vancouver is 20 minutes away from Portland.

Mommy and I walking to go say Hi to the other pups.

Found a cool Saturday Morning Market.

View of Mt. Hood from Portland.

The humans met up with Ben and Ellen and went to the Japanese Gardens.

The pools had some of the largest Koi we have seen.

Went for a stroll through the rose garden. Most of the roses had bloomed but we did find a couple patches that were still going.

We went for a day trip to visit Mount St. Helens.

Awesome view of the back side of Mount St. Helens. The crater in the middle is where the top used to be in 1980. The peak of the mountain is now over 1,000 feet lower than it was in 1980. There is not a ton of foliage that has grown back yet due to all the pumice that was deposited during the eruption.

On the way back we stopped at a state park and went for a walk through an old growth forest.

Daddy checking out one of the giant Fir trees.

We took another day trip and drove to the coast. Along the coast we stopped at Tillamook and visited some dairies. Ben did some wine tasting with an interesting character.

Had oysters as fresh as they get. Notice the packaging plant on the other side of the glass wall.

View of the carnage. 12 oyster shooters, calamari, oyster chowder, fried oysters, baked oysters and chopino.

Largest pile of oyster shells we have ever seen. The smell was amazing!!!

Cool view of the long Oregon coast.

Stopped at Hug Bay and explored.

I love being off-leash.

A great opportunity to play fetch.

Hiking around Hug Bay.

Mommy hugs on the beach……..

After all this fetch it’s time to take a break.

Stopped at Cannon Beach and stretched our legs.

Took a ride over the Astoria-Megler Bridge. This is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America.

View coming down the bridge.

There were lots of barges making their way up the Columbia River.

Found amazing tamales at “Tamale Boy”. If you are in Portland you should definitely make a stop here and make sure you get one of the tamales fried…..

Getting ready to head out of Portland and met up with our friends Tony and Kristen. Luckily Tony is going to stay with us for a week so keep an eye out for him during the next posts……