McMenamins and Other Portland Establishments

We woke up and got ready in our Portland hotel and then started to show Ernie all of the best sites that the city had to offer. Just kidding, we drove him to Troutdale, Oregon to get a bunch of McMenamins passport stamps.

McMenamins Edgefield was like passport stamp heaven because they had so much going on. There are a few stamps for things like "tour a winery" that there are only a select few places to earn, so this was a good opportunity to knock out some of the hard ones.

Derek and Gabby were here in Portland on their baby moon which was fun.

They brought their dog Cora along with them. There's actually a "have a beer with a dog" stamp that I was excited to earn with this awkwardly framed photo. 

Headed back to the hotel for a refresher.

We were hanging out on the patio of McMenamins White Eagle Saloon & Hotel, and Lydia walked up to the bar to get some food and drink for us. They asked her for the cover charge, as a band was about to start playing. We viewed this as pretty ridiculous since we were seated outside and would not be able to see the band, so we left. We'd already obtained the location's stamp so the fact that they were being weird was just as well.

McMenamins St. Johns Theater & Pub was much more welcoming so we set up shop there instead.

My dude's potential eye color is a fun remaining mystery. He's definitely getting blue!

The girls and babies/fetuses all went to bed and Derek and I hit a couple bars to celebrate the end of his social life.

The Green Room was a pretty classy joint with a good whiskey selection. The exposed green glazed brick also indicated that they were not liars which I took note of. 

I picked an Oregon thing.

This was an:

"Ignorance is Bliss

(Riff on the negroni, 1919)

banhez mezcal, luxardo bitter bianco, cocchi americano, tiki bitters"

Teardrop Lounge was not playing around with their drink menu. There was a friggin Powerpoint presentation in there.

A fun thing about this bar is that they play weird old movies on the wall. It took us some searching to figure out what the heck we were looking at but it seemed to be "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad". It was squarely in "so weird and bad it's good" territory.

After we'd hung out here a while I realized I've actually been here before with Lydia. Coincidentally on the same day we bought our passports and began this insane quest in the first place.