A little while ago … ok, a big while ago … ok eight months ago I had the pleasure of going to Portland, Oregon, courtesy of Travel Oregon along with a cadre of other bloggers.  This fandango, called Full On Oregon, was designed to showcase the best food-driven experiences Oregon has to offer. (Disclosure: Yes, this means Travel Oregon covered my expenses for this trip. I did not, however, accept any compensation for writing about it.)

Why did I wait this long to write about it? Well, I could give you some line about how I wanted to tantalize you at the appropriate time of year to consider traveling to Portland (which it is), or how it's taken me this long to lovingly craft the eloquent prose it deserves (which it does), but the truth is I immediately got super busy with work stuff after returning home, and, well, yeah. But what's important is that I'm here, telling you about this, now. So read on. 

I've been to Portland before. Dear friends of ours used to live there, and DPaul and I took a visit back about six or seven years ago. And we liked it! But it was in the fall, and the typical Northwestern drizzle pervaded through the weekend. It didn't prohibit us from eating and drinking our way through town, but it certainly was more conducive to cuddling up in front of the fire than getting intrepid. Not this time, baby! By the time I arrived in PDX, the town was already scorching, and it would stay in the 80s through the entire visit.