Portland 03/02/14 | Belmont and Beyond

Our first Sunday in Portland was spent in Belmont District for the most part. Both my brother and I fell in love with the atmosphere and character of the district. Everything had personality and it was a beautiful area on top of that. We walked around for hours in the drizzle just enjoying all the sights and street art. We unanimously agreed that Belmont District was definitely our favorite spot in Portland!

Everything was so colorful and green. We couldn't help ourselves from weaving through residential areas and I even dragged my brother through the historical cemetery in the area. I've never been able to walk through an historical cemetery before, the ones by me are all modern and plain, so it was nice to find one with character and interesting headstones.

After hours of walking around, we headed back to the area where our host's home was and walked around the little main street there. It was pretty sparce, but had its own personality that was pretty cute! Plus we found a great cafe called Posie's which had the best coffee I had during my entire trip, and a freshly made pineapple danish that beats every other danish I've had in my life!

Yes, it was absolutely worth all three photos! (Plus my brother can be a little cutie so I had to post his pic too!)

Anyway, I didn't realize how image heavy this post would be since I cut down the images to less than a third of what I actually shot that day! Crazy! Is that a pain? Is it better to hide a chunk of photos behind a "read more"? Or is it less likely that you'd read the post if it's behind one? Being relatively new to blogging in general, I'm not sure what is best for posting/viewing. Also, does anyone know how to get all shortcut images to be the same width on the page? I use the blogger general format for shortcutting the images, but I don't really like how the taller images are sized with a smaller width. If you have any idea on how to help out, I'd really appreciate it!

My back is pretty messed up right now so I've basically had to lay down for 2 days straight. I can't do anything that even requires me to sit up, so photo-editing seems like the perfect way to pass the time. Hopefully that means I can get more posts from my trip up sooner and organize them in a more view-friendly way.

Until next time!

Jessie xxoo

Portland 03/01/14 | Multnomah Falls

I think our hike at Multnomah Falls was definitely one of my favorite memories of the trip. I would not have guessed at the time. We were freezing, definitely under-prepared for the cold and snow (as you can probably tell by a lot of my shots blurred by rain/snow/hail) and the drive up there was extremely stressful with all the wind and rain! But all in all, the beauty of it was unlike anything I had ever witnessed in person. California has some decent spots, but nothing at all compares to what we saw in Oregon.

A lot of my pictures were actually taken with my phone, due to the snow/hail (I don't know what it classified as. It was like little baby hails...is that snow?) I was worried about messing up my camera and having no idea how to fix it, I opted for (hypothetically) ruining my phone instead, since it was insured.

Even after we adjusted to the cold, there were still reminders of how freezing it was. Not sure if you can tell in this picture, but my hair is basically frozen, with bits of ice stuck to it!

Bless those sexy souls who can look carefree and comfortable in any setting. I'm sure it's pretty obvious we were beat and worn from the wind and snow added to our hike. All in all, it was an amazing trip for both my brother and me! We really wanted to go back, but our limited time with our car left us no time to make a return trip. Guess we'll have to try again some other time. (Though I'd rather leave out the snow and cold next time for sure!)
Have a nice Sunday!

Until next time!
Jessie xxoo