Portlandia (Keep Portland Weird)...

Portland, Oregon is a very different kind of place.

 

On the one hand, it's a very normal, sane city that's come to accept an underlying identity that many people may not understand. It's almost as if Portland is one city by day, but a very different city at night. So, of course, the photographer in me set out to capture the city at night.

 

We found our way downtown, and I was immediately struck by the sheer mass of humanity that was in downtown Portland on a Saturday night. Of course, any city can, and often does, serve as host for a never-ending stream of late-night revelers. But Portland's different; just a little different.

 

Portland has an area of town with a lot of food carts. They have so many food carts, in fact, that you can find maps online showing where the various food carts are located. It doesn't matter what kind of food you want, you can find it here:

 

Food carts along the street in downtown Portland, Oregon...

An area of more established, permanent eateries...

 

Portland has a motto: "Keep Portland Weird". They embrace it. They revel in their weirdness and, in a strange way, it's kinda' fun. And, lest you think I'm making it up, they have bumper stickers proclaiming their desire for their weirdness to remain intact:

 

 

 

Away from the food carts and the hustle and bustle of that area, things quiet down pretty dramatically. We made our way around the city to see some of the weirdness that prevails in other areas of Portland.

 

One of the first sights we happened upon was, in fact, the aptly named sculpture "Portlandia":

 

 

"Portlandia", by Raymond Kaskey...

 

"Portlandia" is a sculpture by artist Raymond Kaskey, and it sits atop the entrance to the Michael Graves' Portland Building on Southwest 5th Avenue. It's the second largest copper repousse sculpture in the United States. The Statue of Liberty is the largest. Portlandia was actually made in three separate sections in Maryland, and shipped and assembled in Portland.

 

Another sculpture, and certainly somewhat more odd, is of a salmon. Now, perhaps you might not think that a sculpture of a salmon would be an odd thing to feature in a town such as Portland and, in fact, perhaps you might be right. Then again, perhaps you might not be thinking of a sculpture of a salmon perched three stories above the street, crashing through the corner of a brick building:
 

 



I have absolutely no explanation for this and, apparently, neither does anyone in Portland...

 

So, as far as I could tell, Portland was certainly living up to the whole "weird" thing they love so much. We weren't done, though. Before heading in for the night, we had one more stop to make. When in Portland, you simply have to make the pilgrimage to Voodoo Doughnut:

 

The sign outside the original Voodoo Doughnut...

We'd wanted to visit the original Voodoo Doughnut, but the fact of the matter is that the line was ridiculously long. Anywhere else on a Saturday night, people are out in the bars drinking away the previous week. In Portland, though, they go out for doughnuts. And, even if we could've found a parking spot by the original Voodoo Doughnut, we would've had to wind our way through the marching band that was on hand for... well... just because.

Thankfully, there's more than one location of Voodoo Doughnut; there are, in fact, three of them. We found our way to Voodoo Doughnut Too, located on Northeast Davis Street. There was a line here, as well, but nothing like the one downtown. And, despite the line, we found ourselves at the counter in relatively short order.

The counter at Voodoo Doughnut Too...

Their selection of doughnuts is impressive, and you're not likely to find too many doughnut shops anywhere which so brazenly combine different flavors. Voodoo does it, though, and they do it remarkably well.

I remember seeing Voodoo Doughnuts featured on the Travel Channel show "No Reservations" with Anthony Bourdain. One of the highlight moments of that show was when Bourdain enjoyed a maple bacon bar. Now, as much as I like doughnuts, and as much as I love bacon, I wasn't completely convinced that the two should be combined. It seemed an unholy marriage of decadence and over-indulgence.

But I tried it anyway.

And it was good.

It was damn good.

A bacon maple bar. Despite my initial reservations, it was quite possibly the finest doughnut I've ever had...

I couldn't possibly stop at just one doughnut, though. Without knowing when my travels might bring me back up this way, I had to sample more than just one. As I made that decision, it was as if my doughnut-to-be actually found me. Some might call it appropriate. I call it a mass conflagration of doughnut, Oreo cookies, and peanut butter. Voodoo Doughnut calls it the "Old Dirty Bastard":

An Old Dirty Bastard. The doughnut, not me...

I can say, without a second's hesitation, that these were probably the finest doughnuts I've ever had. Seriously. They're amazing. They're not the cheapest doughnuts in the world (the two shown rang in at $4.75 for the pair), but they are worth every single penny, period.

 

And, just in case you want to spread the doughnut love around to family and friends, you can always treat them to a coffin full of doughnuts. Admittedly, it's a small coffin but, seriously, could I make this up?

 

Because nothing says "Love ya'!" like 36 Old Dirty Bastards...

 

It was no longer a mystery to me. Portland is weird, and they like being weird. And, to be completely honest, I simply can't imagine the town being nearly as much fun if they insisted on being normal...