Ryan & Jenn's Ultimate Adventure: Oregon!

So we've had a pretty crazy and fun filled couple of days! So much has happened I don't even know where to begin. I guess the first thing to tell you is that we discovered the Oregon outlets when Ryan was recovering from being sick, and Ryan discovered Eddie Bauer... I think I may have created a fashion monster :) Even the girl working at the store noticed he was "all decked out in Eddie Bauer," but I must say he does look great as you can see for yourselves later. We also took a tour of the Astoria Column in Astoria (Oregon, not Queens) its basically a marker America built to say we own this country back in the 1800s so that no other countries could come "discover" it. We picked the perfect day for it though, the only day it hasn't rained so far, and after climbing some 200 ft up we could see for miles from the top of the column. Finally, after some serious shopping and climbing, we headed on to Portland which is a lot like the village in NYC. There's a couple tallish buildings, lots of people, street fairs, and a giant copper woman (except she was more kneeling than welcoming you to the country..). They also had their own subarbanish city area much like Brooklyn. We stayed there at the Kennedy School, an amazing hotel. Up until about 1960s it was a functioning elementary school, but has since been reconverted into a great hotel complete with chalk boards and a cloak room in your room. The best part about it though was that there were five or six bars, a pool/courtyard, and a pub theater in the hotel. The pub theater only being a few doors down from our room and included in our stay. Needless to say we had a lot of fun there. Competing for our favorite Oregon hotel though was our next stop at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport. Here every room is based off a different author from Hemingway to Tolkien. Our assignment was the JK Rowling Room, all of Gryffindors finest with ocean views to boot! We're having a great time in Oregon so far and can't help planning a return trip with all of our friends! We're going a little slower than we'd like since we both keep feeling under the weather, but hope to be in California soon! I guess that's enough for now, we all know you just want to see the pictures anyway and we've got some good ones for you! Enjoy!