Backpacker Post 11: Portland, Oregon Part 2

Good Evening from the UK!

 I am back in very different type of countryside to the one I have been in for the past 2 months. I am now home and sort of almost over my jetlag and work has to get under way. But before I put my head down I've got time for a few blog posts. This one focuses on two brilliant things I got upto in Portland. The first I took in a shop called Paxton Gate. I somehow missed their flagship store in San Francisco so I was determined to go and see a shop full of oddities and ethically sourced taxidermy. However it was on a trendy street of shops on the other side of the city to where we were and funnily enough my boyfriend doesn't share my love for oddities so I was a woman on a mission. An god it was worth it. I came away with my little turtle skull, a poster of mushrooms and err...a deer cape...the deer cape is probably the strangest part of my collection but the shop were so wonderful in helping me ship it home and I can't wait to sling it over an arm chair I've inherited that I'm trying to find room for...

Another fantastic and rather silly thing we did was go and see Portland's annual Adult Soapbox Derby. We don't have this tradition in England. The closest thing I can think of is when we build little plane type things and jump off a jetty somewhere and see how far they can make it....I cannot even remember the name of that event! Anyway it was so silly and great fun. People threw water balloons out as they came down or had even had portable hoses. I think it's something we should definitely have a go at here!

This one was my favourite.

Next post will feature our two trips out to Washington, and a few more animals, and I promise some of them will be alive!