Pires Fam Road Trip - P O R T L A N D

Back in August we had a chance to do a little family road trip down to California! We spent 3 days on the road, had a few days to relax at a relative's place in Palm Springs, then did 2 days in LA before flying home....! 

Our first stop on Day 1 was Portland. We got up super early in the morning to start the drive down, hoping baby would stay asleep for most of it (which ended up being a great plan because she slept pretty much the whole way there). Once we made it into the city, we headed for Stumptown Coffee to grab some drinks. It was nice to get there and have it still feel like "morning". I had a delicious tea and shared a bagel with Lierra, and then we all walked down the street to Powell's Bookstore to spend some time looking around. What an amazing store! Seriously any book-lover's paradise. Lierra and I enjoyed hanging out in the huge childrens book section, looking at all the fun different stories before picking out a few special ones to buy to take home :) I purposely didn't bring any books along for her for the car ride, knowing that we were going to be stopping at Powell's and I wanted to have "car room" to be able to purchase a couple new ones. Even after a good hour or two there, it felt like I had barely seen everything it had to offer, and I could have easily spent twice as long looking around at everything.

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                                                               (Images from Stumptown [Ace Hotel] + Powell's City of Books)

After finishing up at Powell's, it was lunch time and we were all pretty hungry so we started trying to decide where to go to eat...! Keanu remembered that Portland was known for their food trucks and there were certain places in the city where they would all gather (called "Food Cart Pods). We turned to google to help us out, and saw on the map that there was one such area just a few blocks away.  It was fun to see the bustling set up of all the different vendors, but it made it hard to choose with so many delicious looking options! We settled on some street tacos from an authentic looking Mexican cart, and the rest of the gang ended up at a grilled cheese truck.

Once our tummies were full, we spent a bit more time just walking around the city, looking in the windows of the different stores along the streets. One in particular we came across and spent some time in was a leather shop called Orox. We chatted with one of the sons of the family that owns the business, and found out that the trade of working with leather has been passed down through their family for 4 generations. They came from Oaxaca to Portland, where the name Orox comes from, OR(Oregon)/OX(Oaxaca), so Keanu was excited to learn of that connection. The bags and backpacks they make are gorgeous, it was so enjoyable to just look around and see the exceptional quality of the craftsmanship of each piece. 

​Visit their website and view their amazing goods here! www.oroxleather.com
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