And what a welcome it was! We had a full day.

Except it didn’t start so early. Which is good. Gave me some time to get situated. I love getting situated. Maybe I’m a nester.

Our plans today were to hit an island where we could pick strawberries and visit Corazzo, the makers of my jacket.

While getting things ready to leave, I noted that Portland had one very big mark against it - no vegan doughnuts. Ashley then suggested Voodoo Doughnuts might have vegan ones. We looked it up and lo! They do!

Let’s do that first!

We drove down (she drove) and parked in Chinatown. We had trouble working the little electronic parking meter thing, but figured it out somehow. Each have slightly different instructions. This one had one set of instructions and then they decided to change them after installing the machines. So now there are amended instructions. Nothing made sense.

But Chinatown seemed nice. We parked right next to an all-vegetarian Chinese place. There are so many places to eat here, I bet.

We walked around downtown a bit. I had my first Portland celebrity siting! While walking down some street, I saw the girl who works for Herbivore Clothing and Magazine. It’s the gal in the top, left picture (and throughout the page). She passed and I thought, “I know her! But how?” I figured it was scooter-related. But no. It was vegan-related. Woo!

I want this shirt, by the way. I might stop by the Herbivore Store today and get it.

We found our way to Voodoo Doughnuts, our first stop! The place was eclectic inside. And the vegan doughnuts were in a little basket.

I picked out a glazed and chocolate frosted. Just like I used to get at Dunkin Donuts before I went vegetarian 15 or 16 years ago.¹

The counter gal bagged them up and I couldn’t wait to get outside to inhale them.

They use a banana-based eggless recipe. Sometimes that can go horribly wrong, making your whatevers taste only like super-sweet bananas.

So with a tinge of apprehension - this was an extremely important moment in my life - I bit into the chocolate frosted one.

Hm. Good… not bad… some banana… but mostly… AMAZING! I’m eating a VEGAN DOUGHNUT! I basically freaked out inside. And maybe a little on the outside.

Maybe.

So good.

The glazed was equally amazing. I basically want to live there. It’s a shame that all their doughnuts aren’t vegan, but hey, at least there’s a nice selection of vegan ones.

But now was time for Strawberry pickin’ on some island that I redubbed Strawberry Island. We got a little lost, but eventually found our way there.

We grabbed two empty U-Pick boxes and went to pickin’. At first, it was difficult to find anything. But after we figured out a system and found a good place for good berries, we were in!

Oregon strawberries are different than Pennsylvania or California strawberries. First, these were no-spray. No icky chemicals to “wash off”. And they are red the whole way through. Yeah, they’re smaller, but they’re sweeter and basically nature’s perfect food.

The picking place also had a ton of other fruit and vegetables in a little store/barn thing over yonder. It was run by a guy who was amazingly enthusiastic about his produce, which is all grown on-site. He was thrilled with is dill, and ecstatic over his cucumbers! And don’t even get him started on his watermelons!

Our next stop was Corazzo, so we picked up some sweet corn and headed over. Corazzo is a scooter apparel company who makes riding gear (mostly). Chad and… .. I forget his name - I’m SO bad with names, I apologize², who co-run the place, hung out and talked while their lil puppy played with what must have been the most awesome red plastic lid EVER!

These guys are great and I can’t say enough nice things about them. Especially because: “Corazzo is proud to manufacture our garments and accessories in North America (Canada, California and Oregon), sourcing our raw materials from companies that manufacture in the US, wherever possible.” They asked if I needed anything and really, I didn’t, but maybe a pair of gloves (do you have ANY idea how hard it is to find vegan riding gloves?) and new armor for my jacket. Chad offered a bag, but I declined. It was a nice bag too. This company is run by scooterists for scooterists. And it’s very for scooterists.

It takes quite a lot for a company to impress me. But since this company has great stuff, great practices and is amazingly giving, I have to approve of their existence.

Now, if only their winter gloves were vegan so I could stop using ski gloves! And if they made pants!

My riding pants are black and weirdly, nothing goes with them. Even my black jacket clashes. I don’t quite understand how nothing can go with black. I think it’s the shape. Who knows. I’ll be getting a new jacket soonishly and definitely Corazzo’s lap apron. I bet my dad would dig this. He’s riding a Bajaj Chetak now. Ha! Scootering is addictive!

I’ll also be picking this amazing little number up before winter hits.

Chad also told us of a scooter meet-up at a bar called Plan B. It was at nine. So Ashley and I drove to her place, made some food and I “fixed” her router that was being super-cranky.

Suddenly it was around nine, so we headed to Plan B. Plan B is a bar that has a great VEGetariAN dishes. In Portland, in order to serve liquor, you must also serve hot food.

We got there, finding the place by looking for a bunch of scooters out front. No problem. There were about 20 there and I saw a mod walking up the street on crutches, still sporting the jacket, tie and hat. This must be the place.

Everyone was out back, on a patio (really an old parking lot with picnic tables - this place was pretty punk rock). Chad motioned us over, introduced us and we ended up talking with him, a gal, another guy and the mod fellow (remember, really amazingly bad with names, sorry!). I ordered some vegan chili, Corazzo paid for it… THANKS! I feel weird when people do this, but who is going to argue with vegan chili?

The DJ spun the soundtrack to my high school years. Metallica, Dead Kennedys, various other stuff that brought me back to a time in Todd Fogel’s basement where I had my first couple bands and countless nights of being young. Thanks, Mr. DJ!

Around 11:30, things wound down and we were beat (and the last ones there).

It was late, so to bed it was!

G’night, folks!

Here are my pics.

1. I went veg when I was 17, in a couple of years I’ll be able to say that I’ve been veg for most of my life - pretty neat! [↩]
2. Seriously, I’m horrible with names. I had to struggled to remember “Chad.” It wasn’t easy and Ashley had to help [↩]