More from Mary: WCS 2013

Last weekend my good friends Whitney and Meredith came to visit me in Portland. The three of us are current or former West Coasters: Meredith lives in San Francisco and Whitney used to live in LA but now lives in Austin (we still accept her as an honorary West Coaster). Last year Meredith hosted our first annual West Coast Summit (WCS) in San Fran. Exactly one year later, I hosted the 2nd annual WCS here in Portland. The weekend was wonderful. We could have done nothing but sit and drink wine and talk and have been completely content. But of course we packed in as much of the Portland sites as possible.

Friday, Whitney and I visited some foods carts and walked around Hawthorne before picking Meredith up from the airport. Once the three of us were reunited, we headed to NW Portland to shop around NW 23rd then started a progressive dinner: drinks at Teardrop, happy hour at Oba, a light dinner at North 45 on NW 21st, then dessert at Papa Haydn's of course! Several of my friends (plus Whitney's cousin who lives in Vancouver, WA) met up with us along the way.

Saturday, we got lattes at Heart Coffee then headed to the Portland Farmer's Market at PSU (so much fresh food tasting, bright flowers and great music) and then onto the Portland Saturday Market (just plain weird, as usual). We stopped into Powell's for Meredith to get a quick 15 minutes tour (cruel, I know) and then drove out to wine country for wine tasting, which I would say was the best part of the weekend. First we went to Stoller Vineyards where we sat outside at a picnic table and snacked on fresh bread and cheese from the farmers market while sipping delicious wines and taking in the beautiful scenery. Then we stopped in at White Rose where we sat outside and soaked up the little bit of the sun that finally came out. I'm convinced that there is no better way to spend a Saturday afternoon in Oregon than by wine tasting in the Willamette Valley. That evening we met up with a couple friends for drinks in SE Portland, then had a nice dinner just for the three of us at Roost.

Sunday morning, we headed out to the gorge (but not before stopping for a latte and pasteries at Crema Coffee). We took the scenic route (aka I got a little lost on the back roads) to Multnomah Falls where we hiked to the top of the 620 iconic waterfall. On the way down, we just happened to run into a friend from Waco (my mom and friend Hannah's neighbor), Kelsey, and her family who were visiting a brother who lives in Portland. It was so fun to get to see her - actually I had never met her, but knew she would be in town that weekend.

Meredith and Whitney both had afternoon flights out of Portland. There are a million other things we could have done and seen, but I'm glad they got a glimpse of life in the Pacific Northwest. I wish the weather had been better - it was dreary and cold most of the weekend. And then the day after they left was 70 and sunny with all of the mountains out - of course it would work that way. It was such a wonderful weekend with wonderful friends. I loved being with girls who I could have deep, serious conversations with and also be completely silly. We can always pick up where we left off. Thanks for coming to visit, Whitney and Meredith! I can't wait for WCS 2014, where we'll have official registration packets... and be the speakers and the audience!