Port Angeles

So we spent 3 nights in Port Angeles and had a great time. Here's some of what we ate:

Kale! It is nowhere to be found in Sweden so I was happy to buy a bunch at the supermarket.

We were waiting for our host to finish work, so we went into The Veela Cafe for an espresso and an espresso chip cookie from Alternative Baking Company.The taste of the cookie was great but I like a crunchy texture rather than soft.

The next day, we had lunch at Dynasty Chinese Restaurant, who offered a lot of different tofu dishes.

The food was lovely and very cheap, a combination in my taste.

We went for some  ice cream sandwiches for dessert, which we bought at Good to go! Natural Grocery. Unfortunately, they were pretty slimly and gross.

 Our host Gayle were working her butt of at work so we made dinner for her in the evening. It was going to be a potato salad but I bought the wrong kind of potato so it turned into potato and kale squares instead.

Some coffee.

Bonus picture: Lake Crescent with a rainbow across, seen from Mount Stormking!

Have you ever been to Port Angeles?

Midsummer

Midsummer is one of the most celebrated holidays in Sweden. People will dance around a phallic symbol made out of birch twigs and flowers, eat pickled herring and strawberries and hope for sunny weather. I spent the day with my family and ate some good food, although the weather was disappointing as always.

Vegan Skagen Mix.

 

Strawberry harvest from my mother's garden!

I love this picture that my sister took of me and my mother on our way home from picking flowers. I'm the one on the left, did I tell you I cut almost all my hair off?

Eating on the road

I've never had to go to bed hungry while travelling as a vegan, no matter if I was travelling in Sweden, Iceland, Turkey or Germany. The U.S was no exception, rather the contrary. I always travel on a very limited budget, meaning that I rarely eat out at restaurants and buying a cup of coffee at a café is to be considered a luxury. Oregon and Washington was pretty cheap comparing to Scandinavia, so that allowed us to eat out way more than we usually do on the road, which of course was a lot of fun! I wouldn't have want to miss the experience of eating lunch at food carts in Portland, trying Ethiopian for the first time, eating soft serve, having breakfast coffee at a diner, cooling down with lemonade at a soda fountain or enjoying cheese filled pizza crust.

The money isn't the only reason I rarely eat out while travelling. I love being out in the nature and would prefer going to see a big tree rather than a big church 9 times out of 10, so I often find myself on a mountain top or at a remote beach at lunch time, with no lunch options in site. That's when I sit down, open my backpack and eat whatever is in there.

Let me give you some samples:

Me, eating a carrot dipped in peanut butter. I love having a jar of peanut butter and some carrots in my backpack, it makes such an easy snack!

 











  When the peanut butter jar is almost empty, I use it to make overnight oats for breakfast.

Tofurkey deli slices from the Tofurkey Factory.

Bananas, Amy's lentil soup and water after an exhausting hike in the sun.

Sourdough bread roll from a bakery in Cannon Beach.

Chocolate soy ice cream on the beach.

I realise that I didn't take one single picture of what we ate most of the time, tortilla chips and salsa. All these different salsas was like heaven!

What do you eat while on the road?

Thursday breakfast

I'm taking a break in the travel posts to show you today's breakfast. And hey! Tomorrow's midsummer's eve in Sweden, one of the most celebrated holidays. I'll update you on that in a couple of days for sure..

The dog's superhero: Colleen

Martin were browsing couchsurfing for a potential host along the more southern parts of the Oregon coast, and he had quite a hard time finding someone. Then he says; "Here's a woman who said she rescued 27 dogs and found homes for all of them". She didn't have much information about herself on her profile, and she had no prior experience with couchsurfing, but we both agreed this would be an interesting place to stay at for the night we needed. About two weeks later, we found ourselves sitting in the living room with Colleen, who told us the amazing story about how she rescued 27 dogs from their death and found homes for all of them. I think it's fantastic.

Visiting the Tofurkey Factory

After 3 nights in Portland we were excited to leave the city and head out to the nature. We had the greatest hitchhiking experience ever with a man and his three-legged dog who took us all the way and made some stops along the way to watch Herman the sturgeon as well as the Bonneville damm. In no time, we were at our destination; White Salmon. It's situated opposite to Hood River, up on the hill on the Washington side of the river and it's a nice little town with a fantastic view. We stayed with a lovely family where we got to meet a bunch of the local high school kids, they took us hiking and to my surprise, to the Tofurkey factory over in Hood River! I've heard a lot about Tofurkey products, especially around Thanksgiving, but obviously never tried them, so I was excited.

The wonderful view from Catherine Creek where we went hiking.

Lynn and me with hot dog hats and turtles in the reception.

 Very happy with my free lunchbox and samples! I got two packages of tempeh strips, two kinds of deli slices and some beer sausages! You should all go there, I think they even give tours.

Portland

I arrived home two days ago, after 6 weeks of travelling in Oregon and Washington. It was my first time in the U.S, and I had the time of my life. I've met amazing people, seen wonderful nature and of course, eaten lovely food. We've hitch-hiked and taken some buses, and stayed almost exclusively with people from couchsurfing. I will write the posts in chronological order and publish them during the next couple of weeks, I hope you will enjoy them!

First out is Portland. We flew in there May 4th, and stayed for 5 nights in total. 3 of them where spent staying with Amanda from In My Vegan Life and her husband Matt, and we couldn't have had a better start. Amanda took us under her wings and showed us around; we got to see downtown and the big Forest Park, as well as eat some of the great food offered. Amanda and Matt also had a great house with a huge backyard and two amazing dogs, Emerson and Andy.

Amanda offered to come and pick us up at the airport, an offer we happily accepted since we were quite tired after 10 hours of flying. The weather was stunning and we headed for lunch in the southern parts of town. We got our first encounter with the well known Portland phenomenon: food carts. Me and Martin shared two menu items from Kitchen Dances; a nacho plate with lots of great stuff on it and a burrito.

Andy the dog.

 Amanda cooked for us in the evening, and we enjoyed this Mexican feast in the backyard. I had tamales for the first time in my life, which was fun.

We had stopped by the vegan mini mall earlier in the day, and I was so overwhelmed by all the choices in Food Fight! that I only came out with a Jokerz bar. It was great though.

The next day we went downtown. After seeing the library and  Powell's Books we grabbed a vegan bacon cheeseburger for lunch at DC Vegetarian. Nom nom nom.

 And of course there were dessert. We had ice cream from Back to Eden, my first soft serve since going vegan at 17. Martin topped his with marshmallows and I went for the caramel sauce.

The next day, we hung out in the Forest Park. Then we headed towards Native Bowl for lunch and I went for the Missisippi Bowl, which was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! It consisted of Peppercorn ranch, BBQ Soy Curls,two kinds of BBQ sauce, house coleslaw, scallions and jasmine rice. That kept me happy until...

...we went to Voodoo Doughnuts and bought a whole box of vegan doughnuts! 13 doughnuts in a big pink box, how can that go wrong?


















 The next morning we were heading out to the Columbia River Gorge for a couple of days so we all went to Dovetail Bakery and breakfast. After some superb biscuits and gravy and scones, we were two happy campers (well, backpackers) ready to go. The picture shows Amanda and Matt and all the breakfast!

After the days at the river, we actually came back to Portland for two more nights. This time we stayed with two other people, and the woman cooked us moussaka.

Our last day in Portland, we walked forever and had lunch at Flavourspot with Amy (and Tim) from Tahinitoo.