Peter and I are fans of coffee… Peter even has a dream of opening a coffee shop someday. So when I heard about the Coffee Fair going on this weekend (Nov. 7-8, 2009) I knew we must check it out!

The Fair was held at the World Forestry Center, which I didn’t even know existed. It is nearby the Children’s Museum,  Portland Zoo, Japanese Gardens and many of the other attractions in Washington City Park.

The Coffee Fair this weekend featured lots of coffee vendors giving samples and discussing their product and techniques. It was interesting and I got some yummy samples, but the most interesting part of the Coffee experience was the part that will be sticking around; Coffee: The World In Your Cup is a special exhibit that will be open until January 10, 2010. It is a self-guided walk through the life of a coffee bean. They even have live coffee plants. I thought I knew about coffee but I didn’t realize how much human labor goes into the process. It was fascinating!

I also enjoyed the variety designs of burlap coffee sacks and consumer-marketed bags of ground coffee.

A bonus of attending the fair or the exhibit is that your admission gets you into the World Forestry Center permanent exhibits as well. I will admit while I love trees, this is probably the last museum I would have visited of my own choosing. Forestry sounds mechanical and boring. But the museum was actually really cool. They have a lot of interactive exhibits. Peter found a wood instrument to bang on:

And there was a nearly 700-year-old tree.

Impressive! Although it made me wonder how old the big tree was I saw in North Bend, Washington this past summer:

Anyway… The World Forestry Center is worth a visit for sure. It’s kid friendly but there is plenty for adults to enjoy too.

Admission is $8/adults, $5/kids. Which I think is kinda steep for a museum so I would recommend going when a special exhibit is happening that excites you so you can get the 2-for-1 deal.  They are having mini-tasting “Coffee Weekends” in the future as well. And if Coffee is not your thing, the next Fair might be… It’s the ChocolateFest that will be open January 29-31, 2010. The accompanying special exhibit, A Chocolate Story, will be around from January 30-April 25, 2010.

Note: Some of the links in this post are time-sensitive and may not be correct in the future.

A great little video showing all the great things about Portland:

Of course there’s no homeless people or rain or strip clubs in this video, of which Portland has many… but a nice video nonetheless :)

On Friday Peter and I went on a field trip. In a school bus!

Why? We had the pleasure of participating in the 2nd event presented by Portland’s Dill Pickle Club: The “How Are Things Made?” Tour.

This was an event that is right up our alleys. We love watching shows like How It’s Made. In St. Louis Peter and I lived by the Anheuser Busch brewery so I had many opportunities to go on its factory tour and always found it interesting. Pretty much any opportunity I have to see behind-the-scenes production of any product, event, job, etc I will jump on. It gives you insight and respect for how something we often take for granted comes together.

On our tour we visited 3 places:

• Intel
• Pendleton Woolen Mills
• Port of Portland Marine Terminal 6

We also enjoyed a brief conversation/lecture from Dr. Randall Bluffstone, Chair of Economics Dept. over at Portland State University.

So I will get to the tours in a moment but I just have to say that being in a big yellow cheese wagon is exactly the same as it was growing up, only I have gotten bigger and the seats haven’t. But it was fun nostalgia.

Intel

The Intel tour in Hillsboro, OR was very sterile. Which I guess is fitting when I think about it. The tour was like a slick slice of a science museum experience, and we learned about what goes into making the processor chips and how much they have progressed over the years. It was really fascinating. But we didn’t get to see any actual production. I think the building the tour was at was nothing but office drones anyway. It would have been nice to at least see a video of a chip being made.

There was a Q&A portion of the tour. Our group was very interested in things like environmental impacts and foreign relations. I asked a question about how many chips Intel makes and the speaker did not know the answer.

One of my favorite parts of this tour was the oversized computer with Windows 3.1 era boxes and a throwback Intel commercial shot on it.

Pendleton Woolen Mills

So this was the best tour of the day, but no photos were allowed. This place is in Washougal, Washingon, right across the river from Portland. Before the tour we were in the attached store with clothing and blankets and Peter and I were like “this stuff is lame.” After the tour we wanted to buy something because we were so impressed with what goes into making the materials.

First, from a technical standpoint, this tour is great because everyone gets to wear a headset that is tuned to a frequency that the guide’s microphone is on. Thus you never suffer from being in the back of the line or the guide having their back to you. Everyone can  adjust their volume to a level that suits them. EVERY TOUR EVER should do this :)

So during the tour we get to see fresh wool from the sheep’s back in bundles, learn about the methods of dying the wool, see it being combed and spun into thread, and see the thread on looms making fabric. We were walking through the mill, next to the giant deliciously 1960’s green machines that roll the threads, walking next to old school tables and safety posters from the 80s, and walking past consciously-ignoring-us employees on their breaks. Some of the looms were so old they use a patterned ticker-tape looking thing that “tells” it what pattern to weave. This mill’s daily operations don’t appear to have changed in the past several decades, but if it ain’t broke…

The QA in the factory really impressed us… as the loom weaves the fabric, it is examined for errors/holes/etc.. and it is examined a couple of times after. Every square inch sees human eyes. In fact the human element is present at every stage in the production.  You can read a little more about this and see some blurry photos here.

The blankets are all made in the USA at Pendleton factories but the clothing is all sewn overseas.

Port of Portland, Terminal 6

First off here’s some facts swiped right from the Wikipedia entry:

• Port of Portland’s marine terminals export the largest amount of wheat from the United States and third largest amount in the world.
• It is also the fifth largest port for tonnage, third largest auto import gateway in the country, the largest mineral bulk port on the U.S. west coast, and the 17th largest port for cargo containers in the United States.
• Around one thousand businesses and corporations are said to use the Port’s marine facilities.
• Imports and exports at the Port of Portland total about $14 billion USD, annually.

Port of Portland has four terminals. We saw Terminal 6, which has most of the storage containers and cars. I don’t know why it is called Terminal 6 if there are only four total, but you can probably google that.

So this terminal deals with a lot of heavy stuff. This tour was really enjoyable because our guide was nice, loud and knowledgeable. We seemed to be driving around the premises after daily work was done so we didn’t get to see a lot of stuff going on but it was fascinating to see the big machinery and vast use of land. These photos were taken from inside the school bus, and it was drizzling, so forgive me.

Those crane looking thingies are parked right on the edge of the land, overlooking the columbia river. They lift up the containers and place them off and on the barges.

Each of these containers is the size of a load on a full size semi truck.

This neat machine picks up these massive heavy containers like it’s no big deal. It was interesting seeing this approach… it makes the PODS approach seem a little rudimentary. Also that POD container is half the length of these containers.

And that concluded our day. Not pictured: Peter and I enjoying a brown bag lunch I packed us, suburban mom style. It even had a freakin ice pack and napkins in it. And it met all our food pyramid guidelines.

The Northwest – specifically Oregon and Washington – have a chain called Burgerville. From the appearance it looks like a 50s-facade diner serving up greasy grub. In reality it’s a 50s-facade diner serving up fresh, thoughtful, in-season foods. Their commitment to sustainability and environment is evident through their recycled and recyclable packaging. The food is fresh and ingredients locally sourced. After our walk yesterday Peter was craving a burger. I went for the cherry walnut salad since cherries are their featured seasonal item right now. After we paid I got this receipt:

Most restaurants don’t want you to know their nutrition info. Burgerville prints it on the receipt. That is so so awesome. I love to be deliciously informed. I really hope other restaurants follow suit.

Kudos Burgerville, and Kudos Nutricate.

This morning Peter and I participated in the Providence Bridge Stride. As you may know Portland has several bridges – 11 to be exact. The Providence Bridge Pedal (and Bridge Stride) is a yearly event allowing participants to cross the bridges by bicycle or foot. This Included bridges that normally do not allow pedestrian/cyclist access. Cyclists can cross 6, 8, or 11 bridges. In the stride you cross 2 bridges by foot along a 5 mile route. That’s what Peter and I did.

We took the MAX train downtown and got off near the start of the stride and checked in. Here’s Peter in his COOL vest:

Waiting for the start time (8am)… lots of participants!

The first bridge we crossed is the Fremont Bridge which is I-405. This was the one I was most excited about because it’s normally buzzing with traffic round the clock!

Walking onto the exit ramp:

Excited to be here!

You can see some cyclists also crossing:

The second bridge we crossed was the Steel Bridge. This was exciting because I had never done it, but not quite as cool/exclusive because this pedestrian path is always open.

I’m glad I know about this spot though. Such wonderful views of downtown can be seen here. I snapped a photo but I will definitely come back on a nicer day.

We made it back to the finish line to pick up our finisher pins and hydrate. It was a fun event!