Vacation in Libertania

Many years ago, my grandfather had some friends over to his house for a slide show. For years these friends had traveled around the country and around the world and taken many pictures of the wonderful places that they'd visited, and my grandfather, who didn't travel much, would patiently sit through them. Well, this time it was my grandfather's turn to show off his travel pictures as he'd just gotten back from a trip to Libertania. Sadly, none of his friends had heard of this small country, so he used the slides to tell the story of Libertania's history and culture. He had pictures of various statues of important Libertanians, he had pictures of some of the more famous buildings, natural features, and natives of the country. Everyone was delighted with his travelogue and quite pleased to have learned about this obscure little country. It was only after the slide show and discussion was over that my grandfather revealed that every single picture had been taken within about 10 miles of the small Illinois town that they all had lived in for the past 20 or 30 years! None of them had recognized the pictures of their own town because they'd never really bothered to explore it.

His point was that you don't need to travel half way around the world to have new and meaningful experiences. Often, you need travel no further than your own Libertania for a great vacation, and Rachel and I got to do just that last Saturday thanks to Ben's generosity. He travels a great deal for his job, and had some hotel points that were going to expire soon, so he asked if we'd like to spend the night at the Westin Hotel in Portland.

We started the day at the farmer's market on the PSU campus. It's one of the bigger farmer's markets in the area, and it was amazing to see all of the wonderful produce, grass-fed meat, farm-made cheeses, and baked goods. If we weren't having dinner in Portland that night, I would probably have bought everything in sight and made a huge dinner. As it was, we bought some cheese, baby artichokes, bread, a pork loin and bacon. We had originally planned to go to the Portland Pirate Festival next, but it had been raining all morning, and we really didn't feel like being soggy pirates, so we went home with our bounty from the market (it was too early to check into the Westin). This worked out well since we were able to get our purchases put away in fridge and freezer, and I got to watch the Dodgers-Giants game on TV and Rachel took a nap.

After the baseball game, we packed up and headed back into Portland. The Westin is near Pioneer Courthouse Square, the art museum, the symphony hall, and many restaurants and shops. They don't have an accessible parking garage, but they do have curbside valet parking, so we unloaded our bag and left the car with the attendant. There was some slight confusion at the front desk because the reservation was in Ben's name, but he had been clever enough to add Rachel to the reservation so we were able to check in without any problems. The clerk then mentioned that we'd been upgraded to the Presidential Suite, and that he'd call up to make sure it was ready. It was, and we headed to the elevator for our ride to the "Deluxe Apartment in the Sky" on the 19th floor. We were a bit confused as we got off the elevator and the sign to help you find your room showed that 1901-1906 was in one direction and 1907-1914 was in the other direction - our room was 1906/1907. It turns out that 1906 was the door into the sitting room and 1907 was the door into the bedroom.

The presidential suite was amazing: there was a huge sitting room with a bar, a dining table, and a remote controlled fireplace with a big screen TV above it. The bedroom was a pretty typical hotel bedroom, but the master bath was huge! It had a jacuzzi, large shower stall and a long counter with 2 sinks. We relaxed and enjoyed the view of the west hills out the window. One could also see a building about 3 blocks over that had 4 big wind turbines on the roof.

At a bit after 7:00, we headed down to the lobby and walked about a block and a half to Pazzo, an Italian restaurant. We'd eaten there many years ago and thought it was OK, but not great. However, it's gotten such great reviews that we thought we should try it again. The wine list is extensive, but we quickly honed in on a bottle of 2003 Elio Grasso Barolo. Faithful readers may recall the immense pleasure we derived from a bottle of their 2000 Barolo with Tony's pizza last Christmas in San Gabriel. While the 2003 isn't quite as good as the 2000, it didn't disappoint - dark warm fruit with dusty tannins, developing into a subtle cherry cola with time. For food, we did the whole 5 course Italian meal, although we only ordered one of everything except the Secondi and shared. We had a prosciutto plate as our antipasto which came with baby cress, pickled melon, and grilled ciabatta rubbed with lots of garlic. Mmmm! We then had a very nice Caesar salad (although they didn't called it that) which had tons of garlic in the croutons and anchovy in the dressing. For the pasta course we had pappardelle with lamb ragú that was delicious. For our secondi, I had seared fresh halibut with ultra-crisp shaved ciabatta slices over an heirloom tomato and herb salad with herbed olive oil. It was excellent. Rachel had muscovy duck breast with duck confit, mustard greens, a cornmeal tart and rhubarb. It was great also, and Elio went well with all of it. For dessert, we shared a large serving of pistachio ice cream sandwiched between several slices of chocolate cake - what could be bad!? I accompanied that with a glass of Warre's 1985 vintage porto, which I loved, but Rachel had to make "the face" when she tried it.

After a short walk, we were back on the 19th floor, and settled in to watch some TV after I used the remote to start the fireplace. Pretty cool!

As we made the short drive back to Forest Grove on Sunday, we talked about how much fun it is to take a vacation in Libertania. There's so much to do and eat so close to home. I enjoy exploring other parts of the country and other parts of the world, but one shouldn't overlook the great things we have close to home, especially when an opportunity comes up such as Ben gave us.