Last Day

In which our heroes brave charted, previously explored waters in search of GF coffeecake; follow strangely convoluted directions to a bright red storehouse of wonder; find plates where they sought shoes; explore strange mirror image box-stores; feel the whole mall rock from the pressure of construction; find elephants on curtains.

There's a gluten-free bakery next to Corbett Fish House that I wandered over to this morning while Mom was still getting ready. I got a piece of banana-bread-coffeecake. Pretty good. Needed more cinnamon streusel on top, imo, but I'm rather fond of cinnamon streusel. Technically, it's a coffee house, not a bakery, but they do bake gluten free items. I suspect that Corbett's gets at least some of their GF dessert offerings from over there. Motto of the coffee house: "Fighting Corporate Coffee."

After coming back to collect Mom, we found the Bob's Red Mill store. Awesome. Huge GF section. I got a case of white bean flour and a case of Kasha. I can find Kasha in Pocatello, but its cheaper here. White bean flour I was going to have to order. Due to Bette Hagman's books, garfava flour is easy to find and regularly stocked. It just tastes...blech. White bean flour is much less offensive and I've used it directly as a replacement for garfava without problems. Oh, I also found what appeared to be a gluten-free version of cheerio's to try.

Then we went looking for Mom's shoe store, The Shoe Mill. It was located in a large shopping complex with a Target, a World Market, and other, more forgettable places. The World Market was pretty cool. Think...department store that actually has interesting items. Lots of imports, for instance. The Target was only interesting in that it seemed to be a diagonal reflection of the one in IF. Mom needed some mundane items, and we figured we might as well go to Target since we were right by it.

Across the street was a mall. Probably the Clackamas Mall, or some similar name. The Barnes & Noble and Gifts from Afar exhausted my interest there. Mom found a two-story Macy's and found a lot of clothing and stuff she liked. I got bored and went back to the car to charge my phone, and to plot a route back to the hotel, and read one of the books I bought. I plotted an easier route than the one MapQuest gave us to GET there, by sticking to major streets.

We ate at the Thai Mango again. I think I like the sweet black rice better than the sweet white rice, oddly enough. So this Christmas I may use black rice for the desserts.

Mom and I were both sick of downtown Portland, so we missed the big Saturday Market. Maybe Kate and Aunt Bee will write about it. ;^) Tomorrow we're heading back. I think we're both hoping to make the whole drive tomorrow. Whether Mom's up to that or not is another story.

Incidentally, that little buckwheat pillow I got at the Global Village has improved my neck considerably. I think it is going to become my regular travel pillow.