Serving up steaks to Portland (Oregon) residents since 1944, the RingSide has been continuously owned by the Peterson family for over 60 years.  The restaurants has received award from local and national wine, fine dining, and steakhouse organizations.  Portland residents frequently list it as one of their top special occasion restaurants.
While smoking at the restaurants is a thing of the past, enjoying their great steaks is not.  With two locations, downtown at  2165 West Burnside and Glendoveer at 14021 NE Glisan, RingSide is not far from wherever you are in the Portland area.
Do you have a matchbook that you’ve …read more

 
Sometime it’s nice to have a window seat!
On a recent flight I was able to snap this photo of Mount Hood through the very dirty windows of the plane.
Mount Hood is located in Oregon, and is part of the Cascade Range.  It’s a little over 11,000 feet tall, and is very popular with skiers.

On May 16-17th, enthusiasts of extraterrestials, UFO sightings, aliens, and all sorts of other mysteries will meet in McMinnville, Oregon for the 9th Annual UFO Festival. 
The festival started to honor the 1950 Trent sighting in which a couple of McMinnville residents saw a large, metallic looking, disc-shaped object hovering silently in the sky just northeast of their farm.  They took photos which would become some of the most hotly debated UFO photos in history.
The annual UFO Festival, the second largest in the U.S. features a roster of noted speakers, and a screening of a documentary on the mystery of …read more

A recent trip to Portland had me out hopping around some places that have opened up since I had been there several years ago.  Today’s Matchbook Monday features one of those places, a Pan American Bistro in the Eliot Neighborhood, Mint.
A visit to Mint actually gives you two options, the more formal dining of Mint (the restaurant), or the bar and its menu door at 820.
On my visit, my companion and I opted for the bar.  We sat at the bar, chatting with the bartender for a recommendation as to a good food and beverage choice.  Upon her recommendation, …read more

Today’s Matchbook Monday features The Riverhouse, a hotel, conference center, and restaurant in Bend, Oregon.
I stayed at The Riverhouse a number of years ago while I was attending and speaking at a conference.  The hotel is located on the Deschutes River, and while it has a rustic feel, the accommodations are anything but rustic.  These are nicely appointed rooms in a rustic setting.
The resort also features meeting rooms, Crossing Restaurant (a steakhouse), the River Rock Grill & Spirit (bar offering live music), and an 18 hole golf course. 
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The city of Portland has as sordid an underground history as my home city of Seattle does, and, like Seattle, it makes for a fun walking tour.
There were plenty of nefarious deeds going on above ground, but the underground was where the really fun stuff was happening.  In the subterranean world of Chinatown, you can still see impressive architecture from years gone by, looking nothing like the modern city in the photo. 
Below ground you’ll find the “Shanghai Tunnels.”  The tunnels originally connected the basements of most of the downtown hotels and bars to the Willamette waterfront, and were used to …read more