Road Trip - June 2025 - Portland, Oregon

We had a couple extra days to spare so decided to stop in Portland and visit the Oregon Zoo and Japanese Garden. En route, we googled for "winery with restaurant" and found Andante Vineyard which was really nice and both the wine and food were excellent!  Our server, Abby, provided so much information about the wines, was able to answer all our questions about the winery, and did so in a "not rehearsed" or memorized way that many others at wineries do. Highly recommend! 

The egret is the "symbol" for the vineyard and is on the main door, the wine bottles, and in several photos throughout the restaurant. 

Part of the vineyard flower garden. 

From there, we headed into Portland and had just enough time left in the afternoon to visit the Japanese Garden. 

We stayed overnight at the Hyatt House Hotel in Beaverton. We picked it somewhat randomly as we didn't want to go into downtown Portland but still wanted to be fairly close to the zoo. After dealing with major traffic trying to get to the Japanese Garden the day before, we were extremely happy to see that there was a light rail station right beside the hotel. It was just three stops to get to the zoo and we came up from underground immediately across the street from the zoo entrance. Perfect! 

We got there just before it opened at 9 am and started off in the opposite direction of all the other early birds. It was pleasantly quiet for the first hour but by the time we left, just after noon, it was crazy busy with kids and families. 

The Oregon Zoo is definitely one of the nicer and biggest ones we've visited and has very large enclosures for the bigger animals such as the elephants, giraffes, and polar bears. 

Mouse trap!

I liked this unique design on a building across from our hotel.