This year I’ve gone out of my way to shop local and avoid national chains for holiday gift buying. I thought I’d start off by going to the Portland Saturday Market. I’d been there before, but never with the intent of buying a bunch of stuff. It’s a pretty vast setup of local merchants selling their arts, crafts, clothes, foods, and just whatever. There are some crap merchants selling (non-local) cheap novelties, to be sure. However there are enough local artisans to make browsing the many dozens of tents very worthwhile. Plus it’s just fun, you can grab some food while you browse, Rogue sells beer for your imbibement , and I saw no less than 4 bands playing at the same time, along with a few street performers. I ended up getting 2 major gifts there, and… a duct tape wallet. Hey, it’s still local. As you’d expect in Old Town, you’ll encounter some characters, like the lady (meth addict) next to me waiting to cross Naito Parkway that knocked a trashcan into the street then looks at me quickly and states “I didn’t do it!” in true Bart Simpson form. I picked it up for the nice lady.
A shopping local side-note, after the market I went to the Trillium Artisans pop-up store downtown, and was AMAZED at all the great stuff there. All local and all using recycled materials. I highly suggest checking it out.
Musical group 1 of 4 I saw that day.
Can you tell it was chilly that morning?
I picked-up one of these cute bird feeders. It's one of those things you see and think, "why didn't I think of doing that?"
Jonas Goes To Portland 