Beverly Cleary's Portland

Who knew that Portland was going to be the Mecca for all of us who grew up reading Ramona books ( and Henry and Beezus and Ribsy and the rest of the gang) . Beverly Cleary was born here and found the inspiration for all her stories on the streets of NE Portland. So Ella and I took our dog friends and set off on a walking tour. I had researched our lunch spot (really important) in advance so we knew we would end up happy at the end of the walk.

This is where the walk began - In front of Beverly Cleary School - she actually went here and used it as the background for all the school stories for Ramona and the gang.
Beverly Cleary was born and lived here. This style of cottage is really typical for Portland, usually brightly painted and with a unique and wonderful garden.
Next on the walk was a park with fun bronze statues of characters from the books. Here are Maggie and Butch with their new friend Ribsy. They actually thought he was real in the beginning and sniffed him A lot!

Ramona holds Maggie's leash but wants Ella to hold Butchie's.

Maggie loved Henry eventhough I told her it wasn't "her" Henry.

This is the Hollywood Theater which is why this section of Portland is called Hollywood - weird , right? There was an old Wurlitzer organ that used to come up from the floor to play for the audience. It is has very cool deco on the front but hard to see in this pic - sorry only had my Iphone.

And the tour ended outside a very cool wine and coffee cafe, of which there are hundreds. But we wanted to wait to eat at
Laurelhurst Market! (check out the link on the blog to look at the menu)

Butcher shop extraordinaire by day - making their own pates, sausages and offering fabulous meats from local farms and then by night

A great bar and restaurant with such things as steak/frites and braised pork chops - they feed the pigs nothing but hazlenuts the last 3 months of their lives. But we got sandwiches for lunch that I still dream about

Handmade liverwurst on multigrain with pickled red onions and dijon mustard and turkey on ciabata with house cured bacon, fresh field greens, pickled zuchinni and herbed mayo. Now come on - that is a great end to a walk!!