PORTLAND:

Day two was much less eventful than the first. This was due to the need for apartment hunting.

Portland decided to be cliche with overcast skies and misting rain. This apparently is what winter is like in Portland. The weather plans to improve to somewhere sunny and 75 over the next couple of days.


For lunch, we headed to Cartlandia on SE 82nd ave which is a food truck wonderland with over 30 varieties. I decided to go with Poco India which has Indian Hispanic fusion dishes. There food is all non-GMO and locally grown. I had an elephant burrito with soya, green spicy vinchilada sauce, basmati rice, caribbean pickled slaw, cilantro, onions and queso fresco. The fun part about this food truck is you can play with the ratio of Hispanic vs. Indian aspects of your dish, creating a truly custom experience.

Portland has over 500 different food carts in the city. Most of these are found in clusters called "pods" and are meant to be pedestrian/biker friendly.

The oldest U.S. food truck dates back to 1866 and is known as the Texas chuckwagon. It was created by Charles Goodnight who was a Texas cattle rancher. The former U.S. army wagon was converted into a food truck to provide cattle herders with food over long distances of travel. There was not any sort of cooling system at the time, so easily preserved food was the staple. This included dried meat and canned items. These trucks did not include sushi burritos and Voodoo donuts. Bummer.