Best Donut Ever!

For the past several days I've been in Portland, OR attending the 2010 athlete/design forum for Columbia Sportswear. The forum is a great opportunity to provide feedback to the designers of Columbia outerwear. This is the third year of the design forum and just another example of Columbia's commitment to continuous improvement in their outerwear design and innovation. The designers are usually pretty excited to hear what we have to say since we abuse their gear on a regular basis, something they don't have a chance to do while working in their offices.

The promotions manager at Columbia basically babysits the professional ski team while we are up in Portland, and she also ensures that we have a good time without accidentally burning down the city. This year we got to sample some of Portland's finest cuisine. Portland is a beautiful and culturally diverse city and we ate at a few of its landmark eateries. The Greek food at Alexis greek restaurant was outstanding, the Thai food at Pok Pok was the most authentic I've ever experienced, but the donut I ate from Voodoo donuts was the best donut I have ever had. In the heart of downtown Portland, Voodoo donuts is well known for its extensive menu of gourmet donuts, many with raunchy names. With everything from fruit loops and crumbled oreos to peanut butter on their donuts, their masterpiece donut is the maplebar with bacon. I wish there were words to describe how good this donut was, but I fear that my limited vocabulary would not do it justice.

My trip wasn't just about eating and meetings though. We spent an afternoon up at Mt. Hood Meadows skiing some thin cover dust on crust. Apparently it has been raining a lot recently, and my afternoon on Hood certainly helped to reaffirm my love for skiing in Lake Tahoe. Even though we had a great time ripping around up there, its just not quite the same.... But they sure do have some colorful sunrises.