Our company specializes in giving tour participants real and current cultural experiences. Visitors from Iowa today got to experience the vibrant winter PSU Farmers market to collect seasonal greens for a tangy Northwestern salad. Clear skies awarded us with great views of Mt. Hood and cityscape reflections on the calm surface of the Willamette river. What would a weekend in Portland be without a landslide of local events, including the infamous spectacle that is “Santacon”, a group of surly Santas pub-crawling their way all over town trying to scare the average adult, but not their children. It’s hard to explain why 100 or so Santas are smoking and drinking on the sidewalk outside of a downtown pub at 1 pm on a sunny Saturday afternoon, but we’ve gotten better with practice. “Santa works really hard”, I tell people. “He needs to cut loose”. Today there was also a local march to support the rights of immigrant workers in Oregon and we just so happen to visit their path to see some community action in action. The Saturday Market is Oregon’s oldest and largest open air craft market and makes a great stop for some locally crafted gifts for the season. It wouldn’t be Portland without passing by a few new food carts, or a random brass band playing in an alley on the Park Blocks, the pleasant surprises just keep rolling in. Let’s finish off with a stop in Old Town, we hit both Voodoo Doughnuts and Stumptown Coffee at the same time! Thanks again to Today’s tour group and remember what the local’s say – “Put a Bird on It!”