Portland

This week was the annual Western History Association conference in Portland, Oregon, and once again, my job paid for me to attend. This is the third time I have attended (after Los Angeles in 2023 and Albuquerque in 2025). I had never been to Portland before, so I was happy to go.

I flew out on Wednesday afternoon, and I took Portland's MAX line from the airport to the conference hotel downtown. I'm envious of cities that have convenient and easy public transit.

The Willamette River from the train

After I checked into the hotel, I went on a walk to see what Portland had to offer. 

My barber (and others) had told me about Powell's Books, which wasn't too far from the hotel, so I walked over. This is an enormous bookstore that takes up an entire block (though Portland's blocks are smaller than Salt Lake's). There was no way I would be able to look at the entire store's nonfiction offerings that evening, so I looked at the website from my phone, looking for books I might be interested in. (Their website was very helpful, stating where the books were located.) I have a Halloween history book by Lisa Morton, and I was happy to find a used copy of her Halloween Encyclopedia, which was on a display shelf called "Weird Books." And I also was surprised to find a magnet of the Lady Gaga "Abracadabra" music video, which I bought as well.

Then I walked over to Voodoo Doughnut, which had a security guard outside letting you in. (Portland has a big unhoused population.) I got three Halloween-themed doughnuts, which I took back to my hotel, and then I had dinner at a vegan fast-food place.

On Thursday morning, the actual conference sessions started. I was very annoyed with the hotel layout, because the elevators got backed up, and the stairs were unreliable and often locked, even when people only had to go up one floor. Why can't they just give us regular access to the stairs? 

Waiting for an elevator

I attended a session about biographies (I was late because of the elevators) and a session about queer history in Salt Lake City. Then in the afternoon, I had a tour of Portland's Chinatown. Like many West Coast cities, Portland had a sizable Chinese population, though this Chinatown felt less Chinese than Oakland's Chinatown. We toured a Chinatown museum, hosted by a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable museum guide, but all the standing got to be difficult. And then we went to a nearby Chinese garden that was built in 2000, based on Chinese gardens of the Ming dynasty, four hundred years ago. 

As I had toured Portland the night before, I saw lots of advertisements for Wildwood, and I remembered hearing that it was set in Portland. I just happen to be in Portland on opening weekend!? I found it playing at a theater very close to the hotel, so I went and saw it Thursday evening. It wasn't officially released until October 23, but they showed it early in Portland. My boss had invited me to a meet-up with other history editors, but I decided I would rather see the movie. In the opening scenes of the movie, they showed various Portland landmarks, and even I recognized Powell's and Voodoo Doughnut. I'm sure it would be even more special for Portland residents. The story was a fairly run-of-the-mill fantasy, but that animation was spectacular! I would not recommend the movie for children because of the body count and violence.

Then I walked over to Safeway so I could buy some snacks, especially since nearby breakfast spots didn't open until after the morning sessions started. I bought four kinds of apples I had never heard of. 

Lucy Glo, Dragonberry, Lemonade, Kissabel

This was art in my hotel room, which I actually really liked. Is it kitsch?

On Friday morning, I attended a session for educators and a session on Mormon colonial landscapes. I opted not to listen to the presidential lunch and instead took a nap and caught up on emails in my room. Then I attended a session about environmental history, which I found very hard to pay attention to.

In the evening, I put on my running shoes and clothes and went running three miles on the Waterfront Park Trail along the Willamette River. I love running along rivers in new cities. 

Canada geese

These are fruits from a strawberry tree, which are not native to Oregon, but I had never seen them.

It looked like a pom-pom tree!

This is Oregon grape, which we have in Utah (even in our backyard), but I was happy to see it in Oregon

Then that evening a large group of Utah historians went and had dinner at a nearby food hall.

On Saturday morning, I attended sessions about the semiquincentennial and frontier nostalgia. I checked out of my room, attended a session about monuments and memory, and then got back on MAX to head back to the airport.

I really feel lucky that I get to go to these conferences and trips. So many people study history and don't get to work in it, and here I am! And I kind of came to history through the back door, being foremost an editor rather than a historian. 

I attend these conferences not so much for the content but to meet and talk with other people in the field and know what's going on. There are people I have worked with virtually, so it's good to meet them in person. There are some people I have met before, but I never know who will remember me and who won't. And I don't talk to everyone, because I'm socially awkward and truly don't know what to say.

The view from my hotel room

***

Because of my trip, I have some special Portland treats in pumpkinundation roundup this week.

I've had Red Button Pumpkin Spice Cheese Cake Ice Cream before, but this batch was freezer burned. Because of that, it wasn't as good this time. 7/10.

In the Salt Lake Airport, I had Rockwell Haunted Harvest Ice Cream, which had chocolate ice cream with pumpkin cake bites. It was great! 9/10. And I didn't get a separate picture of the Rockwell Fall Fair Ice Cream, which had apple cider funnel cake in it. 9/10.

The Voodoo Caramel Apple Alien Doughnut has an artificial apple-flavored frosting and a delectable caramel filling. Most caramel apple–flavored pastries are more like apple pie, so this one was refreshing. 9/10.

The Voodoo Pumpkin Buttermilk Doughnut was kind of typical; nothing special. 7/10.

The Veggie Grill Dirty Jack-o-Lantern Shake is entirely vegan, with pumpkin spice soy shake, whipped topping, chocolate cookie bits, and gummy worms. It's fun to see gummy worms incorporated in Halloween treats. It wasn't as good as an actual milkshake, but it was good enough. 7/10.

And the next day I had a Veggie Grill Pumpkin Spice Cake. I found it disappointing; I thought a vegan cake would be pretty easy to pull off. It wasn't bad, but it still tasted a little weird. 6/10.

I went to an overpriced s'mores shop and had a Marsh & Mallow Salted Caramel Apple S'more, which had caramel marshmallows, apple pie filling, and sea salt. It was fine. 7/10. I evidently forgot to take a picture of the Marsh & Mallow Pumpkin Cheesecake S'more, which had gingerbread marshmallows, pumpkin butter, and cheesecake topping. I didn't care for the overly tangy cheesecake topping. 5/10.

In the Portland Airport, I had a Blue Star Pumpkin Pecan Old-Fashioned Donut, which was not like a grocery store donut, more like a fancy one you'd get fresh out of the fryer. 8/10.

And I had a Burgerville Pumpkin Shake, which was runnier than a typical Utah shake but thicker than some. There was a lot of nutmeg on top. It was good but nothing unique. 8/10.

I came home and my parents had bought Dave's Killer Bread Pumpkin Spice Madness Bagels, which are as good as you can expect from a bagel. I don't love bagels. I don't like these as much as Thomas' bagels, but they're probably healthier. 7/10.

And Philadelphia Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese was better than I expected. 7/10.

I really enjoyed the flavor of Great Value Pumpkin Spice Applesauce, because I could really taste the pumpkin. But I am disappointed they added sugar, so I don't really consider it healthy. 7/10.

Nine miles and fourteen miles

On Saturday, October 10, when there was a break in the rain, I decided to run up one of the new trails in Holbrook Canyon. I had gone there in June but didn't get to go as far as I wanted. The first part of Holbrook Canyon isn't great for running: lots of rocks and stream crossings. But the new trail I went on is great! It's clear of rocks and isn't too steep. The new trail is a portion of Bonneville Shoreline Trail, and then there's a trail called SoDa, but I'm not sure when BST ends and SoDa begins. As I ran up the trail, I realized that if I didn't reach the end soon, I would have to turn around in order to make it back before it got dark. But I soon made it to the end of the trail, which was just an abrupt dead end. It took 4.5 miles to get there, so the whole run was 9 miles. 

The end looks like a good spot to pitch a tent.

In the background on the far right is Elephant Rock, the main attraction in Mueller Park

Here's a photo dump of the rest of that run. Blogging was easier before 2020, when I could easily select the order of the pictures. (Sometimes I want to push developers down the stairs.)

I haven't crossed this bridge yet, because I went in the opposite direction. But sometime I'll go see what's that way!

The trailhead is across the street from the Bountiful Temple

Holbrook Canyon has many rocks from the Farmington Canyon Complex, which are Precambrian in age

Last week I went to ward choir practice. Our choir director consistently says and does awkward, strange things. After the practice, a man from another ward was holding a baby, and I was so embarrassed by the things she said to the man:
"Oh, how cute! Is he adopted?"
"Yes."
"I thought so, he doesn't look like you. Where's he from?"
"Washington state. Central Washington."
"What's the ethnicity?"
"Hispanic."
I can talk about her because I'm 99 percent certain she won't ever see this. Since the beginning of the year, I still don't think she knows most of our names. There are so many stories.

Last Sunday, I illustrated a dream I had recently about picking goatheads that had grown on an ottoman at my late grandparents' house in Fillmore.

Monday was Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples Day, so I was off for my state job, but not for my BYU job. Because it was raining, I went swimming, and in the afternoon, I made chili with fresh pumpkin in it for a ward chili cookoff. I got second place! (There were around a dozen entries.) And on Tuesday evening I went swimming with the recreational swim team again.

Also on Tuesday, the Utah Historical Society had a brief tour at the Salt Lake City Cemetery, learning about tombstones, not about the people buried there.

When I went on my Wednesday run, it didn't feel as pretty as this picture makes it look. 

On Thursday, I went into my state office and was able to put my new Peanuts poster in a frame. I like this poster because it has most of the characters from the comic strip. Most Peanuts merch doesn't interest me, because it's just stock images in different settings, but this one is actually interesting and connected to the comic strip. It's twentieth-century history. (One of the characters is Tapioca Pudding, which many people think was Charles Schulz's jab at Strawberry Shortcake, a marketing gimmick without any substantial story behind it. I think too much Peanuts merch falls into the same category of being unconnected from the source material.)

Friday evening, I consciously chose not to exercise, instead shopping for new running shoes, a new Blu-ray player, and a pirate costume.

Then Saturday was the day for a long run. I started at North Canyon, took the Bonneville Shoreline Trail over to Mueller Park, went up past Elephant Rock to Rudy's Flat, then down North Canyon. It was a little more than fourteen miles, my second fourteen-mile run in 2026. I have done several fourteen-mile runs, and this one felt harder than it has been. But I was glad I made it the whole way; at ten miles, I started to feel my IT band, but then I took short strides on the way down, and it was fine. 

This is on a portion between Elephant Rock and Mueller Park. I love this part of the trail, but it's often when I'm most exhausted, so I'm not always enjoying it as much in the moment

It is less pretty in the middle of the day, but it's more convenient in the middle of the day

See, I like to do these hard thirteen- or fourteen-mile runs so that nine or ten miles seems relatively easy. I don't worry so much about my pace or my nutrition or things like that, because I just do this for fun. Does that make me less athletic, that I'm so casual about it, or does it make me more athletic, because I can run so far so casually?

And today I taught Sunday School on the end of Isaiah. Hot take: the book of Isaiah is overrated. A man uses poems to tell people they're wicked but they'll be delivered, and then centuries later, people say, "Oh, this sounds like Jesus." The end.
 
***

I also like to do hard runs so I can consume more for pumpkinundation roundup.

After swimming on Monday, I went and had Blacksmith Salted Caramel Apple Ice Cream. It's been almost a week, so I don't remember much about it, except it was great. 9/10.

And I seem to remember the Blacksmith Pumpkin Butter Ice Cream being not quite as good, but still good. 8/10.

Then I went to Sprouts and had a sample of Katz Pumpkin Glazed Donut Bites, which were what you'd expect. 7/10.

I bought Chocolove Milk Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Bites, which are excellent. They have a nice pumpkin flavor, and they're made with actual pumpkin. 9/10.

Skinny Dipped Pumpkin Spice Almonds are less decadent than many candy-coated almonds, which I appreciate. But I've found almonds to be bitter. The pumpkin spice coating is fine. 7/10.

Kopper's Harvest Pumpkin Malt Balls have a thicker coating than on Whoppers. They're fine. 7/10.

Snack Factory Apple Spice White Creme Pretzel Crisps have a mildly weird apple flavor. but luckily pretzels and white creme are a winning combo. 7/10.

The Snack Factory Pumpkin Spice White Creme Pretzel Crisps also have a weird flavor. Neither of these flavors is as good as the berry flavor they had for the Fourth of July. 7/10.

I enjoyed the Sprouts Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Soda Bread after heating it in the microwave for ten to fifteen seconds. I'm used to soda bread around St. Patrick's Day, so I liked having this chocolatey fall version. But I didn't think the pumpkin flavor was overly strong. 8/10.

My award-winning chili was this Tex-Mex Chili from The Pumpkin Cookbook. I omitted the mushrooms from the recipe, but otherwise I closely followed it pretty closely. Cutting up the pumpkin was probably the hardest part. This was one of the best chilis I've ever had, but it still tasted classic. 9/10.

After the cemetery tour, I got an Avenue Bakery on Fourth Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin Top. It was what you'd expect, and you'd never know it was gluten free. (Of course, I don't care about that.) I liked the cream cheese frosting. 8/10.

A recent food trend is putting protein in everything. Khloud Pumpkin Spice Protein Popcorn is fine; I'd rather have nonprotein popcorn, but it's still passable. 6/10.

My cousin sent home a Little Debbie Pumpkin Spice Roll. These are fine; I think I liked it better this time than I have in years past because I tempered my expectations. 7/10.

My mom brought home a Kirkland Signature Pumpkin Bar Cake. I mostly found it bland. 6/10.

It wasn't as good as the Other Side Donuts Hocus Pocus Pumpkin Donut, which had a cream cheese frosting, which was quite decadent, but I enjoyed it. 8/10.

I especially liked the Other Side Donuts Spiced Cider Nutella Donut, which they offer year-round. I thought it would have straight Nutella, but it was a fluffy Nutella-flavored filling. And the donut itself was delightful. 9/10.

Since I am picky about cheese, I was glad I enjoyed Good & Gather Honey Pumpkin Goat Cheese Ravioli. But because it needed some kind of wet sauce, I put on marinara, which clashed a bit with the sweeter ravioli. A different sauce would have been better. 8/10.

I wasn't so impressed with the Culver's Pumpkin S'mores Concrete Mixer. The pumpkin spice part was great, and the chocolate was good, but the marshmallows were the dried kind they put in cereal or hot chocolate packets. The texture was all off for frozen custard. The custard would be an 8 or a 9, but the marshmallows bring it down to 7/10.

Nutty & Fruity Pumpkin Chocolate Covered Apple Bites are weird and off-putting. They're dried apples with "pumpkin spice confectionery coating." 4/10.

Goetze Pumpkin Pie Caramel Creams have a rather artificial flavor. 6/10.

I do like Goetze Caramel Apple Caramel Creams, which are like Cow Tales in disc form. 8/10.

I had this Mosh Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Nutrition Bar on my long run. While I was stopped to eat it, another runner stopped and ate his snack near me but didn't say anything. I exchanged some friendly comments, but it was kind of weird. Anyway, I think this bar was pretty good; it had satisfying crisps and a nice flavor. But I would have enjoyed it more if I weren't dehydrated and exhausted. 7/10.

The Ryse Little Debbie Pumpkin Spice Rolls Protein Shake is better than it should be for something with thirty grams of protein and very little sugar. It's definitely better than the Body Tech protein powder I have in a Peeps flavor. But it's still not the most enjoyable thing to drink. 4/10.