Exploregonians: Travel Misadventures

It’s finally time to journey to the City of Roses! 

Katie and Jordan scratch the surface of a dozen years of adventures in Portland, Oregon and reminisce about the dance injury that led to Jordan giving Katie a piggyback ride to urgent care. 

Jordan’s earliest Portland memories are wrapped around nearly being abducted by the circus and going to his first concert to see the dream performer every 90s kid was dying to see: Neil Diamond.

Katie claims Portland is kinda goth and Jordan claims it’s just introverted. 

The duo d...

Katie and Jordan reckon with possibly being Disney Adults in Denial as they return to The Happiest Place on Earth for Halloween time. 

The duo attend the popular Oogie Boogie Bash and wear unexpected costumes (that Jordan was 80 percent sure would be allowed in) that ultimately led to very fun interactions with everyone in the park. Katie goes on a deep dive in a rabbit hole exploring the convoluted backstory of the event.

Jordan shares his wisdom-nuggets about the first Disneyland Halloween event in 1959 and the most important one (with wild results) on Oct. 31, 1994 — on a M...

There is a famous anomaly in Southern Oregon that Katie and Jordan finally physically find themselves in this week. 

The Oregon Vortex has confused, frustrated, and mystified people for nearly a century. People appear way shorter or taller than they usually do! Things roll uphill! A broom can stand by itself! By. Itself. This mysterious sphere of a vortex has even inspired a Disney animated series.

Katie and Jordan discuss what it was like to visit the legendary place in Oregon that is equal parts science experiment and roadside attraction.

Have a travel s...

Battling intense allergies and/or a sinus infection, Katie discusses her first solo outing as a traveler: the Galápagos Islands. She journeyed from Colombia to Quito, Ecuador before hopping on a plane and a boat to the archipelago, which is an excellent word.

Jordan throws out the trivia nugget for the old definition of “galápago” then proceeds to make two excellent puns on the word that impresses nobody. 

Katie’s first time snorkeling was off the islands and when she wasn’t in the water, she was obsessed with the marine iguanas and has dozens...

The river is calling Katie and Jordan’s name this week as they head south along Oregon’s Highway 138 (a.k.a. “The Highway of Waterfalls”) along the special North Umpqua River!

Katie takes Jordan whitewater rafting on a “ship of a raft” for his birthday and she is still unsure if he could do a full day on the water. Jordan is moved as they navigate downriver along an area important to the Umpqua people, which is a tribe he is allegedly descended from.

They soak their aching bodies in the Umpqua Hot Springs after and fe...

We’re in the Deep South now, according to a pair of high school girls working in a Laurel, Mississippi ice cream parlor. 

Katie and Jordan discuss how they never expected to romp around Mississippi and visit the homeland of the popular HGTV show “Home Town” and realize our best friend is a Ben Napier doppelgänger. 

Jordan wonders if Laurel overemphasizes fun, eye-catching design in its downtown over quality businesses and Katie reminds everyone the city is home to one Lance Bass. 

Katie’s art-spirit is reawakened at the (free and spectacular and enormous...

Hit the deck! This week, Jordan tells Katie how Cannon Beach got its name — and it definitely has to do with a shipwreck. Katie talks about her favorite four-legged roaming residents of Cannon Beach and Jordan tries to untangle his own childhood socioeconomic mental block with the popular Oregon Coast town. 

Katie saw Little John smoking a cigarette outside the local community theater and Jordan tells the tale of two Haystack Rocks and John Quincy Adams erasure in downtown Cannon Beach. 

Have a travel story to share? Send a voice memo or write a cute lil...

Missoula, Montana holds a special place in Katie and Jordan’s hearts because it was the first big stop on two separate road trips. 

Why is Missoula called ZooTown? Katie instantly figured it out and Jordan is probably still struggling with it. 

The duo have never been to Missoula in the daytime and once rolled into town right when a major concert was starting in the university’s football stadium that neither knew about, but ran to listen to against a chain-link fence like a pair of street urchins.

Jordan attempts to dunk on Lew...

Yeehaw! Katie lets everyone know Jordan has pronounced “Pendleton” incorrectly for his entire life and Jordan argues there shouldn’t be a silent “D” in words.

Katie’s grandfather was born in Pendleton, and the duo discuss wandering around one of her ancestral homelands with her grandparents in their 90s. Jordan is disturbed by a broken weather widget on Travel Pendleton’s website and Katie is excited about a museum that chronicles western expansionism from the perspective of the Native people of the area. 

Katie and Jordan spent their very last night on their two-month road trip acros...

DIY cheek-peekin' chaps and a bag full of melted truffles marked the beginning for Katie and Jordan's sweltering time on Thailand's largest island: Phuket.

Before they could even step foot on the island, they were trapped on the plane waiting for a "VIP" to fly out -- and they have some guesses as to who it was. 

Katie reads verbatim from the travel journal they kept on their three-month honeymoon around East and Southeast Asia and Jordan reminisces about hitching a ride from the wrong hotel to the correct one in the back of Some D...

Katie and Jordan venture into the Portland-Metro by exploring Oregon's sixth-largest city -- and one-time hopeful to be second-largest -- Beaverton! 

Katie talks about how the city's modern multi-cultural identity helped introduce her to different cultures and cuisines at a young age and talks about the now-shuttered Beaverton Bakery and Jordan wonders if it was a "Ratatouille" situation.

The city is home to one of New York Times top pizzerias in the U.S. and the duo talk about the pies they've enjoyed there and Jordan throws shade at a completely different pizzeria which gave h...

It's the most magical time of the year in Tillamook, Oregon! The biggest, most unifying event on the local calendar is the Tillamook County Fair and the annual four-day extravaganza is an explosion of all the pent up magic in the community. 

Katie and Jordan discuss this year's upcoming 100th anniversary of the fair's marquee event the Pig-N-Ford races, three-lap races around a horse racing track with stripped down Model T cars, squealing piglets, and a whole lotta history. And Katie may have been the first woman ever to take the victory lap in the event.

Katie is absolutely "breathless" when she visits the otherworldly Arches National Park, which is described as a "red-rock wonderland." 

Both Katie and Jordan bring the same facts about the geologic formations to this podcast, which means they must be true, right? 

Arches National Park contains 2,000 natural stone arches and the park has the highest concentration of them in the world. Katie wants to do an arch audit to see how accurate that number is.

Jordan tells Katie the alternative names for the beloved, iconic "Delicate Arch" and also the names of other formations th...

Jordan immediately goes off the rails with "Chronicles of Narnia" references and Katie loves the city's iconic Lithia Park, but Jordan suggests the city of Ashland just raze the downtown to the ground to double the size of the massive park. 

Once Jordan finally visits the famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he watches the the worst musical of his life, "The Three Musketeers", which takes some interesting creative liberties. 

Have a travel story to share? Send a voice memo or write a cute lil' mini-memoir to exploregonianspodcast@gmail.com and remember to follow us on Instagram an...

Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti (even though it’s, like, 200 miles away), Katie and Jordan take a very special trip down memory lane this week with guest Jessica, who spent eight weeks in East Africa, primarily in Tanzania, during a study abroad trip in college!

Jessica was on the worst boat ride ever on her way to the paradise that is Zanzibar and bought spices that are probably stale by now. Jordan attempts to impress everyone with his Zanzibar knowledge but is immediately countered by a way better fun fact. 

While in...

It's Independence... Week? Katie and Jordan discuss iconic Fourth of July events and memories across Tillamook County in Manzanita, Rockaway Beach, Oceanside, and Pacific City. 

When Jordan was, like, three, a stray bottle rocket attacked him, but he was protected by his San Francisco 49ers sweater and the spirit of Joe Montana.

Katie's first time watching fireworks on the beach resulted in a sulfurous fog that obscured the rest of the show. 

After nearly twenty years, the duo finally watched the quirky and surprisingly well-emceed Firecracker Wiener Nationals in Rockaway Beach, a series of...

We'll always have Paris!

This week, Katie and Jordan visit the City of Lights and discuss what saved the seemingly doomed Eiffel Tower in 1909, escargot tongs, and melt their brains attempting to pronounce "Louvre". 

Katie goes down memory lane when she had to literally crawl up and over a Parisian barrier wall for a flight she didn't actually have and Jordan picks a fight with Paris's coffee game. 

Have a travel story to share? Send a voice memo or write a cute lil' mini-memoir to exploregonianspodcast@gmail.com and remember to follow us on...

Let the Cajun Tots rain! 

McMenamins is an iconic Oregon and Washington staple famous for some of the state's first modern brewpubs, historic buildings that have been renovated into funky hotels, and a wild scavenger hunt that awards you while visiting every one of the 50+ locations! 

Katie and Jordan have been to every single McMenamins location twice in pursuit of serendipity and the wondrous glamor that comes from becoming a "Cosmic Tripster"! 

Jordan fell for Katie during an 80s Night dance event at their Crystal Ballroom, they were marooned in the Old St. Fra...

Katie and Jordan drove across North America to visit the birthplace of "Anne of Green Gables" and her creator Lucy Maud Montgomery. 

Beaches with red cliffs, a free toll bridge that charges when you leave, and a sky-high lobster roll awaited us on this beautiful island, that is the smallest Canadian province and is only larger than one U.S. state: the mighty Rhode Island.

Jordan gives Katie way too many "fun facts" about Prince Edward Island and Katie talks about how much she enjoyed visiting the actual home and property that inspired the "Green G...

Katie and Jordan go to a place near and dear to their hearts - and, geographically, because Bay City, Oregon is 5.6 miles north of their hometown. Is it a different place? Technically!

Listen this week as Jordan talks about his first crush, a neighbor-girl that may or may not also be Katie's childhood best friend! 

Katie reveals Bay City was the first place she ever saw those intense "Neighborhood Watch" signs and never trusted the place again.

Jordan tells Katie their lives would have taken very different paths had he not gone to a...

Katie and Jordan are alive after a two-year hiatus! What have they been doing? You'll just have to tune in and find out!

This season, our plucky hosts would love to feature your travel misadventures, so please record yourself sharing a couple minute anecdote or write one up for us to read and send them to exploregonianspodcast@gmail.com or send a sweet, sweet message to our Instagram @exploregonians.podcast 

We have a great season planned for y'all!

The box read “We want to go to Kyoto in your car” in Japanese, and a pair of women driving to Osaka for a One Direction concert gave the hitchhiking Katie and Jordan a ride from a roadside Starbucks. 

They were close to Kyoto, but toured around Osaka for a couple days, eating fried octopus balls, touring the iconic castle, and enjoying the Glico Running Man. 

When they returned a week later to Osaka, Katie accidentally booked a love hotel right next to the wrong airport and the duo had the best time in their extrav...

Ten years ago, Katie uninvited Jordan from Newport’s Seafood and Wine Festival and he still hasn’t let it go. 
 Katie enjoys the marriage of grunge and bourgeois in Newport and Jordan declares Newport as the Capital of the Coast before talking about the first celebrity he ever met: Keiko the orca, star of Free Willy. 

Katie is weirded out Newport’s Ocean to Bay Trail doesn’t end at Yaquina Bay, but seemingly someone’s yard in town and once received the shirt of a barista’s back at the local Dutch Bros. 

Jordan tells K...

Jordan won front row tickets to Hamilton in New York City, which spurred a crazy two-day planning spree. Katie and Jordan have been together almost ten years, so it's only fitting they have now seen ten shows on Broadway. 

When they weren’t being dazzled by theatre, they were experiencing some of the most classic buildings in Manhattan like Grand Central Terminal and the flagship building of the New York Public Library, where Katie and Jordan met the real Winnie-the-Pooh (and friends) that inspired A.A. Milne’s classic books.

Katie declares her love of outdo...

Because it is Valentine's Day, Jordan reads an excerpt from his memoir recounting pivotal moments in their relationship at Pacific City.
Katie once drove Jordan to an interview in Pacific City and dropped him off like the good babysitter she is after they imagine the rom-com Country/City. 
Pacific City’s Haystack Rock is one hundred feet taller than its sibling in Cannon Beach and a mile offshore. Jordan thinks it is objectively superior and tells Katie some people refer to it as Chief Kiawanda Rock.

Katie forgot a swimsuit for a European trip so went to a Budapest bathhouse in just her underwear and Jordan talks about getting his chest hair in someone's pizza.
Budapest is, to Katie and Jordan's surprise, two cities named Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube River! Biggest regret? Not getting a sweatshirt that read "BUDA SEXY PEST". 
Before Katie's birthday, the two stumbled into Budapest's original ruin bar, an enormous abandoned factory where wild art is everywhere and every nook and cranny is filled with a bar and someone mixing spirits and pouring beer. Ruin bars a...

Wizard Island! Old Man of the Lake! Phantom Ship! Jordan thinks Crater Lake National Park is the GOAT of naming things. 
Katie accuses Jordan of not liking lakes and suggests he is backwoods, being raised on rivers and fed crawdads, just like all the nonnative fish that have been stocked in Crater Lake from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 
Mount Mazama blew 7,700 years ago and its caldera was filled over time to make Crater Lake the deepest in the United States, yet only the ninth in the world. What gives? Jordan also says, "What gives?" ab...

Katie and Jordan are off to school! Without any teaching credentials, the Inthanon school headmaster begrudgingly allows the honeymooners to assist the local English teacher, who quickly became Jordan’s favorite person in all his travels.

Katie and Jordan are whisked away to help at “English Camp” which isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds. To get there, they load up the buses, which are truck beds piled high with fifteen children each and Jordan is threatened during the ride by a village boy who looks suspiciously similar to Jaden Smith.

Katie talks about her favo...

Thick clouds dumped an inch of snow an hour for 15 hours straight during Katie and Jordan's second wedding anniversary, marooning them in Downtown Bend an extra night and leaving the whole city seemingly abandoned for themselves to explore. 
Katie learns a hard lesson about drinking lots of beer before trying on fancy jeans and Jordan experiences some intense self-inflicted-manbun-induced body dysmorphia looking at frumpy pictures of himself from that trip.
A barista gave Katie and Jordan gummy worms on their coffee lids and wrote her phone number down under them and Jordan recalls his favorite voicemail of a...

Katie and Jordan get the ol’ Chiang Mai Shanghai in this week’s adventure. What started as a trip to teach English turns out to be ten days in a village atop Doi Inthanon, the highest peak in Thailand where Catholicism rules and the priest is a demi-god. 

On the first day, Katie and Jordan are welcomed to a house blessing as guests of honor where they eat the spiciest food of their life and pound rice whiskey for the ceremony. 

Jordan has a mental breakdown attempting to use a poorly installed squat toilet and Katie...

A tornado (or waterspout, depending on who you ask) tore through downtown Manzanita; Katie and Jordan rushed to cover it for the local newspaper, without really considering how storm-chasing would go in the town Katie used to call home.
Jordan talks about the 16th Century treasure supposedly buried somewhere on Neahkahnie Mountain and Katie reminds everyone about the catastrophe of a movie that was inspired by the legend. The coast of Manzanita was home to a pair of shipwrecks and Jordan talks about how the mythical galleon of the "Beeswax Wreck" was recently discovered. 
Then, of course, J...

Katie and Jordan were evacuated out of Yellowstone National Park and need to tell you all about it. As the snow started to dump, it made the bison look even more magnificent and somehow made the duo think that coyotes were wolves and a single cow elk was somehow a moose. 
The night before the evacuation out of the world's first national park, the pair watched a man in their lodge make a huge mess cutting a cork out of a wine bottle with some scissors and helped a woman who slipped on the grate because it was, "s...

December 13 is Katie and Jordan's wedding anniversary, and to celebrate, the duo reminisce on one of their most treasured anniversary adventures to New York City! Jordan finally sees his first proper Broadway musical with a revival of "Hello, Dolly!" featuring Bette Midler and David Hyde Pierce and Katie regrets not accepting free tickets from a Radio City employee to see the Rockettes. 
Jordan will always remember seeing the First Century Roman bust that bears an uncanny resemblance to Ralph Fiennes as Tom "I am Lord Voldemort" Riddle at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Katie launches into a s...

When the weather outside is frightful, Oregon is always delightful! The month of December has Katie and Jordan reminiscing on tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago! Jordan tells his wife about his first experience to ZooLights that ended before it began in a shipping container full of toilets for a catostrophic trip to the "bathroom" and Katie quizzes Jordan on everything from the exact number of gifts given in the "Twelve Days of Christmas" song to which country celebrates the holiday with the traditional bucket of KFC. 

Sorry, Vancouver, but Victoria is, apparently, the capital of British Columbia! Katie and Jordan visit the city on the world's 43rd largest island (a fun fact Katie says may be a little too obscure to be fun) and Jordan talks about donating his DNA to the Mormon Church. Yay! 
Victoria is home to North America's second oldest Chinatown, which leads to Jordan going on a tirade about Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco (1996). 
On a birthday trip to Victoria, the duo discuss having high tea, walking parallel to a mobile rave, and seeing the late, great Aa...

Salem, Oregon doesn't have any witch trials (that Katie and Jordan are aware of...) but the capital of Oregon is home to many great parks and one contains the wettest nutria, a legendary rodent Katie had always heard of on the farm but never saw.
Knowing Salem, allegedly, grows cherries in some form, Katie guesses Salem's nickname is "Poppin' Cherries", for some reason, and Jordan muses about the multiverse and the one where he befriends Katie at a younger age. 
Katie informs Jordan that Oregon's Capitol building's iconic Gold Man is hollow, which sends Jordan on a s...

Guadalajara's Colonia Americana district has recently been named the coolest neighborhood in the world and Katie and Jordan stayed in the heart of it!
Vibrant colors! Mariachi music! Lucha libre! Guadalajara is considered by many to be the cultural center of Mexico and captured Katie and Jordan's hearts and completely changed the way they think about our neighbors south of the border.
Katie maybe went to an underground club by herself and Jordan is mostly positive his cousin is the time traveling drummer he saw in his favorite Guadalajara restaurant.  

Eastern Oregon is much farther east than many people we talk to realize and this week, Katie and Jordan talk about vibrant Baker City, named not for baker potatoes, but the only sitting U.S. senator killed in military combat - and Katie researches it in real-time!
Jordan talks about the time he tried to take Katie to Baker City and ended up in Burns instead, while Katie describes the five scenic byways that pass through Baker and tries her hardest to pronounce author and Oregon outdoors reporter Grant McOmie's name correctly. 
Let's head east to Baker C...

Romantic images of pizza and gelato conjured within the minds of Katie and Jordan when they thought of Italy -- only to be replaced by a deserted alpine resort town and eating the tavern's last sandwich. 
The Dolomites are a mountainous region within Europe's Alps range and UNESCO has described them as among the most beautiful mountains in the world.
In this episode, Katie and Jordan stumble around the Italian Dolomites during the offseason where everyone is gone and nothing is open and walk to the next village over for a bit to eat and a bottle o...

In the land of canneries, historic buildings that transform into breweries, and exactly one might column, Katie and Jordan visit maybe Oregon's film mecca: Astoria! (Sung to the tune of Rihanna's 2008 masterpiece "Disturbia".) The city is the oldest American settlement west of the Rockies and one of Katie and Jordan's favorite cities in the Pacific Northwest. 
In 1940, Katie's grandfather drove a team of horses to net salmon out of the Columbia River and Jordan is concerned Tillamook schools are obsessed with Salmon Curriculum and teach about zero other fish. Are there other fish?