Travel Thursdays: Street Art/Murals All Over the USA

Back in 2012 on one of our second major road trips we visited my cousin Chris in South Dakota. We met up with him in downtown Rapid City and after lunch he and his friend walked us to to Art Alley. It is such a colorful place with really cool artwork.

I saw this mural while we were walking around in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York and I loved how colorful and how fun it was. It was my first time to NYC in 2012.

On our road trip to San Fran from Chicago in 2012 we drove through Bishop, California which is a big climbing community, and at a random gas station this was on the wall.

In 2013 on a road trip to Colorado we were driving out of downtown Denver and came across this awesomeness.

In case you missed my post about us Jumping for Joy.

In December of 2013 we went to Austin, Texas for our friends’ Kristina and Patrick’s wedding and hung out in the South Congress (SoCo) area. This is a pretty famous staple of the SoCo area and it was fun to see in person. There was a line of people waiting to take a picture here.

In December 2013 for Dave’s birthday we decided to drive up to Santa Barbara for the day to explore. While we were walking around town after lunch we came across these gems.

March of this year when we went on our LA to Seattle Road Trip, I looked up a few murals in major cities that I wanted to see.

Here were my favorites from San Fran:

Portland, Oregon had some awesome ones:

This was from a random street in Brooklyn during our trip in New York this past May. I love to travel and move around to experience new towns, but I am always a little homesick for Chicago.  This little snail was also from Williamsburg after we ate at the Rabbit Hole.

As you can see, I really enjoy finding murals/street art in different cities and states. It’s unique to that area and adds a lot of pizazz and color to a place.

Any fun murals in your city I should check out next time I’m there?

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Day 10 Portland to San Fran

So after being on the road for a week and a half, it was time for us to head back so I could get back to work. We planned to drive from Fox Island to San Francisco which is 750 miles and about 12 hours without traffic. We thought we’d break up the long drive with a quick stop in Portland.

On the way up to Seattle we stopped in Portland and went to this gallery called Screaming Sky. There was a print there I was thinking about getting so I wanted to stop in and grabbed it. If you are in the Portland area I’d highly recommend going here. They have such cute prints, magnets, pins, cards, etc. And if you’re not in that area check out their website, you can shop online.

Here is the print that I picked up. I added this gem to our gallery wall that I’ll have to blog about in the near future.

We stopped by Case Study Coffee Roaster on the way out because Dave loves his coffee and we still had a long way to go. It was super cute inside.

On the way back to the car we passed Cupcake Jones and I couldn’t resist. 🙂 Who doesn’t love mini cupcakes?

That completed our stop in Portland and for the rest of the night we were in the car, singing, talking, and listening to podcasts all the way to San Fran where we met up with Jesse and G again.

Day 4 Portland to Cannon Beach – Part 2

Yesterday’s post was a little long so I decided to split it up into two. After we left Eugene, headed to Portland to meet a friend, saw Multnomah Falls, we actually headed back to Portland to eat.

I ate at Uno Mas and the tacos were really good. And it was in a cute food area.

Before we left for our road trip I did a little research and found some fun murals/street art I wanted to check out in different cities. I found a bunch of really fun ones in Portland!

I walked around the corner while I was waiting for my food and found this cute one. If you want to see this, the address for the Pie Spot is 521 Northeast 24th Avenue, Portland, OR 97232.

I turned around and behind me was this gem:

After lunch we headed to get some ice cream, based on my cousin’s recommendation, at Salt & Straw. They have fun ice cream combos and flavors. I’d totally recommend it if you’re in Portland.  They have three locations in Portland, we went to the one at 2032 NE Alberta St.

The reason we went to this location was two of my murals were down the block from the ice cream shop. So we took a little walk and found two that were on my list.

This motivational mural is at 21 Street and NE Alberta Avenue.

This amazing “You Are Confined Only By the Walls You Build Yourself” mural can be found at 22nd and NE Alberta Avenue. 

I LOVED this one! The colors, the details, the font, everything. So I decided to take close up pictures of the quote so you can all see the details.

After our awesome ice cream mural walk, we got back into the car and headed to Cannon Beach. My cousin raved about this beach, and we’d also heard it was beautiful from other people and it’s been on our list for a while. We made it to town just in time to see Haystack Rock at sunset.

Day 4 Portland to Cannon Beach

So I’ve been jumping back and forth about our LA to Seattle Road Trip and today I’m going to back to it.

In case you missed the other days: Day 1 Road Trip LA to Seattle, Day 2 San Francisco, and Day 3 Northern California to Oregon.)

After staying the night with my cousin in Eugene, Oregon we had breakfast with her and the kids in the morning, then took off for Portland.

We met up with our friend, Patrick, who we haven’t seen in years. We caught up at a motorcycle cafe called See See Motorcyles.

Then we headed off to Multnomah Falls. I had seen pictures of this online years ago and a few of our friends have been here as well, so it’s been on my list of places to go for a long time.

I was so excited to see it when we got there. It definitely lived up to my expectations.

It was a little cloudy that day and also a bit chilly. But it was nice to put on our coats and breathe in the fresh air.

You can walk up to the bridge and it’s a quick 0.2 mile trek up. 

Here is the view from up top:

After taking in beautiful Multnomah Falls, we drove down to two other waterfalls.

 and

And since this post is running a little long, I’ll wrap up Day 4 of our trip tomorrow.

Hope you all had great weekends!