Exploregonians: Travel Misadventures

Jordan weirdly proclaims Eugene as his “Oregon White Whale” because, until early 2025, it has felt like an impenetrable city to him. Oregon’s second largest city is home to Jordan’s family’s greatest enemy: The University of Oregon — which he was taught at a very young age to despise with the fiery hot passion of ten thousand beaver pelts, but he thinks would have been a great school for him.  Kat...

Grab a fresh brezel and mix yourself a Colaweizen because this week is all about a very special place in Germany for Katie and Jordan: the university city of Tübingen.  Katie is joined by a boy who is 58 percent German. And that boy is her husband Jordan, who falls in love with 58 percent of his ancestral homeland the second they get off the train — and also curses Disney movies for making him ver...

It’s time to visit an Oregon town that time nearly forgot! Katie and Jordan live a couple miles away from a peninsula that was once home to a cutting edge resort town literally and perilously built on sand and is now buried beneath ten feet of it.  Bayocean was built on a spit of land that separated Tillamook Bay from the Pacific Ocean. It existed from 1906 and was battered by the elements for dec...

Insect caviar! An urban green space twice the size of Central Park! The 52,000-pound Aztec Sun Stone!  The oldest and highest elevation North American metropolis dives straight into the hearts of the Exploregonians as they venture to Mexico City. Katie and Jordan make a friend on the plane and after landing, has her parents give them all a tour of the historical heart of the city and then a pitsto...

How do two scaredy cats celebrate Halloween? Katie does it by closing her eyes in haunted houses and Jordan wears a visor to weave through corn mazes in the daylight. Tricks and treats abound as Katie and Jordan talk about some of their favorite memories of Halloween in Oregon, a famous movie that shot in the town of St. Helens, and Katie talks about a Care Bear costume that was just too snug in t...

Katie thinks she’s hilarious as the podcast goes back-to-back Portlands! Jordan says it’s taking a bit of a “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” approach.  Find out if Portland, Maine is the actual, true Original Recipe Portland and how a flip of a coin changed the destiny of both big-city American Portlands. Katie loves the brick and ivy in the Old Port area, but really wishes she saw more p...

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 90...

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 convolut...

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...

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...

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 pe...

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 ov...

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 t...

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 t...

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 exci...

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 th...

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"...

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 hors...

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...

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&quo...

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...

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...

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...

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 wondro...

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 Ka...