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. Francis School hotel in Bend during a snowstorm, and drank too much in an active construction site for a special event in their newest location.

Have your own story about your experience with McMenamins you'd like to share and be possibly be featured in a future episode of Exploregonians? Voice record or write it out and send it to exploregonianspodcast@gmail.com please and thank you!

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 Gables".

Have a travel anecdote you'd like to share? Write or record yourself telling a short couple minute story and send them to exploregonianspodcast@gmail.com to be featured on the show!

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 pivotal Halloween party (in his greatest costume ever) to see her.

This episode has everything except an obligatory reference to Journey's 1978 banger of a song "Lights".

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 extravagant, rent-by-the-hour room.

Also, Jordan was fooled again by ordering what he thought was an iced latte and receiving a tall glass of milk with coffee ice cubes. Oh, Japan!

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 Katie about how Newport is the western terminus for Highway 20, the longest road in the United States, and also how he was probably unaware of highway signage as a child because he was busy creating and choreographing a jukebox musical about the cast of Super Mario Bros. to the discography of Shania Twain.

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 outdoor NYC dining and Jordan regrets not asking Seth Meyers for a writing job.

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.