This past weekend, Erlend and I decided to head to Sauvie Island to meet up with a few of our friends. Sauvie Island is about 10 miles from downtown/NW Portland and is one of the largest river islands in the country.

In the summer, Sauvie Island’s long shoreline turns into an escape for city-dwellers looking to beat the summer heat. With the temperatures reaching 90 degrees this past weekend, our friends KC and Nell smartly came prepared with a cooler full of refreshing ciders and shandies:

Sauvie Island is surrounded by both the Columbia and Willamette River. Occasionally, huge barges carrying cargo would idly float down the river, giving the kids playing in the sand something to squeal excitedly over:

And here are our friends KC and Nell, being totes adorbs:

Aw.

After the beach, Erlend and I decided to stop by and take advantage of the berry farms that we saw driving in. Sauvie Island is filled with a number of farms offering everything from whatever kind of produce you desire to all kinds of flowers.

We stopped at the first farm we saw, which happened to be Kruger’s Farm Market:

Kruger’s Farm was offering a great berry-picking deal — as the sign says above, basically all you needed to do was grab a pint or flat box, head to the berry fields, pick your fruits, and pay back at the barn/market. Pretty cool!

They had fields of raspberries, blackberries, and boysenberries to choose from. Since we had a raspberry bush in our backyard, Erlend and I decided to head for the blackberry fields:

Truthfully, at first we were a little confused since it had looked like we had accidentally ended up in a raspberry field. But it turns out that unripe blackberries look exactly like raspberries and turn darker as they get riper:

As we headed back to the farm market to pay for our pints of berries, we spotted this adorable tractor hauling people from field to field:

And back at the market/barn, we were greeted with even more adorableness:

Starter flowers and free tomato plants with purchase! It’s stuff like this that really makes me wish I had a yard, even despite my lack of a green thumb.

At the market/barn, there was even more awesome fresh fruit and produce to choose from. They even had a little cupboard dedicated to kitchen and canning tools:

Sigh.

I love Portland, guys. It’s hard to believe that a place like this is only a half hour drive away! I’ll definitely be hitting up Sauvie Island a few more times over the summer to take advantage of the other fruits coming into season. Besides, there are so many other farms on the island that I haven’t even checked out yet! Look for those posts within these next few weeks.

But for now, here are the places that we checked out during our day-trip:

Enjoy, and happy 4th of July everybody!