Random quotes/pics from the Portland trip

Pictures


Idiot-proof instructions for Portland parking meters


Anne found a nice "silence of the lambs" looking mask in the pocket of her ski jacket


Funny sign in Manzanita, Oregon


Up on the roof in downtown Portland


I just liked this one


"Gas Open to the Public" struck me as entertaining after a few cocktails


We broke Shawn's blinds. I won't say how.


Sign on top is advertising a lost cat. Sign on bottom is advertising a found cat, which is obviously the same cat. Someone wrote "duh" on the bottom sign and drew an arrow towards the top sign.


Even the fire hydrants in Portland are smiling

Quotes
"You're either a man or you hug a baby" (as demonstrated in the Southwest Airlines emergency safety instructions)

"Bitches ain't shit"

"Black. Strap. Stout."

"Troll-e"

"Le Fucking Grumpy"

Via Chicago

Wilco? Anyone? Never mind.

I spent my last day of vacation hanging out in airplanes and airports. Susie was up before me in the morning, which meant I spent the last 20 minutes of sleepy time with my ass on the ground (our air mattress deflated every night). I pretended it was a Craftmatic bed...

We said goodbye to Shawn at 6 am and headed to our first airport of the day, PDX. Flying from Portland into Salt Lake City was pretty cool - snowy mountains out one window and sand/lakes out the other. We landed in Salt Lake and checked the boards for our Columbus flight, where we noticed that there was a flight headed to Chicago Midway at the exact same time as ours with the exact same flight number. Augh!!!!

After a two-hour layover in Utah, we flew to Midway, then finally back to Columbus where we got in after 9 pm. If nothing else, we managed to hit all four time zones in the span of one day. Impressive, no? We stopped for Taco Bell on the car trip home (Taco Bell, by the way, does not taste nearly as good if you're sober) and finally made it to Cincinnati around 11 pm...

Hiking!

At last. Sunday was the only day with no rain in the forecast (we fixated on TWC every morning) so we reserved this day for hitting the trails. About 40 minutes from downtown Portland we found the trailhead for Eagle Creek, which Shawn thought would be our best bet for seeing waterfalls. We parked our car next to the creek and I saw a two-foot long fish (I swear) jumping around, trying to swim upstream. Words just wouldn't do this trail justice so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, although pictures can't even capture how very vast the forest was and how very small I felt. We had the trail mostly to ourselves, which was great, and we had about four uninterrupted hours of quietly wandering through the trees.


I loved how all the tree branches were coated with bright green moss.


Jen, Anne, Susie, Shawn - taken by one of the few other hikers we saw on the trail


Kind of washed out but I liked the streak of light I caught from the sun (All these are shot with a point and click Canon digital camera...)




One of the seven waterfalls on the Eagle Creek trail

I could have hiked all day but we were freezing and didn't really have enough food, so we headed back to the car to drive to the cheesy Multnomah Falls lodge restaurant.

The food prices were crazy expensive but we were so hungry and cold we didn't care. (I ate with my beanie and wind jacket on). After some hot chocolate and a gigantic meal, we went outside to look briefly at Multnomah Falls, the second highest waterfall in the US.



You would think I'd have been more in awe at this, but honestly, the nutty tourists running everywhere (and the fact that you can see the falls from the highway) kind of killed it for me. We were pretty tired so we went back to Shawn's to shower and get ready to go out again.

The last thing we wanted to do in Portland was go to the Mission Theatre, which is an old church converted into a movie theatre that serves greasy food and microbrews while you watch your movie.


Sign outside Mission Theatre signifying its place on the National Historic Register (go go Gadget flash...)

Susie and Shawn hadn't seen The Dark Knight yet, and conveniently it was still playing at Mission. Drinking beer during the movie was fun, although I had already seen it and was worn out from three days of drinking and running around, hence I ended up falling asleep. Twice. Oops.

We had to leave Shawn's at 6 am the next day to catch our flight, so after the movie we went home to pack up the huge mess we had made in the apartment and try to get a bit of sleep...

Exploring Portland

Anne, Susie and I had made a list of all the stuff we wanted to see in Portland (sober), so despite a long day/night on Friday, we were awake, showered, and on the free trolley to PSU by 11 am on Saturday. Destination? The Farmer's Market of course. Everything there was either a) seasonal, b) organic or c) both. It all smelled incredible (lots of hot food in addition to produce) and it made me wonder why I don't truck over to Findlay Market in Cincinnati more often.


Farmer's Market

Anywho. We explored PSU then hopped back on the trolley (troll-e) to head our separate ways for a bit. Anne, Susie, and Shawn headed for the Rogue (dead guy ale) brewery and I went to meet my friend Joe and his family at Hot Lips pizza. Joe and I used to work together so I was excited to catch up with him and get the scoop on what it was like to move from Cincinnati to Portland. Also, the pizza was fantastic - broccoli on top with a squash-based sauce...

After lunch I went to find my "roommates" at Rogue; however, when I got there, I found that it was difficult to hold a conversation with anyone at the table. Anne and Susie both had half-finished beer sampler platters in front of them, and Susie gleefully informed me that they were on Round Two already (that's a lot of beer). I hadn't been drinking during my lunch, so I ordered the Winter seasonal (Hazelnut something or other) to try and catch up.

A few hours passed and we were hungry again, so we left to go forage for food. While looking for grub we stumbled upon a Safeway, so we popped in for a quick store check (you can take the girl out of the branding firm for a few days... :-) but didn't actually get anything to eat. Luckily there was a fabulous Mexican place just around the corner where we grabbed some takeout before heading home to eat tamales, watch Wall-e, and pass out.


The "Angels"

By 7:30 pm we were wide awake (sort of) and thirsty for something besides beer. Shawn located a martini bar nearby called Olive or Twist (cute, no?) where everyone besides me ordered fancy vodka concoctions (I opted for Jameson's on the rocks). We had two rounds and enjoyed some people watching, since we were surrounded by yuppies and a really old guy on a date with a really young girl. Good family fun!

We were starving after a few drinks and craving crepes, so we went to Le Happy, which serves crepes AND PBR. Score. Le Happy was dark, tiny, and divey looking and had stuff on the menu like:

- Jambonjambon crepes (ham + bacon??)
- Le trash blanche crepes (came with PBR and pork rinds)

"Total Eclipse of the Heart" was on the radio and we sang backup, loudly, but the other patrons didn't care and even asked us who sings it (Bonnie Tyler. Duh.). Le Happy also had board games (for those who just can't wait the five minutes it takes to make a crepe) so we played a few rounds of Connect Four before heading home for the night.


Le Drunken Games

Beach bound + a night on the town

Early to bed and early to rise...having gone to bed at 10 pm the night before, the Angels (as Shawn had dubbed us) were up before 9 am on Friday morning. Susie and I made a quick trip to Whole Foods then collected Anne to go for a run around the city (which you can read about here). The weather was perfect - sunny and upper 40's.

After our run, the three of us piled into the rental car, cranked up some 60's tunes, and headed for Canyon Beach. The beach was gorgeous (despite the clouds) but we were too hungry to care by the time we got there. We found the nearest hole-in-the-wall seafood restaurant and ordered big baskets of fried clam strips, oysters, and fish sticks. Yum.

We finished our fried feast and went out to explore the miles and miles of sand, which were completely deserted. This might have been because it was FREEZING out and the wind was blowing sideways. However, we really wanted to see the rock from Goonies, so we persevered - for about two minutes - then we gave up and just took pictures from afar.


Susie and Anne...against the wind


Goonies rock, I think


For some reason, I decided to shoot everything sideways.

Back in the car, we hit the 101 again and blew past the signs pointing back to Portland, headed for nowhere in particular. The ocean views, even from the car, were spectacular and we eventually landed in Manzanita - another deserted beach town. Very quaint, still freezing, so we decided to head back to Portland and plan our night out.

However, there wasn't much planning that needed to be done. Shawn's friends had put together a list of all the places we needed to go and Shawn made a nice Google Map so we could find everything once we were drunk. The first bar we hit was Ground Kontrol which was...an arcade. Forty year olds and 21 year olds alike were lined up side-by-side playing Pac-Man, etc. and drinking PBR. Awesome. I ran out of quarters pretty quickly and met a random group of guys (who swore they hated video games) who decided they wanted to follow us to the next bar, which was an Irish pub called Kell's.

Since it was an Irish bar, of course I had to do an Irish car bomb. :-) We had a couple more drinks with our new friends then remembered we hadn't eaten any dinner and should probably grab a snack. Shawn, the girls and I headed to Voodoo Donuts, which is open 24/7, offers Swahili lessons, and has the world's best donuts. Oh, and you can get married there. But we didn't. Susie ordered a maple donut with a piece of actual bacon on it. I ordered something with chocolate sprinkles and cereal (Captain Crunch?) on top and peanut butter in the middle. Anne's donut involved chocolate, Cocoa Puffs, and more chocolate. The three of us staggered around the street, passing donuts back and forth. Shawn hadn't ordered anything and instead opted to watch the whole mess from the sidelines.


Anne, Donut, Susie


Susie and Jen

Anne ended up tripping over what can only be described as a log, at which point we decided more alcohol was in order. We wound up in the bar next to the Ace Hotel where we drank one last round before going home for the night.

Portland...Oregon

My friends Anne, Susie, and I went to Portland, Maine a few years ago and decided it would be funny to visit the “other” Portland together. Also, airfare was super cheap ($200!) and we had a free place to stay, so there really was no reason to not go. Plus, I’ve always wanted to check out the Pacific Northwest.

It was my first time flying Southwest airlines, so when our tickets read CMH-PDX, I assumed it was a direct flight. Wrong! We wound up pit stopping in Chicago to pick up more passengers; however, the flight attendant sang “You Are My Sunshine” as we pulled into Midway, which somewhat made up for the unexpected detour. Also, I had new music on my iPod (which included Sleepyhead), so I was pretty content. (seriously, how can you listen to that song and not be happy??)

When we finally got to Portland, Anne’s friend Shawn, who was letting us crash with him, met us on Couch Street. We were all making Billy Madison jokes (c-o-r…are you going to the mall later?) until Shawn pointed out that the word “Couch” is actually pronounced like something dirty and not like furniture. Ha.

Clearly we were punchy and jet lagged, so Shawn sent us off to find Bridgeport, one of the many microbreweries in the Pearl District. And what goes better with jet lag than a sampler platter of…beer. We each ordered a cafeteria tray containing nine good-sized shots of beer arranged in a spectrum from light to dark. Beneath each shot was a story about the beer, which we took turns reading until we couldn’t anymore.



Since it was only 3 pm, we decided baked goods might help us sober up before dinner. Portland has several bakeries that specialize in just cupcakes, so we wandered into Cupcake Jones and ordered a dozen little treats to help us through the rest of the afternoon.

We spent the next few hours passed out, occasionally waking up to see if it was still raining (it was). However, Powell’s Books was just around the corner and it’s one of the many places we wanted to see on our trip…so we had to get off the couch (furniture) eventually.

Powell’s was huge – rooms, floors, shelves, tables, all covered in books. The place was so big that the four of us got separated and had to use our cell phones to find each other. I could have easily killed a few hours in there, but it was getting late and we were thirsty again.

Brewpub #2 was Deschutes and of course we ordered more sampler platters. It was here I discovered that I like beers with lower IBUs (50 or less).

Around 9 pm Anne, Susie and I started falling asleep at the table. We had vowed to stay up at least until 9 to help get over the time change but I think we actually made it to 10 pm…