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.