Back from our trip. Had to happen sometime I guess. We had a good time, although it was spoiled rather quickly when we touched down in KC. What a snowy mess. Portland may not have been a beach-side resort, but it was a lot better than this. I’ll attempt to briefly recap our week, as I realize that was a pretty weak effort on the last update. Hey, I was typing on my iPad, give me a break. All dates and events listed are subject to my sketchy memory.
We got to Portland Saturday and proceeded to navigate to our hotel. The driving conditions out there were OK I guess. A little worse than KC but certainly not Chicago or LA. I can say that next time we travel I will be taking the Garmin. The smart phone apps are functional, I suppose, but a far cry from an actual GPS. It got us there, at the end of the day. (Literally… The end of the day.)
Monday we decided to tour some of the wineries in the region. I honestly didn’t even know Oregon was a wine region; Learn something every day. Apparently they have a few though, so I picked out four in the nearby Willamette Valley that mapped out nicely. We took our time about it, not really having anything else to do for the day. I’m sure with some research I could come up with the exact wineries we went to, but I can’t pick them out of that formidable list right now. That effectively used up Monday, and we wrapped up with a late dinner at Max’s Fanno Creek.
Tuesday we switched to brewery tours. If I was gonna do it over again I’d work out a side-trip to Bend, OR, where a lot of the actual breweries are located. I like to do tours, where they can tell you all about their operation and why they produce the absolute best brews in the country. As it happens, the majority of the places in downtown Portland are Brew Pubs; Pretty much restaurants that serve said brew. Some of them did actually brew on site, but it isn’t really the same thing. That’s not to say they weren’t some of the best Brew Pubs I’ve been to though, they were certainly more knowledgeable on their taps than most other places I’ve been. They all would do a “custom flight” too. Instead of just picking a sampler off the menu, if you would tell them what flavor profiles you like they would make some selections for you. Probably my favorite was Lucky Lab. This one wasn’t on our original schedule, but was recommended by a guy at another spot. The kid there put some serious thought into our flight, it was like an interview process. I liked the place so much I bought my official vacation souvenir from them, a nice cycling jersey.
Wednesday we decided to drive down to the coast. Driving tours are far from my favorite vacation option, but it was OK. We stopped at Tillamook Cheese for a while, drove Highway 101 for a bit, stopped at some beaches along the way, all the good touristy stuff. It was nice as drives go… But still a drive. I of course would later regret not stopping at a few other places we saw, but I was getting antsy and decided it was time to head back. I even skipped the fish hatchery; I like those for whatever reason. Oh well, what can you do. There were a lot of hazelnut farms too. I’m not sure why you would want to look around a hazelnut farm, but then I’m not sure why you wouldn’t either.
Thursday we were out of gas for the most part. Done. Finished. We hung around the hotel, then we did make it out for a nice dinner. We went to Jake’s Famous Crawfish, which was recommended by several people. It didn’t really work out as planned, but we had fun. Our original plan was to work our way through all the appetizers, so we could get a little taste of everything. Turned out that after a 1/2 dozen oysters and a bowl of seafood gumbo, we were so stuffed we couldn’t even think about food. And besides that, as is too often the case, we ended up sitting next to That Guy, who while entertaining for a short time eventually wore us out. I can’t adequately describe him here. Next time you see Donette ask her about him, she does a good imitation. He was in some kind of bizarre loop. He’d just pull out a random name (with no prompting what-so-ever,) and say for instance: “Ahhhhhhh yeah, Jimi Hendrix, I remember him. One time I asked him (insert odd nonsensical question) and do you know what he said?” Then he would break into a spirited air-guitar and sing. Over and over and over. My favorite line of the night, though, was probably the only thing he said that strayed from this format. There were some kids between him and us, and they were admittedly rather outrageously dressed. They were, however, nice enough and minding their own business. As a matter of fact I greatly appreciated their presence because he was focused on them for a while. He finally wore them out though, and as soon as they left he moved over by us, ugh. The first thing he says is “Man, they were weird huh?” Uhhhhh, yeah.
All-in-all a good trip. Got a little feel for the place, we’ll know to make a few little tweaks should we make it out that way again. We got home Friday night and have been shoveling ever since. Like I said, all dates and times above are subject to my horrible memory. As I quickly proof this, I already noticed I missed Sunday. That means everything could be off by a day, or I totally forgot about something already. Sigh, it ain’t easy getting old.