One Last Summer Fling

Lucky for us we live in a place where people actually want to come visit. Last weekend we had Alex, a friend of David's from Philly, and Vince, our good buddy from Loma Linda, came to visit. Both have visited us before, but we wanted to make sure they had not forgotten Portland's quirkiness.


First thing Saturday morning we headed to Voo-doo Donuts. Where else can you get a bacon and maple long john, the "Blazer Blunt", a vegan donut or a voo-doo doll donut all at the same time as picking up a pair of undies. David jokes that it is the only place in Portland where people are wearing 7 layers of clothing but somehow you can still see their butt crack.

Derby Announcers...all I can say is H-O-T.

After the trip to Voo-doo donuts we headed over to the Adult Soap Box Derby. Last year David and I were introduced to this annual event and appreciated the introduction to Portland's culture. After attending last year, I remember thinking: Is it more common in Portland to go bra-less or to only wear a bra. As a Portland resident, I am now feeling very confined when I wear a bra and my normal 2 or 3 layers of clothing as David so lovingly likes to tease me.

So, I bet you're asking, what is an adult soap box derby. Just think of "big" kids that make life size themed derby cars that can be raced. Maybe these pics will inspire you to start up an adult soap box derby in your neck of the woods.

Mr. T's van is legitimately homemade. I personally had to touch it to verify it wasn't real.

This was by far the most disgusting thing I saw all day besides the sicko wearing a black speedo and chaps. I didn't take any photos of him to spare myself and all of you from experiencing a sudden wave of nausea.

There tends to be quite a bit of drinking at these derby events and unfortunately the individuals riding these beer barrels down the hill were a bit tipsy and at a speed of about 3 mph turned the vehicle right into the public safety car parked right along the side of the road.

Sunday we took our friend Vince to the Portland Oregon Temple for a tour. They give guided walking tours around the outside of the temple on Sundays. I enjoyed the tour because I never take the time to walk around the temple and truly appreciate all of the symbolism.


And then Sunday evening we headed to Washington Park and visited the Vietnam Memorial. Vince dared me to roll down the hill for $5.00 bucks. I was laughing so hard the whole way down, so when Vince decided to do it I had to do it again. I NEVER, EVER seem to learn that rolling, spinning, bouncing or basically any other head movement will make me sick. Here is a few clip of our trip down the hill.

If you listen carefully you can hear me laughing hysterically. That is until I stop rolling.... and then this is what I did at the park, on the side of the road heading out of the park, at some random street corner in downtown and then once more when I jumped out of our car at a stoplight. Finally relief!

Isn't David so nice? He took about 5 video tapes of this little incident.

Monday we headed out to the beach. We had to show our Californian friend the Oregon beaches. They are beautiful and refreshingly uncrowded. We hit the two hot spots, Cannon Beach and Seaside. My main motivation for visiting Seaside was of course to visit the 170 flavor salt water taffy store. Everyone gets to spin the Wheel of Fortune and Vince was a lucky winner. Vince this ones for you: "And a little extra cause you're special."

Vince was the WINNER and he got his name on the Wall of Fame!

Tuesday, we headed up to Washington to go white water rafting on the White Salmon River. The river was probably one of the most beautiful I have been on and this particular trip offered a few new adventures for us. Halfway through the trip we had an opportunity to jump off a cliff and then at the very end, we had the chance to go over a 10 foot waterfall. I think that was our first class V rapid ever, at least it was mine.

Husum Falls

We survived the waterfall. It was awesome!

Thanks Vince and Alex for coming to visit!

Lost Dog

David and I were at the park tonight and after seeing hundreds of dogs running around, we remembered something funny that had happened while living in California. To save our friend involved some embarrassment we will change her name. If this friend, let's call her Laine, reads this post, we love you and replaying this story cracked us up again and made us wish we lived closer!
A couple of years ago our good friend Laine "found" a lost dog. Laine said that while driving through a neighborhood near her home this little dog came running out into the road. Being the pet lover that she is, she rescued this dog from being hit by a car and brought him to her home. The story seemed a little off to me, so I prodded to get more information about how she came to the decision to bring the dog home. After enough prodding I found out that although she had been driving through this neighborhood and she did actually see the dog, the dog never actually ran out into the road. She saw the dog alone in the neighborhood park and stopped to pick it up. I harassed her a bit for "stealing" the dog.
Later that night I told David about it and we devised a plan. Actually, David devised it and I was the actress that helped the plan come to fruition. David created a lost dog poster telling some heartbreaking story about a young boy who was looking for his lost dog. Juan's twin brother had passed away and in an effort to relieve some of his sorrow his parents had given him this dog for Christmas. He named the dog after his twin brother and was devastated that his special dog had gone missing.
Of course most people probably wouldn't believe this story, but we knew that Laine, stricken with guilt, would fall for it. I planned to meet my friend to go out the next day, so before I picked her up I placed the poster on a tree at the exit of her neighborhood where I was sure she would see it. When I picked her up, she told me she had returned the dog to the park. (This did not foil our plans, I think it made our prank turn out even better.) As we drove out the exit I made to sure to draw attention to the lost dog poster. Of course she had to get out of the car to read the poster. She started freaking out and was begging me to drive her to the park to pick up the dog. I told her I would not drive her to the park to get the dog so she could return it to his owner. After a few minutes when I couldn't act any longer and I was doing the laugh/cry combo I told her what David and I had done.
This is an email I got from her a year ago about this experience:
"So last night Ron said something about me stealing dogs and I was like what the heck are you talking about! Then he reminded me of my little escapade of "Borrowing" the little slightly retarded Chihuahua from the park. And then I remembered the HORROR I felt when I read the lost dog poster after I had just unloaded him at the park and the absolute Horror I felt when you wouldn't turn the car around and take me back to the park! It had me rolling on the floor. That was the best lost dog poster!!! And I fell hook, line and sinker for it! My hat goes off to you and David BEST PRANK EVER!"

So the moral of the story is: do not "borrow" other people's animals. David will make sure that you never live it down.

One of the many reasons why I love Portland!

Last weekend some friends of ours from Loma Linda came to visit. They wanted to go camping so we decided to go to Eagle Creek. This is about 40 minutes from our house up the Columbia Gorge. I had heard lots of things about this area, but had yet to make it out there. It is supposed to be one of the most popular hiking trails in Oregon, and I can see why.
Lucky for us, the campground had just opened for the season, so we were the ONLY campers around. (It might have also been that it was raining and pretty cold.) David being the wise man that he is decided that we would just sleep in the back of our Pathfinder. There is plenty of room and we had done it before, so I was thrilled to haul up in the warm car over night.
The next morning we decided to do the shorter 4 mile round trip hike to Punchbowl Falls because David and I had to be back for Crawfish Cookoff. It was so worth it and now I want to go back and do the 12+ round trip hike. This hike is one of the reasons why I love Portland. It is breathtaking. There are so many different shades of vibrant greens.












When we got back from camping, we headed over to a Crawfish Cookoff Party that a resident at the hospital was throwing. It was quite a treat. I have never had a crawfish and decided that I don't care if I do in the future. They were good, don't get me wrong, it's just A LOT of work for only about 3 cm of meat. I don't know if I want to put that much effort into my food. The whole party idea was great.