Portland=Boooo!

Sunday, May 15

Let me preface this by saying from now on I will include links for the hotels & restaurants & bars that have websites.

It is a little rainy this morning, but I’m excited because today we are finally going to see the Sound Garden! Hooray! And after that, a day of Goonies fun! Hooray Hooray!

So after we pick up Rental Car #1 (Chevy Malibu) we start off for Warren Magnuson Park. Now I was expecting a basic park with a little sign that had an arrow pointing to the sound garden. I mean really, people must come looking for that. Well, this was no basic park and there was no sign. It is kind of a blur actually. I remember driving in circles. I remember stopping people in the pouring rain who tried to point us in the general direction. A dog park. Lots of crazy buildings all around. We felt like we were in a secret government residence facility. Then someone says they think that after 9/11 the park was locked down. Wait? What? I’m so confused! Just want to see park and pay homage to my favorite band. Why all this craziness! So we go back out to the main road, go into another entrance and come to a gate. Ohhh no. Please tell me that I’m going to get in! Oh the humanity!
So we are sitting in front of the gate as I start to slowly comprehend that I’m not going to get in. Then a truck pulls up next to us. Ohh! A Security Guard!

“Hi. I am from NJ and I really would like to see the sound garden! Please.”
“The garden is closed up until Monday. Come back then.”
“But we are leaving Seattle right now. Please!”
“I would let you in, but then who would let you out? Really, it is not even that exciting”

And with that she drives off. I let myself soak in self pity for 35 seconds, Mikey takes a photo to commemorate my pain and I say screw it! Let’s go have goonies fun!

Alright. We are on the road now. Lots of fun ahead for today. For the most part the drive is pretty fast, we take a major highway until we hit Oregon. We saw a lot of little crazy towns and a lot of crazy signs. Like South Bend. A great place to retire. And hey, it is also the oyster capital of the world! Such educating signs!! It was most amusing.

We completed the first (and only) alphabet game at 6:30 PM. It is important to note that Oregon license plates are an excellent source for hard to find letters (X,Y,Z).

Long drives are always interesting because you are focusing so hard on the road that eventually you brain gives up and you go dumb. For example:

KT: (reading sign) “Severe side ‘wind’ (pronounced wine-d) ahead. What? Oh wind (as in air blowing)”

Yes. Those moments were plentiful on this trip. No lie, Michael did the same exact thing with a sign in California. Anyhoo the drive to Astoria was a little crazy with the water being right next to us and all of the Tsunami warning signs. Oh Lord. That was an adventure. Trying to take a picture of the Tsunami Evactuation Route sign. It is not that a tsunami is funny, but it is funny when you are from NJ and you see a Tsunami Evacuation sign. Especially if that sign is a little man running from a huge wave.

So finally we get to Astoria. We have to drive over this crazy long bridge (bridges are scary when you see them from far away) and then…yay! We are in Astoria. Our first stop is some lunch at the Ship Inn. If you lived in Astoria, the Ship Inn is the place you’d go every week for a meal. I heard that they had some good fish & chips so that’s what we got. Along with a tasty bowl of New England clam chowder. +1 for the west coast for referring to New England clam chowder as “white chowder”. It makes everything so much easier. Anyhoo, I think I can safely say it was the best chowder I’ve ever had (and honestly, this isn’t so much of an accomplishment, it is not like I’ve ever had chowder in New England). But yes, we like chowder. It is just potatoes and clams & I like it. Our fish & chips come next. Hmm MMM! (cue KT's best Rachel Ray $40 a day impression) Tasty! Ohhh and tasty fries again (at this point, I begin to think that the universe is rewarding me for being so good on my diet back home. I haven’t had fries very many times since January, and Lord knows I love good fries. And here we are, the second time on my trip I’m having fries and they are super delicious!! Hooray!)

After the Ship Inn we begin our Goonie Adventure which pretty much consists of the jail, the house & the rock. We find the jail easily. Wow, things look so much bigger in movies. I can’t believe this is the same jail (now that I’m home and I’ve watched Goonies I can attest that yes indeedy, that is the jail). Hey wait, that Flavel House, I know that. That is the museum where Mikey’s dad worked! Check me out knowing my Goonies locations! So now the search for the house begins. We proceed to 38th street but you can’t get all the way to the top. The numbers stop. And there is a dirt road that goes up the hill but it says that it is not a through road. Private Property. I checked back to the site where I got all my goonies info and apparently back when they went to see the house, there was a sign that welcomed goonies fans. Too bad it looks like there are new owners. Michael tries to persuade me to bust up the hill anyway but I’m not sure. What if it is only one house and we walk right into their yard? (As I have watched the movie since being home I realize now that if we had walked up the hill we would have hit the house immediately. Boo to me). It is a very sad moment when, after 15 min of driving trying to get to the house I declare this one a loss. Of course I’m quite upset, but after the sound garden loss earlier in the day, I’m taking this loss a little better.

One final goonies note, hey Michael, the last scene of the movies was filmed on Goat Rock State Beach. See! I’m not crazy (this will be further explained in the California portion of the adventure)

After our failure in locating the house we head up to the Astoria Column which has a really beautiful view.

Ahem. History Lesson time. The Astoria Column was built in 1926. It is at an elevation of 600 feet, atop a big hill. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and is the location of the first permanent settlement west of the rockies. It was a pretty amazing view from the top. It was a very exhausting climb up all those steps. But it was worth it. Hee Hee, it is so funny because Michael and I are now morphing into cobra-commuter-tourists. It is like, ok, let’s get up this thing, let’s snap some pictures. Check. Let’s go.

As we are departing the very scenic town of Astoria, --Wait! That is the Bowling/Alley Pizza place in the beginning when Chunk first see the Fratelli’s ! Another great location find! Yes, so Michael and I decide that if he ever becomes famous we are going to buy the Goonies House and make a Goonies Museum.

Our next stop is Cannon Beach. Cannon Beach is the home of the big rock in Goonies. Cannon Beach is a very cute beach town. I really like beach towns. There are candy shops and ice cream cones!

After our candy store purchases we head to the beach to check out this rock. Wow. That’s a big rock. See it is crazy when you see things in pictures or someone tries to explain them to you. Because obviously, you know it is a big rock. But when you see something like that in person. And it is huge and there are waves crashing over it and wow. It is cooool. So we take a few moments to enjoy the rock. We walk along the beach and then I find some nice lesbians to take a picture of us (this one should be a keeper, Michael doing a handstand and me holding his feet).

After our big rock viewing we head over to the local ice cream shop because that’s what you do in beach towns. You buy candy, you walk on the beach and you eat ice cream!

On our way into Portland the skies open up and we are hit with a big rainstorm. There is water everywhere (for some reason water stays put on West Coast Highways) but thankfully Michael gets us safely to the Benson Hotel.

The first look at Portland is good. It looks to be a charming city. At first it reminds me of Old City. But we do not have much time to look around. We must hustle into the hotel, drop off our belongings & book to the Portland Airport to return the car. Don’t worry, I’ll get into the Benson Hotel after I tell the superfun tale of the Portland Airport and KT’s cell phone!

We actually kind of liked the Portland Airport. It was…cute. I don’t mean that in a condescending way, but coming from the world of JFK and Newark, Portland is …cute. There is one terminal. ONE TERMINAL. For a major city! Anyway, the plan is to drop off the car, take the shuttle to the airport and investigate Portland mass tansit. They have a light rail system that goes into the airport so we’re going to check that out. So we drop off the car at our friendly Alamo Rental Center and hop in the shuttle. We have our tickets for the Max Light Rail. Look how easy that was. Hmmm. I don’t have my cell phone. I wonder if it is in the hotel room. Ehhh. I have a bad feeling. Maybe I will have Michael call my cell phone to see if someone answers it (like, say an Alamo employee). Just then Michael looks at his phone. Some 732 number he doesn’t know. It rings again and this time he answers it. Hey it is Ella! Hmm. Why is she calling Michael? Well, apparently I left my cell phone in the rental car. And thank the Lord, the wonderful Alamo employees clean the rental cars immediately after they are returned. So when the nice gentleman found my phone he just started dialing my most recent dialed numbers. (KT sidenote, the story from NJ is that the nice gentleman spoke to my father who: 1) at first didn’t even know what the nice gentleman was talking about; and then 2) once he realized what the nice gentleman was talking about simply got into bed!)

Thankfully, Ella was prepared! Before we left she took Michael’s number down, if she hadn’t, I would have been cell phone less! So, we take the shuttle back to the Alamo and grab my phone, not before taking an obligatory stoopid KT getting her cell phone back from the Alamo employees picture.

But, it was all worth it. Because on our way back we met the best shuttle driver ever. Bouncy! How awesome is that! His name was on his shirt! Michael could not stop laughing (cue delirious giggle portion of the day). Bouncy! And let me tell you, Bouncy was hell on wheels! Driving like a mad man to the Airport! Tee Hee Hee. Good Times.

Alrighty, cell phone now safely back in my possession. Time to adventure with mass transit. KT & Mikey consensus: We like Portland’s transportation system. Although it is a little odd that it runs on the honor system. You buy your ticket and someone MAY come and check it. How do they make money? I mean, I’m sure tourists buy tickets because hey, what if someone comes to check? But the whole time we were in town I never saw anyone check for tickets. If I was a local I'd never pay.

The Benson Hotel
http://www.bensonhotel.com/
Priceline $61
Plus $20 a night upgrade charge
Regular Rate: $179

Water Pressure 3
Room Space 2 Bathroom 1/2
Temp Control 3
Décor/Ambiance 4 Lobby 5
Staff Helpfulness 2.5
Beds 3.5*
Coffee 3 (Our room coffee wasn’t refilled but there was a free coffee bar in the lobby)
Hotel facilities 2.5 No gym. Nice bar.
Noise Level: Street noise 2 Internal 3

*Beds were Posturpedic. Which means the bed molds to fit your body. This is comfortable while sleeping but can cause massive internal damage if you like to fall dramatically into bed.

Others
-1 No shelves in bathroom; Bathroom is mighty tiny!
+1 Fun Toiletries!
+1 Wine Tasting offered
-1 Had to upgrade from standard room (one bed) Still a priceline deal
+1 Card with tv channel lineup
+1 Windows opened!

Hotel was older with nice wood pillars, old mirrors and a fireplace in the lobby. Michael really liked it, although he said it had a little “Shining” feel to it.

I thought it was a pretty hotel, but it wasn’t super comfortable. It was very tiny in the bathroom and I felt that it didn’t offer the amenities that I have found in other 4* hotels. I did like the elevators though.

I am very proud of my researching skills. I found some good happy hour deals for us in Portland. Night 1, we head out to the Portland City Grill for some tasty treats! On Sunday, happy hour runs from 4 to close. http://www.portlandcitygrill.com/

On the walk to the Portland City Grill I begin to have my first “stomach reaction” to Portland. I begin to think hmm, this doesn’t remind me of Philly so much as New Brunswick. Ya know how Downtown George Street looks? That is how it looked. Interesting. Am I starting to change my mind about Portland? I am kind of getting a weird vibe. But everyone loves Portland! Surely I am just wacky today!

The Portland City Grill is on the 30th floor. Great. I just LOVE elevator rides. We get to the 30th floor and it is crazy up there. People everywhere. DRUNK PEOPLE everywhere. Wow. They must have all been there since 4. I do a lap and nothing is open. Finally these 2 drunk, drunk, drunk girls invite us to their table and tell us that they will be leaving momentarily. Wow. These 2 are a mess. One is slurring her words and the other is nearly spilling her drink all over the place. Plus, they both look kinda trashy. Portland is weird. Finally I secure us a window table. Sweet. The view from this place is really amazing.
We order:

Dungeness Crab Wontons with cream cheese and red pepper ginger sauce & hot soy mustard (HMMM This is one of my favorite things we ate on the trip!) $4

Grilled Beef Tenderloin on garlic Ciabatta $4

California Roll $2 Hmm. Tasty!

And we venture off the happy hour menu for some Pan seared golden lobster potstickers! $9

As we chow down on our super delicious meal we try to take the whole scene in. The inside of this place reminds me of the bar the Dresden (you know from Swingers). But the people are trying to be super high class (and botoxed) but they are just coming off as trashy. I think Michael referred to them as “faux upper class”. Hee Hee.


Monday, May 16 Portland is officially deemed the city of bad hair.

KT & Mikey’s motto for Portland: I’d rather be at the Seattle Airport, Which Means Portland=Dumb

In case you can’t tell, this is the day it all fell apart for Portland. The night before, we knew something was off, but we really, really began to hate Portland on Monday.

We start the day off at the Chinese Garden. It is a nice enough spot, but you can’t really get too zen because there are ugly, huge buildings that surround you. So it is kinda like being on a movie set of a Chinese garden. On the plus side there were lots of fun things in the gift shop. http://www.portlandchinesegarden.org/home

Next stop, Pioneer Square. Pioneer Square is the center of town. There is a fun statute with a man holding an umbrella and a weather forecasting machine. It is supposed to be a tourist center, but it is filled with angry people. We really, really hated Pioneer Square.

A few years back Portland was the hot happening place to be. So I guess everyone moved there. And now their unemployment rate is sick. We saw so many homeless kids (between the ages of 15 and 24) it was flabbergasting. And one girl had the audacity to ask Michael for money to feed her dog. WHY DO YOU HAVE A DOG IF YOU ARE HOMELESS?? YOU CAN'T FEED YOURSELF FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. This may be an inconsiderate statement, but go home! You are young. You do not have to live your life this way and be this angry. Ugh. It was just a bad vibe. It was the complete opposite of Seattle where all the different personalities seemed to flow together. Here, you could just feel them grating on each other. In the middle of the square there was a gentleman reading aloud from his bible. On the stairs surrounding him there were people listening to him, reading along with him and also, ignoring him. There were also a bunch of kids who walked past him and spit at him. To see that, it was just. It was like being in the middle of an angry stew. To see all the unsmiling faces, all the unhappiness, all the resentment. And it is not like anything I’ve ever seen. In NY, people don’t exactly smile at you but they don’t growl at you. They are too busy for you…they are just going about their day and if you get in their way they’ll shout an obscenity at you, but let’s be real, it is mainly your fault for not knowing where you are and going too slow.

So after the Pioneer Square incident we were in a bit of a foul mood. And what cheers us up when we are in a foul mood? Food! In my research I found 3 Portland restaurants that were supposed to excel in Pacific Northwest cuisine. The first, Park Kitchen was close on Mondays. The second, Clarklewis was on the outskirts of town. The third restaurant I was trying to avoid at all costs because I didn’t want to hear the comments from you people!

Yes, get your snide comments in now, sporto and I had lunch at Higgins. First of all we absolutely loathed the décor. The rooms didn’t flow into each other and they all had very different feels. There was a huge ugly tapestry hanging across from us. It really looked like someone had gone to a garage sale and decorated a restaurant with what they found. For lunch we had:
Smoked Fish Chowder
Clams
Pork Loin with spinach and polenta
Asparagus Risotto with peas

The smoky flavor of the chowder was a tad overwhelming for the first few spoonfuls. Once your mouth got use to it, you could taste a lot of the other flavors going on.

The clams were absolutely delicious and our favorite part of the meal.

Michael enjoyed the pork loin, I didn’t really care for the risotto. It was mostly bland, and what wasn’t bland was really lime-y. Plus, the peas were hard! I know that most people probably like that, but not me!

Overall we felt that the restaurant needs a major makeover and that they tried to be upscale in appearance but failed (Michael notes the white paper on the tables).
http://higgins.citysearch.com/

After our ripping apart of Higgins we head to the Japanese Garden. The bus ride to the Japanese Garden was fun (again, no one really checked our tickets) and I really liked the fairy tale houses that resided up there. I took some pictures so you can check it out (when I get my film developed!) http://www.japanesegarden.com/

The Japanese Garden was flippin awesome! I totally felt like we were on a hike in Japan. Very zen. We could have spent hours just hanging out and relaxing. Oh yes, there were fun koi fish as well! I think the Japanese Garden is my favorite time in Portland, although I really, really, really like Powell Books (read on!).

That evening, Michael and I really considered locking ourselves in our room for the rest of our stay in Portland. I really can’t describe the feeling as anything else besides a “sick to my stomach” feeling. It was really bad. But then the hunger pangs kick in and so, we decide to venture out. We’ll go to Chinatown and get ourselves some cheap food. When we ask our friendly concierge to recommend a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown he sends us to the Pearl District. Now, the good part of this is that it led us to Powell Books (which I love) and the Pearl District made us not absolutely abhor Portland. The bad side is that we wanted some cheapity cheap food and that is not what we got.

Powell City of Books http://www.powells.com/ is awesome. 3 floors of thousands of new & used books. I love it! Love it! I love secondhand books! They are half price! So yeah, I went a little crazy in Powell books. I end up leaving with a whole bunch of political books including an RFK biography I’ve been looking for! Hooray!

Our walk through the Pearl District (the trendy shop & upscale eats section of Portland) is pretty happy which confuses us because we are not use to being happy in Portland. We like the Pearl. Now I wish we had skipped Pioneer Square so that we could have spent more time in the Pearl. Oh well.

Sungari Pearl is an upscale asian restaurant. We very much enjoyed the ambiance, (lit by candlelight, dark wood) and had some tasty wine…I believe I had another glass of white! Although this time I believe it was Riesling. Anyhoo, we had dumplings, spring rolls, chicken/shrimp lomein and Duck Kung Pao. Hmmm! Tasty! Very excellent meal although is not the bargain we were looking for!

Tuesday, May 17
Even though we enjoyed the Pearl, we are still mucho excited to get the hell out of Portland. So we are off on our first adventure! Mount St. Helen’s. http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/04mshnvm/attractions/

The drive is mostly highway so there is not much excitement, for lunch we stop off at Burger King. Now this may not seem very thrilling to you, but it was most exhilarating for us. Hello! It is crazy star wars in there! So many fun toys! The BK employees are none too amused with our giddiness but we do not pay them any mind. We demand the box of star wars toys so we can rifle through them and pick the best one out. At first I grab a han solo but then Michael finds a millennium falcon! Ohhhh! I want one! I want one! Luckily there is another ship so we are free of tantrums! Hooray!

Our first stop is the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center at Silver Lake. The center gives a pretty basic overview of Mount St. Helens and the 1980 eruption. We then move on to Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center. Wowie. The drive up to Coldwater Ridge was CCRRR-AAZZZY! I’m telling you, we should have kept a count of how many times the phrases “crazy” “wow” “insanity” and “Jesus Christ” came out of our mouths. See, at Silver Lake you are at an elevation of 505 feet, at Coldwater Ridge, 3,091. So yeah. You are up there. And it is Crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy. You are driving up mountains, you are curving around mountains, you are hoping your brakes work as you make crazy drops, you are driving over bridges that straddle mountains. It is very intense. I would have to put it as the second most stressful driving of the trip. You really have to concentrate. Michael would point something out, and I would be like, uh-huh, that’s nice, not taking eyes off of road. Don’t get me wrong, I absorbed the scenery, but only on nice safe straight aways. But nothing can prepare you for when you see it. I was concentrating on the road when I heard Michael exclaim, “holy crap that’s it”. So I waited for a nice safe straight stretch of road. Wow. It is just gi-normous. You can’t possibly understand how small we are in the context of the universe until you see something so massive, so powerful. This is what the earth can do, and this is how it can kick our asses.

I think that Coldwater Ridge was the best of the exhibit centers. Johnston Ridge gives you the most dramatic view, but Coldwater Ridge has an ecological focus and is definitely choc full of information. Oh yes, a highpoint of the day was the sign warning us of possible ash fall. Do not panic! Stay inside until the ash fall is over. Haha. That is funny because if Michael and I see anything coming out of that crater we will both be dead of heart attacks long before we can die from ash inhalation.

After all of our educational exploring (we even watched the 6 minute movie!) we get ready for the dramatic finish, Johnson Ridge. At this point you are up to 4,255 feet and you are in the heart of the blast zone, um yeah, you are 5 miles from the north side of the volcano. Crazy. The crater is huge! It is snow-capped and there is a bit of fog blocking our view. But every now and again a cloud moves slightly and we are able to get a better glimpse.

There are just tree trunks everywhere. When the blast happened it pulled so many trees down in the slide and still, twenty years later there are just tree trunks everywhere. We kept calling it the tree graveyard. It is insanity to see what this eruption did to the landscape. But still, even seeing all of this destruction, there is life, re-growth. I think in the movie we watched it said scientists were amazed that a few days later the rebirth of the area began.

Back in Portland we hit up Jake’s Crawfish for a happy hour dinner. It wasn’t a very interesting meal but the spinach dip was good and our waitress was fun. And hmmm beer.

It is our final night in Portland and we decide to venture out and check on some of the scene. We start off at the Jupiter hotel. For some reason I kept referring to it as Neptune, which amused Michael to no end. I really liked the feel of the place. It had a remodeled old lodge feel and there were comfy booths in the corners, we felt like VIPs hanging in one of the booths. Anyhoo we didn’t stay very long because honestly, it gets kinda hard when you are having drinks with the same person that you’ve been spending every waking minute with for the past week. What do you say to each other at cocktail time that you haven’t already discussed! So we decide to check out a lively bar and hey, we haven’t seen the gay part of town yet! So we go to Boxxes. The bar had potential. Everyone was very friendly inside, there were trivia screens and a dance floor and a very fun retro look to the place.

From what we saw, the gay scene is very separate from the rest of the city (like Baltimore). Portland has the biggest lesbian population in the country (too bad I like boys) and oh yes, Michael was very upset because someone else (surprise it wasn’t us) requested Britney and the DJ at the gay bar wouldn’t play it! Bah! Screw you and your crazy ass city!!!

Up Next: Perilous driving, big trees, duets and lots of hippies, we must be in California!