Green group!
Kickin' in the front seat, kickin' in the back seat, gotta make up my mind, I think I'll drive. At 4:00pm, we were told to skedaddle and hit the road! It took us about 7 hours to get there since we stopped for dinner at the Panda Express along the way. It was a gorgeous drive and a very pretty sunset.
We passed into Oregon at night, so of course pictures of the sign didn't turn out. So we stopped at the next exit and found the Welcome Center! Apparently, they really wanted to put the sign where the actual state line was. We ended up driving by some weird, creepy bridge that you see in horror movies, but we made it to the welcome center and the Welcome to Oregon sign!
Welcome to Oregon!
In Portland, we stayed with Margaret's best friend from high school, Jason. He has this huge house and only 3 people live there, so we had our own room with a giant air mattress in it! When we arrived, Jason had already went out and bought us some beers to celebrate us getting to Portland!
While chatting it up, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was a ferret! The ferret's name is Lily and she was the cutest and friendliest little ball of fur!
Me and Lily!
Turns out Lily belonged to one of Jason's roommates, Noah. After meeting Noah and Lily, we were introduced to Marrakesh. This is by far one of my favorites board games! I'm pretty sure it was because you got to play with these fuzzy little carpets the whole time. It was a very interesting board game that we are definitely going to try and find and bring back to Florida! We stayed up playing Marrakesh and chatting until about 3:30am!
Saturday began bright an early at 7:00am! We got up and drove to the Hood River to ride the Mt. Hood Train! Let's just get to the story behind this train ride, shall we?
We booked the train online on Wednesday night and we reserved three tickets for the Sunday train for me, Margaret and Jason. We were supposed to get a confirmation e-mail immediately following making the reservation. I received no such e-mail. On Thursday, I checked my e-mail, nothing. So we thought, well, no news must be good news. Friday, I checked my e-mail before we left for Portland, still nada. Margaret called the office, but no one was there. Business hours are 8:00am-5:00pm. We called at 5:09pm. But wouldn't you know it that when my phone finally got into cell phone range, my phone alerts me to let me know that I have two voicemail messages. Both were from the Mt. Hood Railroad. The first one was dated on Thursday. Apparently, the Sunday train was cancelled because there weren't enough people, but we needed to let them know if we wanted to ride the Saturday train again. Ugh oh. The second message was dated on Friday. Same message. No Sunday train. So, what do we do now?
Margaret called the place back, again, but this time left a message. We were hoping that we could still ride the train on Saturday and get refunded for one of the tickets (Jason couldn't go on Saturday because he had to work).
On a whim, we headed out to the Mt. Hood Railroad to try and catch the Saturday train. Along the way, we noticed that there was a ton of stuff to do if we couldn't make the train, so we had a back-up plan.
When we got to the train station, we found out that we could ride Saturday's train. On Monday, I checked my e-mail and found one from the train station sent late Friday afternoon. Just our luck.
All aboard the Mt. Hood Railroad!
The ride was an hour and fifteen minute ride alongside the Hood River. On the way up the mountain, the view was narrated and told us about the history of the land. It was pretty interesting. We passed a lot of peach trees, apple treas and grape fields.
Margaret was excited!
We were getting a little antsy to get off the train, so we had a mini photo shoot.
Hood River, OR
Orchards
Someone was kind enough to take our picture!
We stopped in the little town of Parkdale, OR. We had an hour to look around. There wasn't much to look at. There was a gift shop, consisting of 20 different items, a museum, full of random crap that had been donated from people in the town and McIssac's Grocery Store. We quickly walked through the gift shop and headed over to the museum. It was a little interesting. They had an entire dinner table full of rocks that resembled different foods, lots of stuffed animals (not the fluffy kind, but the ones you put on your mantle) and some old weapons. They also had some pharmacy history!
An old scale and a picture of the pharmacy that used to be across the street.
Once we got out of the museum, we were blown away by a blizzard! We were definitely not prepared for this. Margaret had worn a skirt and flip flops, so we darted across the street in the snow and wound up at McIssac's Grocery Store. We bought a sandwich/wrap, some wine and a few energy drinks (we depend on caffeine these days) and headed back to the train to eat our lunch. While eating, I looked over at the sign in the train and got a little freaked out by how much of a coincidence it was.
May 1987 (my birth month and year); also, #513 (my birth month and day). Weirded me out just a little, but it was also really cool.
The view of the town. The building in the middle is the gift shop. And P.S. it's not a real horse.
The way back wasn't as exciting as the way up there. There wasn't as much narration and we had already seen it all on the way up. I did take some pictures of sheep. I didn't realize how fat they were!
After the excitement of the sheep and the Red Bull from lunch, I decided it was a perfect time for a cat nap. I tried really hard not too, but I couldn't keep my eyes open. Margaret noticed that my head would lean forward, then I would yank it back. Apparently this continued for at last 20 minutes. But a 20 minute cat nap is just what I needed! And we had another photo shoot!
Winning!
While walking to our car after our train ride, we noticed that there was a Winery's wine tasting room in the parking lot! We looked at each other and said, "why not?". We walked into Springhouse Cellar winery and realized that they were currently doing a wine tasting! We hopped on some bar stools and started tasting! We were able to choose six different wines to taste, as well as finger food!
After the tasting, we headed back to Portland. On the way, we noticed a sign for some falls. Since Florida is pretty flat and is highly lacking in any sort of falls, we thought it to be wise to stop and take some pictures.
It was pretty cold out and the Multnomah Falls gave off some serious mist.
Getting closer to the falls!
Falls!
An old sign of how far the cities were from the falls.
This entire trip, we have really wanted to go to the West Coast to see the Pacific Ocean. So when we got back into the car to head to Portland, I picked a place on my GPS. We were in luck! It was only an hour and a half from Portland! If we left within the hour, we would definitely get there for the sunset! It was such perfect timing!
We got back to Jason's house and picked him up along with his other roommate, Alex. But before we reached the coast, we needed to fill up on some gas. I was about to get out, when there was a knock on my window from a man telling me to open the little door to access my gas tank. I was utterly confused. Then I was told that you don't pump your own gas in Oregon. What?! This was a strange concept for me! You give them your card, tell them how much you want on it, and they do the dirt work for you! I asked if I should tip them, but the guys in the back were like, "why would you do that, that's an outrageous thing you would do!" Who would have known! Oh, and they have penis pumps! Just like the ones we encountered on the trip up to Washington!
We made it to the Pacific! The drive down was awesome too! We drove through mountains the entire time so it was weird to come out of the mountains, drive for five minutes, and then see the ocean! The next few pictures are a small fraction of the amount that I actually took. This is definitely one of the moments that I will remember!
UF Pharmacy on the West Coast!
Can I live here please?!
Of course I had to put my feet into the freezing Pacific Ocean!
It was really windy and cold out. Keep in mind that Margaret changed into pants, but was still wearing her flips! In the picture from left to right: Margaret, Alex, Lauren and Jason.
WEE!!
I made it!
Goonies anyone?
The sun is setting!
We really wanted to stay for the sunset finale, but I'm pretty sure if we stayed out there any longer that we would come back to Florida without any toes or fingers. After my hands thawed out enough to be able to grip the steering wheel, we headed back to Portland to get some grub! Jason suggested we go to an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner, and since we don't have anything similar in Gainesville, we were definitely interested in trying something new! But then we had to decide which one to go to and which one would be open once we got back to the city. We looked up all of the Ethiopian restaurants in the area and checked out their reviews. Unfortunately, none of the restaurants had good reviews. One was not pretentious enough, another had no atmosphere and one refused to give their patrons silverware. So we picked the only one that would be open and took our chances!
On the way to the restaurant, we picked up Noah (remember he was the other roommate) and headed to Jarra's. My first mission was to dump out all the sand that accumulated in my shoes, which was probably about half a cup altogether! We all ordered a beer to toast to old friends being united and to new friendships being formed. After our toast, our wait, Jarra (the guy the place is named after), took our order. Afterwards, he looked at me and asked if I was Hispanic. What? I was so confused, and to top it off, he started speaking Spanish to me. I had to set the man straight and tell him that I was mostly German. It was weird, because he definitely missed that Jason was part Cuban. Hmm. I'm still confused as to why he was trying to figure out what race I was. Apparently my strong jaw line and eyes gives me a Hispanic look. I'll take it as a compliment. He also dissed Florida by saying it was too low to sea level and flat. He prefers the high land.
Our food had arrived! If you haven't eaten Ethiopian food, like us, I recommend that you look into how it is presented to you. I'll try and describe it here, but I probably won't do it any justice. The plate starts with a bread in a huge circle that covers the entire plate. The consistency is like a pancake, but its not sweet. It really doesn't have that much flavor. The circle of bread is then topped with whatever entree you chose. For instance, I chose potato. So I got a potato stew on one part of my circle of bread. Margaret chose lamb, so she received a huge lamb chunk on bone with some stew. So all dishes are stew-like with whatever type of "entree" that you want. Then comes cottage cheese. It's supposed to help with the fire that starts in your mouth since it's so spicy. It also comes with some sort of bean clump and a little salad with tomato and feta cheese.
So all of this stuff is in little piles on top of your circle pancake-like bread thing. We were then given instructions on how to eat our meal from Jarra himself. You start with the outer circle of pancake-bread. You were supposed to tear of parts of it (with your hands) and then grab parts of your meal with the bread. Basically, you head by picking up your food with the bread. It came with more bread because the bread underneath gets super soggy and kind of gross. It's a pretty messy meal, but it was very freeing to eat with your hands. The only problem I encountered was itching my eye and getting my spicy fingers in them...man did that hurt! Ethiopian was definitely a new concept to us, but one that we welcomed! The experience was worth it.
Back in the car we went. This time, I chose the destination. We arrived downtown and walked over to VooDoo Doughnuts!
This had been on our list since we knew we were coming out to Washington! I had seen this place on Man vs. Food. They are known for their weird doughnuts, especially their cock-n-balls doughnut. As the name implies, it is shaped like a penis with cream filling, for effect. We had planned to eat a cock-n-balls, but once we waited in line for 20 minute and finally got to the counter, we were told that they were all out of the cock-n-balls. Our dreams were crushed! Instead of the cock-n-balls, Not knowing what else to get, I blindly ordered another one of their specialties, the Tex-Ass and a doughnut with fruit loops on it called, The Loop. Margaret got a Portland Cream and a chocolate donut with frosting. YUM!
This is what I was handed after ordering my Tex-Ass doughnut. At this point, I knew there was something special in the box. Step 1: Open the box.
Step 2: Find a doughnut the size of your head! In the picture: The Tex-Ass and Lauren
Since we had such a long day, we decided to take it easy for the night and drink a little and play some board games. During our game of Apples To Apples, I saw Lily, the ferret, walking away with one of Margaret's shoes. Apparently Lily likes leather and was playing in her shoes! So cute!
At this point, we were formally introduced to Rachel Black! O.M.G.! That song has been stuck in my head ever since! As the night grew on, we got a little more drunk and kept playing Apples to Apples. I suggested that we switch to the carpet game because I really like that one. Apparently, I had found a pillow and was laying on the floor, mumbling about carpets, and then fell asleep around 2:30am. Everyone else went to bed shortly after. I woke up extremely confused on where I was, figured it out, found my glasses and snuggled into bed with Margaret! Of course air mattresses make a ton of noise when you get on them, but I tried to be as quiet as possible. Margaret was asleep, but I think she was dreaming, because as I was getting settled in bed, she tapped by leg and told me, "that's enough". Haha! Gotta love it when people sleep talk!
The next morning our alarm went off at 9:00am. Since I fell asleep unexpectedly the night before, I wasn't aware when we were getting up. I asked Margaret, "Why did we set an alarm? It's too early." Plans were made last night to get up and go to the Saturday Market (don't get confused, the Saturday Market is open on Saturday and Sunday). Hungover, we drove downtown to the market.
By the River at the Market!
The market is basically an art festival. There is a lot of vendors selling art, jewelry, food and lots of other stuff. I supported the local art community and bought a little painting.
Along the way, we noticed a man setting up a bunch of buckets on the side of the road. He put them down in a specific order, then added a crate with liquor bottles coming out of it. Then, he pulled out some drum sticks and started playing the drums! It was fascinating!
Please not the sign behind him. It basically said that he needs money to buy weed and beer with. The man behind the sign had a huge hole just as the crease of the buttocks....not his best side.
This is how people make money at the market. Not by selling their craft, but by using their dog to lay in the road with a sign in it's mouth! Adorable nontheless.
We walked through the entire market and headed to the biggest bookstore in the country! But first, we had to walk by China Town of Portland and take this picture:
We made it to Powell's City of Books! This place was massive! It consumed an entire city block and has four floors filled with books. We only spent an hour at Powell's, but we definitely could have spent an entire day there. There were so many books! This place was so huge that they give you a map of the place so you can find your way around! They also paint the rooms different colors so you know what section you are in. Naturally, we got lost a few times and had to call each other to find out where everyone was!
This is the cart that we chose, mostly because it was one of three open, but also because it looked yummy. Me and Margaret both got the Bangkok Paradise. It was definitely a good choice. So food in hand, we headed up into a random neighborhood and found ourselves in the parking lot of The Rose Gardens! The view was awesome!
You can see the city in the distance. What a great lunch spot!
Jason and Margaret at the Rose Gardens
We finally got a picture of the Welcome to Washington sign! Apparently they don't have them on the way into Washington from Idaho.
We made it back to Spokane! Of course we weren't going to cook food at home, we were too tired and we didn't have any food anyways, so we chose to go back to The Elk Public House! YUM-O!
Luckily when we arrived back to the apartment, we didn't come home to a broken toilet! All in all, a great, successful weekend!
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