Hooray Portland and one of my best friends from high school: Lorrie and her husband Kyle. Awesome people. I kept telling Lea that one of the most awesome parts of visiting Lorrie was finding all the treasures in her house. Everywhere we turned there is another fun thing to look at — from the solar powered waving queen to the wall mounted rheostat (vintage voltage switch) to the red plastic Russian stacking dolls in the kitchen window. Wonderful treasures. Lorrie is the best and I can’t believe it had been 13 years since we’d seen each other! So I was so excited to get to Portland.
We made it Portland in time for dinner. We got all of our bags in
despite Woodrow, the big black dog who hung out in the doorway the entire
time. An excellent welcoming committee. We had excellent pizza and
stayed up until midnight talking (although Lea went to sleep around 10).
Sunday, Lea and I went to church, a three block walk around the corner. The church was small, but very nice with a strong community and a youth liturgy during the homily — the kids went to talk about the readings while the priest did the homily. A homily with a bang by the way — the talk was “are you ready? ready, set BANG” the priest popped a ballon at the beginning and practically gave a woman in the front row a heart attack.
Then it was time for lunch so Lorrie took us across the bridge, up the hill to have delicious burgers and huckleberry shakes at Skyline Burgers. Then off to the Peculiarium! There were a few things that freaked Lea out, especially the ghoul in the bathroom who was hooked up to move his hands when you opened the door. Fortunately we were warned, but Lea left the bathroom crying. She was cheered up by ice cream and shocking gum (that I then had to shock myself on three times a day).
That night we went for dinner at Teote which specialized in arepas and awesome patio-ness. Lea and I took a detour on the way to dinner to hit the most awesome skate rink ever, however it was closed between 5 and 7 so we wandered around Oak Parks amusement park. Lea had played games and won prizes earlier and the rides seemed to be a wrist band system instead of single tickets. Since we needed to meet up for dinner we had little time for fun. We threw darts at posters for a unicorn poster and then panned for gem stones at the “gold mine.” Then over to Teote for yummy food, beer for me and Dan and blood orange soda for Lea. There was a friend for her, a girl about her age who brought a graphic novel, so like the bookworm she is, Lea sat by the fire pit and read with her new friend.
We wandered over to a comic store across the street from Dark Horse publishing and stopped in a antique/thrift shop where we picked up a little tea set for Lea and a tea pot for camping. While Lorrie and I went shopping, Lea and Dan went over to the nickel arcade and got more prizes. Lorrie and I killed a little time by walking along the river, though the park was under construction and we saw an osprey snatch a fish out of the water.
We took off a little early to hit the skate rink. This skate rink from the 1920s was so amazing. All wood with a Wurlitzer pipe organ suspended over the middle of the skate floor (and we knew about the Wurlitzer from the mechanical music room at the Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale, AZ!). They had skating dance pairs (obviously a huge spot for competitive dancing). There were couples in their 20s, 40s and 80s. I swear I saw a woman dancing with her partner on the rink in skates and as they walked out of the building she used a cane and her husband had to support her; she couldn’t walk, but she could skate. Around the edge of the rink were practice lanes, for beginners, an area with rails and then a straight way for slower weaker skaters and in the back a wavy floor. A boy came and told me the challenge was to skate the length with two strokes of your feet. He could do it, Lea and I could not. We just enjoyed racing except she kept running into the bench and banging her knees. I would not spring for inline skates thinking there was no difference and we’d only be there two hours. I will not make that mistake again. Lea was having a tough time on the old time skates (and my feet were on fire so I think the actual skates were from 1926 as well!) and Lea fell more than usual — well at all — usually she never falls and is always faster than me, I could lap her on the actual rink. Great time. I hope that forever I remember tagging out stretched hands with Lea as we passed each other on the wavy part and then her looking back giggling at me as she sped in front of me as we raced. Then back home for yet another late bed time.
Monday we were on our own mostly since Lorrie had to work and Kyle rested up for his late shift. Finally it was time for a detour and our very touristy activities. Buy a donut or buy a book? The choice of VooDoo donuts or Powell's Bookstore. Surprise, Lea picked donuts! We had trouble finding it, we saw a line around the block and were about ready to pass it up until later in the day until Dan figured out the line was for the soup kitchen/food bank. Down the street there was a shorter line (I’m sure not a Portland native in the bunch) for VooDoo. We waited about 20 minutes for $20 worth of donuts (a dozen assorted). There were people walking out with 5 gallon buckets of donuts, we weren’t that ambitious. I got "My Cap’n My Cap’n" with Cap’n Crunch on top. It was great, but had marshmallow instead of just sugar frosting so it wasn’t quite what I’d expected. We got the obligatory VooDoo doll with raspberry filling. Lea was in donut heaven. Dan said the bacon topped one is better at our local Hypnotic Donuts, so I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear that.
While we were down town Dan was given a "speed bump" — a surprise to him to find the smallest park in the United States:
Mills End. The park was founded by a newspaper man who saw a lamp post hole out his office window that was never filled. He created a story of a leprechaun named Patrick O'Toole who led him to the park. We only drove by, so no photos.
After donuts Lea got a YouTurn and we got to do the second choice also. Powell’s Bookstore — four stories of used and new books. It was a lot like Half Price, but there did seem to be a larger selection (perhaps because there were 4 floors!). I had brought 5 books to read, over anticipating my down time (riding in the car listening to comedy albums and watching amazing scenery really cut down on my reading time). Lea got about 4 books and Dan got one of his few souvenirs, a bigfoot sticker for the van.
This only took about half the day so we were able to meet Lorrie for lunch and went to a food truck park. Dan got the best meal of the day, an asian meat sandwich that was delicious! Bulgogi! Lea and I got custom mac & cheese. I got bacon and grilled onion with mine and Lea got hot dogs with hers. Yum!
After we dropped Lorrie back at work we headed to the suburbs to run some errands. While Dan paid our Lowe’s credit card bill, I headed in Fred Meyer, knowing that this grocery store is owned by Kroger, I was expecting a Kroger… what I got was like WalMart! They had fireworks, towels, chairs AND groceries. So we were there a while. We got delicious cherries, some local wine and beer and some staples for camping and driving the rest of the week.
We had a little time before Lorrie got home so we tried our hand at one more Letterbox just down the street. We were against rush hour traffic and parking was non-existant, behind a tree with lots of overgrown plants. Lea saw a spider and our search was over. She played on the playground for a bit so she was happy. Then back to the house to make spaghetti and try to dry out stinky starfish. It was early to bed since Lorrie had to get up and run an errand in the morning and we decided to leave with her (well we got up with her but it took us two hours to leave). But we had time for delicious root beer floats and tea in our new little tea cups on the back porch and a tour of the garden. Early morning good-byes and on to Seattle.
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| Woodrow the dog |
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| Skyline Burgers the specials on the board behind these cuties include huckleberry shakes. |
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| Friends at Skyline! |
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| The Peculiarium full of odd things and even odder once we went inside. |
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| The oddest thing in the Peculiarium — Dan in alien autopsy |
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| We found Big Foot |
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| Ice cream makes all the creepy stuff inside better. |
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| Would you like some gum? Don't be shocked! |
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| Panning for gems at Oaks Park |
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| Rose quartz, pyrite and other gems |
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| The mining spot at Oaks Park |
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| drinks on the patio at Teote |
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| Skating old school |
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| At the skating rink |
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| Ready to skate |
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| Where the guy played next to the rink to make the pipes over the rink sing |
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| There was a photo booth in the rink and Lea wanted to do it, but I didn't have any change so I held my camera up and we made our own photo shoot. |
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| The pipes of the Wurlitzer over the skate floor |
The wavy floor at the skate rink
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| Lea modeling Lorrie's pillows as a hat |
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| In line for VooDoo Donuts. |
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| Inside the door at VooDoo |
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| The selection at VooDoo. If you look closely you can see the Cap'n My Cap'n |
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| Our VooDoo technician |
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| A dozen and out the door |
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| Lea's favorite was the mustache filled with marshmallow |
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| Cap'n My Cap'n |
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| Lea ate all the pretzels out of our VooDoo dolls |
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| The crown was filled with strawberry jam so Lea didn't like it. Kyle ended up eating it the next morning after a very strange dream. |
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| Dan's peanut butter and chocolate |
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| Our half eaten haul |
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| Powell's Bookstore. This is one our less successful selfies. This is outside the front entrance downtown and the column is cement made to look like large stacked books. |
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| Dan's sticker! |
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| Food Truck. The delicious Bulgogi! |
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| Lorrie's yummies! |
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| British Rose Water from Fred Meyers in Portland. |
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| Portland Cherries, fresh and juicy. Eaten later at the petrified forest in Washington. |
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| Letterboxing in Portland. Unsuccesful. |
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| Lea Neal Age 8! Like Ramona in the book Ramona Age 8, she builds calluses so she can go across the monkey bars by the end of summer. Ramona (or at least Beveryly Cleary) was from Oregon. |
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| Root beer floats on that Patio. Lea just kept going back for ice cream. She had hers, mine and a third helping and then gave me her root beer to drink. |
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| Neal family in Portland! |
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