Awesome Weekend!
So this weekend, Teri and I hung out with our friends Annette & Rick down in Portland. Teri and I started off Friday by going to breakfast at the Country Rose. Our waitress brought over a Pepsi for me and I had to politely tell her to take it away. Teri decided she'd drink it so I had to look at it the whole time. Oh well, I resisted and that's what counts. After breakfast, I dropped Teri off at home and headed over to the house to snap some photos before heading out for the weekend. The framing is 99.99% complete. They just have a few pick up items to do over the next week or so. I was really hoping it wouldn't be raining today so they could get the roof on and continue to let the house dry out. Ah well, so much for hopin'.Teri and I headed out at about 11:15 Friday morning and met up with Rick at the Country Cousin for lunch. I had a turkey, swiss and tomato sandwich with a side of onion rings. And a LOT of water. We headed back towards Portland after lunch and Rick brought his Motorola walkie talkies along and we were able to chat a bit on the way down. The day was GORGEOUS and we had good shots of Mount Adams, St. Helens and Hood on our way down. We finally arrived at Annette's around 2:30PM. It's funny, she lives like two blocks from Nike World Headquarters which Marcus and I spent like an hour driving around Beaverton a couple years ago trying to find. Figures. :-) We spent a bit of time chatting with Annette and somehow we all fell asleep on the couches for a quick 30 - 45 minute nap. We all got up and got ready for dinner. We had reservations that evening at the Western Culinary Institute's restaurant, Bleu, for dinner. The dinner was awesome, but the presentation left a bit to be desired. But they are all culinary students, so I guess that's to be expected. The funniest thing though, Teri and I split a bottle of wine, a 2002 Canoe Ridge Merlot . . . now we all know that Merlot is prounounced MER-LOW right? Well apparently the "Wine Steward" didn't and pronounced it MER-LOT. Too funny. After dinner, we cruised around Portland a bit and found a couple places that we wanted to try later that weekend. We called it a night around 11.
Saturday we got up around 10 and headed to Biscuits Cafe for breakfast. AWESOME breakfast spot. We headed to Tillamook after brekfast to check out how cheese gets made. Rick, Teri and I had all been on the tour before, but Annette had it on her list of things to do so that's where we headed. I can't pass up Tillamook cheese anyway. After the tour, we headed back to Annettes for some Centipede action and I of course got my Hurlbut waxed by everyone in the room. Now put a Pole Position or Galaga or even Ms. Pac Man machine there and it's on . . . but Centipede was never my bag. We had reservations later that evening for the Portland Underground Tour. Apparently in the late 1800's Portland was famous for it's Shanghai-ing. During this time, in Portland's north district, there were a series of underground tunnels and catacombs that connected buildings all the way to the waterfront. It was a convenient way to move goods throughout the city without having to worry about rain, mud, etc. Well it was also apparently an underground in the true sense of the word. Brothels, opium dens and slave traders all worked in the underground. The idea was men would get drunk or stoned and then "Shanghai'd". Rather they'd be locked up in cells in the underground until one of the "Shanghai-ers" had enough men to crew a waiting ship. Then they'd knock out all the men and drag them onto a waiting ship. It was an interesting tour, but the guide was a bit over-dramatic talking about all the ghosts and strange things that supposedly happened in the underground to this day. We didn't see any of it. Afterwards, we headed to La Casa De Rios for some dinner. It was recommended by a co-worker of Annettes. Well, I wouldn't go back. The salsa was good, but it ended there for me.
Sunday morning we got up and the plan was to head out to Multnomah falls for some hiking. We stopped at Starbucks for the girls and at Jack in the Box for the boyz. The drive out to Multnomah falls was nice and the falls were AWESOME! The hike to the top was about 1.2 miles and gained over 600 feet in elevation. I had a bit of trepidation that I could make it that far. Well we got to the bridge overlook at 0.2 miles and decided to go for the top. I won't lie, it wasn't easy for me. And at about 0.7 miles the decision by Teri and Annette was to turn around. My quads were killing me, but I feel like I could have made it to the top. It's on the list of things to do this Summer. But I did really realize how horribly out of shap I am. Amazing . . from climbing most of Mt. Rainier 4 years ago to where I am today is just sad. But it lets me know what kind of work I have ahead of me. After the falls, we headed back into Portland for some DIm Sum. I haven't had Dim Sum since I worked at Adobe and was REALLY looking forward to it. So we headed to Fong Chong. For those of you that have never had Dim Sum, it's basically like Chinese Ala Carte. Waiters come around with little carts and on the carts are all kinds of different dishes. You have Hum Bow, BBQ Pork, Egg Rolls, and all manner of GREAT tasting food. They keep track of what you order and they just tally it up at the end. IT WAS GREAT! Teri still isn't sure about the whole Dim Sum thing, but it will definitely pique my interest for going to Seattle for some soon! After lunch, we headed to an Outlet Mall for some quick shopping. After about an hour there, we returned to Annette's and said our good byes. Teri DID try to tempt me with a coke for the drive home, but again I resisted and stuck with water. It was nice coming home and sleeping in our bed again. But hey, we're back to work today and feeling refreshed. All in all, a GREAT weekend!
One thing that we did discuss over dinner one night was Rick's Sleep Apnea. My dad also have's Sleep Apnea and I'm starting to think maybe I have it too. Next trip to the doctor will be a request for a sleep study. So stay tuned.