Keeping it Weird in Portland

For a nice break from nature, we scooted over to Portland for a few days. My Nephew, Mike Arps Jr (my sister DeeDee’s son) and his wife Mika, recently moved to Portland and are expecting Iris (their first) any week now. They moved from the SF Bay area about a month earlier to escape the crime, commute, and cost of living. So far, they’re loving Portland (actually they live in Beaverton just West of Portland).

Anyway, it was great to socialize with family for the first time in 3+ months! Also, Mike is a gamer (as in German board games), and was also eager to “get it on!”.

We rolled in Friday afternoon, and camped in Beaverton about 10 minutes from their apartment. We met them for Thai food Friday night, which was great. Then they came over to visit us at the campground. After a short visit, and kids going to bed, Mika took the car home, and Mike, Kim, and I fired up the games. We hit it pretty hard until about 4:15 am, and slept in until about 9:30. The morning was rough, but the kids were great about not waking Mike on the pull-out sofa.

We had planned to go downtown to visit the farmers market and “VooDoo Doughnut”. Since Mika had not yet recovered from the Thai food, the 5 of us parked the jeep at “park-n-ride”, and took the train downtown. The kids really enjoyed waiting for and riding the train (and it’s fast). Mike takes this train each day to work, so he knew the drill. We got off the train right near pioneer square and in the middle of the market.

From there, we made the short walk to VooDoo Doughnuts. Quite a line (probably 300 feet?, and great for people watching. A few buskers, people in costumes, panhandlers etc. Surprisingly, the line went fast and it only took 40 minutes to get in.

A funny thing happened when we were waiting to get a cashier to order (we were next in line). There was a single guy (probably early 30’s) in front of us, we could tell he was placing a very specific order, but his voice was down so we couldn’t hear. The cashier was hustling to fill his “pink box”, and then he came back to the counter and “shouted”… “We’re all out of cock-n-balls, sorry, is there anything else I can get you instead?!?!?”. I just about lost it. I couldn’t help but think of a scene from the Woody Allen movie “Bananas”, where he’s buying a porno mag on the sly and stacks in in between Newsweek, Time, SI etc. The cashier gets to the smut, and hollers back to the back for a price check. “how much is XXXXXXX?!?!”. All the other patrons staring at Woody as hes sweating. (or the famous Swedish penis-pump scene in Austin Powers… “It’s not mine baby!”).

We grabbed a table outside, and ate a few doughnuts… they’re pretty darn good! Kat got approached by a bum for money and ran away.

We headed back toward the market, and got side-tracked at a candy store. I have to admit, I was busy watching updates on the Cards/Dodgers game 2 on my phone. About this time Wacha worked out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam (protecting a 1-0 lead), and I told Mike, that’s Game and Series… no way their coming back from that. Perhaps a bit premature, but it did work out eventually!

We went down to “food truck row” for lunch, where the Kids and Mike had burgers at “Brunch Box” (they were great), and Kim and I had Korean bbq tacos (also good). As were sitting there, we were approached by a beggar, and saw several others. Kim noted some young kids picking through the trash can and eating discarded scraps (or at least pretending). She gave them our left-over tacos (3 whole, untouched tacos), which they happily accepted. It did make us appreciate what we have for sure.

We were all a bit tired, so we headed back to the train.

Near the train stop, there was a one-man-band playing. He noticed Kat watching, and mid-song, he asked her for her name (several times). She was mortified, ran away, and hid (behind and under) the information sign at the train stop. He invited her to help him play, which she declined, but she did eventually take a buck over for his bucket. It was cute.

That night, Mike and Mika came over for dinner, (followed by more games). Kim gave up at about 12:30, Mike and I at maybe 3:30 or so. Mike stayed over again.

The next day, we all went over to Mike and Mika’s apartment to watch football. Kim made Clam Chowder for dinner, and Mike and I vegged out on the sofa watching the Chiefs beat the Raiders, and then caught some other close games. It was great. No games Sunday night, as we were all pooped.

Monday, Mike had to work, and we planned to go for a hike. The kids got into building Legos in the morning, and we decided to have “lego day”. We just hung out and built motorized legos (Kane made a house with a retractable roof, and Kat and I made a car). It was nice to just stay home and be creative with the kids.

 

Monday night, Mike and Mika came over and we had pizza. Then we played one more game of Agricola. Mike won this one handily. Kim had won the previous 2 (with me usually in 2nd).

Tuesday, we took the RV to be serviced (oil change, generator tune-up), and messed around in the jeep (visited the “end of the oregon trail museum”, did short hike, went to Target (a big deal), and went out to lunch at Red Robin (a big deal)).

Once we got the RV and hooked up to the jeep, Kim and I had a pretty interesting 5 minute conversation behind the RV about where to go next. We had decided earlier in the day to head East through Idaho and head for the Grand Canyon. Kane was really upset and wanted to go back to the Oregon coast. At the end of the discussion, we headed back to the coast. It’s such an amazing blessing to be able to have the flexibility to have those conversations about what the future holds. It’s so liberating!