Portland International Beer Festival

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Friday night Joe and I met up with Tu, our friend from Charleston who used to work in Rocky Mount, NC with Joe and now works for Boeing and was in Washington for business. We went out for some Korean barbeque for dinner. We ordered a combo plate which had far too much bacon meat for our liking, but everything else was wonderful. Afterwards we did what Asians love to do…go to the casino! We drove up to Tulalip Casino in Marysville. I had forgotten that you could smoke in there. The amount of sketchy people and stuffy air really made it an unpleasant time for me. But the guys played some games and seemed content.

Saturday morning Tu and his co-worker Andrew met us at our house at 8am to drive down to Portland, Oregon. It’s a 3.5 hour drive. We bought tickets to the Portland International Beer Festival.

Once we arrived in Portland, we drove by the North Blocks Park in the Pearl District to see if there was anywhere near there we’d like to eat for lunch before we start drinking at noon when the festival opens. The Pearl District is really nice with narrow tree-lined streets, streetcars and light-rail passing by frequently and lots of cute little shops. We ended up just eating some quick sandwiches and hydrating on water.

Joe dropped us off and took the car over to the hotel across the river. We had sampled about 3 4oz beers by the time he made it to the festival. The good thing about getting there when it opened was we were able to snag a table for 4 with an umbrella. We were really worried it was going to rain on us that day, but we lucked out, having some great sunny weather that day.

After drinking for 2 hours, we knew we’d need something to do while we drank the day away. Tu and Andrew left in search of a gas station or somewhere that might sell a deck of cards. The 2 were gone at least 30 minutes. Apparently they saw a good bit of downtown Portland, including Chinatown and many boarded up storefronts before finally locating a deck of cards for sale.

We played a game of spades which Andrew and I don’t know too well or are too good at. Afterwards we played some @sshole. As soon as someone established the rule of beer b!tch has to refill drinks while @sshole deals, the night took a turn. We were no longer trying new beers for the taste, we were drinking whatever beer was brought back to us.

I met up with my friend Lauren, from our undergrad NCSU days. She took me to the best food carts in town to have an amazing ham & gruyere cheese crepe. It was great to catch up and talk about what all our architecture friends are up to. Lauren introduced me to one of her architecture friends that works in Seattle was down visiting Portland as well. For dinner, the guys ordered food from nearby food carts serving everything from hot dogs to Vietnamese.

When I got back from dinner with Lauren, the guys had made friends with 2 guys San Jose that flew up for the beer festival weekend. They played Hearts with us for the remainder of the festival. There was never an empty glass on the table since the odd-man out not playing (usually Tu) was refilling everyone’s 4 oz tasting glasses.

We used up the last of our tickets close to last call around 9pm. We walked out of the festival to make our way to Voodoo doughnuts, which is world famous. There were 2 rickshaw drivers at the exit willing to bike the 4 of us the 8 blocks or so to the shop. I’m glad we did that and didn’t have to find it on our own as it was getting darker by the minute.

The line at Voodoo was long out the door stretching at least 50 feet. Apparently it is like that all the time, so it must be good. We came all this way so we were going to wait for donuts. There were donuts covered in Captain Crunch, Fruit Loops, Coco Puffs, M&Ms, you name it! Tu ordered the bacon maple bar which has maple frosting and bacon on top. He said it wasn’t that good. I got the Cock-N-Balls which is the shape of well, you know what, topped with chocolate frosting and filled with Bavarian cream.

I don’t remember taking any of these pictures that night, but sometimes that’s when you get the best ones. At least it explains why I don’t know why I ordered what donut I did; I was too busy snapping photographs to read the menu board.

As we sat on stoop on the street eating our beloved donuts, countless people passed by commenting on my donut, knowing exactly which one it was! It was quite hilarious. People were asking us to stop and take a picture of them holding our cherished bright pink box of goodness from Voodoo. It was definitely a night to remember!

Our House

Finally I’m posting photos of our new place on the west coast. We are renting a single family house in Mill Creek, WA, 23 miles north of Seattle. It is a 2 story, 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath 1750sf home built in 2000. It was recently bought during this down economy by a couple that works for Microsoft to use as a rental property. It sucks that we’re basically paying his mortgage payment, but it’s a great place in a great location for us both.

This was a picture taken one slightly rainy, partly cloudy day. The more rain we get, the more rainbows we see. From the front of the house, the 2 smaller windows on the right are on the upper level of the 2 story entry near the stairs. The arch window is in the guest bedroom/office.

The entry is a 2 story space with hardwood floors. There are a lot of ledges. The door in the carpeted space is a coat closet. The smaller door is the downstairs half bath.

The living room has a gas fireplace and wood mantle. There is a large 8’ wide sliding glass door out onto the back deck.

The dining room has a bay window to the backyard and is open to the kitchen on one side and the living room on the other. There is an eat-in bar separating the dining room and kitchen.

The kitchen has white tile countertops. The upper cabinets are really tall and have way more storage space than we had before. The refrigerator is the 2 door kind with the freezer and ice dispenser on the left side. The pantry is huge and next to it is a desk which is a great dumping ground for stuff on our way in from the garage.

This is the view after entering in the garage, but my favorite new piece is hanging in the garage: new comfort bikes good for both the rode and interurban trails.

Upstairs there is a large landing with French doors to the master bedroom as well as doors to 2 bedrooms, a linen closet, laundry room and guest bathroom.  We close one of the doors to our bedroom so Chance has a corner to curl up in.

The front bedroom is larger and used as the guest bed and office with all my sewing and scrapbooking supplies. There are still a few boxes in here of books and such that need to find a home eventually.

The third bedroom facing our strange neighbors (which we believe are 2 families living in one house and has many kids coming over to use their trampoline right outside our window) is the gym with Joe’s bowflex. The washer and dryer that come with the house are located here since they aren’t as nice as my front-loaders we bought a few years ago.

The guest bathroom has a combo shower tub and the sink has white tile countertops.

The master bedroom has an amazing view out the back of the house to the east, towards the Cascade Mountains. I can’t wait to finally find nice bedroom furniture in a few months.

The master bath has another great window to the Cascades above the oval tub. There is a separate glass shower and double sink vanity. The walk-in closet is off the master bath.

The back deck is as big as our old back patio. We have an assortment of potted herbs getting more and more sunlight by the day with only supplementing occasionally for water instead of rainwater. While Joe was grilling dinner, Chance enjoyed watching, hoping she might get to eat some of which smelt so good. Here you get to an idea of who our neighbors are. The neighbors behind us, beyond the fence have an RV camper in the yard that we think the Grandpa lives in. I already mentioned how the next door neighbor to the right has a trampoline only a few feet from our yard.

 While Joe was grilling dinner, Chance enjoyed watching, hoping she might get to eat some of which smelt so good.