PORTLAND

12/15
So we're finally in Portland. I've been itching to get since we got to Seattle.
There was hanging out and biking. This city is awesome for biking. You can get anywhere.
Later, Powells City of Books! A new/used book store that takes up an entire city block.

12/16
Coffee, crossword puzzles, Goodwill. Alas, not the bins. Those are farther south.
Went to Red Light and found a rad tiger bandanna.

Later we went to Fred Myer for some sandwiches and a beer. As we're noshing in the cafe area, drinking our beers, we are approached by an store manager looking fellow who proceeds to grill us about whether we are actually drinking beer in the store or not. Hmmm, well it does seem to be the case BUT we did purchase them here AND showed ID for them so what is the fuss? So we capped them (the beers) and left.
Biked onward to Mt.Tabor. The only volcano in city limits in the US.



The Culprits.


View from top of Mt.Tabor, looking down Hawthorne Ave towards Downtown



12/17
Making Christmas cards and writing letters.
Drove out to the Goodwill Bins, food a decent hoodie and a book.
Later we went to a show at Hungry Tiger Too and while we were there I ran into another long lost Asheville expat, Emily. Actually, Emily Stefania and I all had lived together back in Asheville in the infamous Woodfin House about 2 or 3 years ago and after she left I completely forgot that she moved out here.

Later we ended up crashing over at the phenomenal Clare's abode at a ridiculously late hour.

12/18
Something happened here, I do not recall.
It was probably cold and rainy


This is some wall mosses and ferns outside. This is everywhere here.

Seattle Summary

12/12


James in the hall/spot-were-sleeping of the Black Lodge


Went to the free market. This isn't so much a market as a place to get a bunch of free day-old or about-to-expire food run by the Food Not Bombs folk of Seattle. Luckily there weren't too many people there due to the weather. I managed to grab a tiny pumpkin pie, some kale, apples, avocados, potatoes, and a few of those tiny red bananas. Sadly the bananas turned out to be quite unripe and tasted terrible. I got a ripe one from the store at a later date and can confirm that they are, indeed, delicious.


ALSO got this crazy looking fruit(?) called a Buddah's Hand. It seems to be composed entirely of lemon rind. Later in the week I saw one at a grocery store selling for $9

Later that night we went with Kelsey, a friend of Malia's, to Shorty's and the Lava Bar. Shorty's is a pinball themed bar with a dozen or so pinball machines in the back room. Pretty cool.


Pinball

Lava Bar is a bar similar in atmosphere to that of the Yacht Club of Asheville, but significantly cooler. There is shuffle board. And Witchcraft came on as soon as I walked in...



12/13
Rain, cold.
Coffee, food.
The rain started coming down pretty hard wwhen we were biking to the store in the evening. It didn't seem to be all that bad at first but when we were almost there an extremely strong gust of wind stopped us on our bikes, in the middle of the road. We had to get off of our bikes and go hide behind a building. Crazy.


12/14
Biking, Stumptown coffee time.
Left for Portland around 4:30, got there around 9pm.
We went to a friend of James's house, a fantastic hot by the name of Madeline.
Later in the evening I biked across town to hang out with a good friend I hadn't seen in quite awhile. One Stefania Shea. It was a pleasant evening of hanging out.
WOOT

Sorry for the interuption, Soup Bar will now resume it's normal-ish schedule

WOW. I just slacked off on an entire month of this... damn...

Alright. So I guess that means I have alot of catching up to do. (Hmm, well I did do that little crafty earring post. But before that...)

And go.

12/9-12/10
EPIC DRIVE PART II

So we get out of Denver around 2pm. What time we leave really will make no difference on this leg of the journey because it'll take even longer than the previous one!

So we're headed to Salt Lake City where a friend of Eli lives. I'll be able to take an extended nap there and then we'll get back on the road.


Driving through Colorado? Wyoming? Utah? Probably Colorado. The mountains are epic.






Colorao/Wyoming had alot of this stuff. High plains drifter.


I can not get enough of these rocks and shit. Sadly I was the only one awake to operate the camera.






This is the view we're treated to as we get ready to head into Utah. Exciting, huh? No.

When we got into Utah there was alot of rad rock formations but they were all hidden by the inky night. So... nothing picture wise. I hope to see some more when we get down to the southwest.

We make it to SLC around 2am. Along the way I got pulled over by a state trooper due to one of the headlights being out. Completely ruined my drafting position behind this one truck. D:
Seriously though, the head wind out there is ridiculous. You need to draft if you wanna get anywhere and retain some decent mpg.
The cop was kind of amusing, he was very confused about what why how we're doing.
"Do you have jobs?" "Where are you from?
"Where do you live?" "Why are you going there?"
"Do you have marijuana in the vehicle?" gives me a c'mon be honest look, "any at all?"
Anywho, I only got a warning. Huzzah!

Our host in SLC was awesome, can't recall his name but twas very hospitable and gracious.

I nap, they socialize. We get burritos around 4am and then continue onward.

Around 6 or 7am there was a really scary snow pass. It went something like this:
Just driving up this mountain side
doot doot doo doo doo
la la la
hmmm that looks like snow ahead
...
*WHOOMP*
visibility is reduced to 20 ft. WHERE DID THE ROAD GO?
ok, ill just follow those big trucks up ahead
SUNN O))) DRONING ON
driving 30mph the whole time, and then getting to go down the other side of the pass

It felt like it took an hour and it probably did.


I took this picture at the bottom of the pass. There was more snow but no where near as bad. I could at least go 45mph.


Clearing up a bit

All the snow eventually disappeared and the countryside began to get interesting again. James was asleep for almost all of this. As was Eli, I think. Dharma was snuggly and stuff.




This is Dharma being cute and resting her head and paw on my shoulder. This dog rocks.


scrub


a nice reflection of all the crap on the dashboard


a poor view of some plateaus


later on in the day, more grass land.




DHARMA!


By noon I had been up for 20 some hours, so Eli drove for a bit. I only napped for about 45 minutes but when I awoke we were heading into the middle of more snow. Lots of it.







playing with sunglasses as a filter


more filter fun


This looked really interesting. We almost stopped to go check it out but the weather was looking portentous and there was no where to really pull off the road.




and the snow really starts to come down




we make it to the other side


These high tension power line towers were cracking me up. They look like there just ambling about, shrugging their shoulders...


AND WE MADE IT TO SEATTLE. This picture describes how I felt when we got there.

We got there around 10pm. 32 hours later. We dropped off Eli and Dharma at the Space Needle and then went to go find The Black Lodge, a place our friend Malia had recommended us and had notified some friends of hers that we were in town and so they had a place for us to stay. Hurray.
There was a show going on so no sleep until 3am but I ate all of it.


Space Needle on the left.





12/11
Recovery. Coffee. Beer. Pizza.


Later there is a crust/grindcore show at Black Lodge.
I manage to catch Dodsfalla and Streetwalker. Both were good, I dug Dodsfalla alot.
Check em out.