My Vacation (or “You Can’t Swing a Dead Cat in Portland Without Hitting a Vegan”)

I just got back from a long weekend in Portland, Oregon. Though I really wanted to visit my dear friend Heidi, I was a little reticent to visit the Pacific Northwest, as I had visions of hippies & smokers dancing in my head.

First & foremost, I am happy to report that my vision has officially been shattered. Though Portland is definitely rife with the aforementioned smokers & hippies (and vegans, I discovered), it also had a really good element of people who are just generally cool.

I will now make a list of what I liked:
• Heidi & crew
• All bars serve food
• No sales tax
• Guns & Roses Pinball
• Watching movies on the sidewalk
• Getting wasted in a bar that used to be a school (didn’t have time to go to the funeral parlor one)
• Taking along a framed picture of a coworker as my travelling companion (and sharpies, which allowed hilarious defacement)

I don’t want to make a similar list for the things that bugged me, but I will mention the one huge fly in my ointment: it was SO EFFING HOT!! Seriously, are you kidding me?! We had to compensate for the heat by drinking that much more heavily….and we did, oh how we did.

So now I am back. Went straight from the airport to work. Gotsta go pick up little Mathilda at my friend Martha’s after work…I missed that little wiener. I was, however, comforted during the trip by 2 surrogate dogs – Chico the Rat Terrier mix & Poppy the Pug/Boston Terrier mix. They slept with me every night & kept me company with their snore serenade.

All in all, it was a very successful trip – highly recommended.