My Northwest Spring Break Adventure

It's been three days into this spring break adventure of mine, and it's already been more than eventful enough. But first, you guys must meet my trusty traveling companions.

James T. Caddey "Hollywood" as I like to call him, you might have seen his blog, The Collegiate Handyman.

Anna Arleen Koenig, or better known as Whaleus maximus. She doesn't have an Internet blog because she uses a Macintosh.

I've been lucky enough to tag along with these two, eating their snack food that they packed and generally sleeping in the back seat of Anna's car. Also can't forget the all important:

Katie Scalibrine Koenig, sister of the Wahleus Maximus and purchaser of our hotel room when we stayed in Portland.

The first day consisted of Anna, James and I roadtripping it from Cheney, Wash. to Portland. Along the way we got to see such Washington tourist traps like Ritzville, Tri-Cities and The Dalles.

Anyone from the Northwest knows what kind of money these places bring in based on their attractiveness and foreigners wanting to get their photos in from of the "Welcome to the 250th largest metropolitan area in the United States" sign.

Also a word of warning for you that decided to vacation in Oregon. People are required by law to pump your gas here. So when they approach your vehicle, avoid spraying them with a can of raid and drop kicking them in the sweet spot. They're just trying to fill up your tank.

Also Oregon tends to turn a bunch of people into wine snobs, I was no exception as I got five free samples of some fine Oregon wine at a local vineyard just outside of Portland. It also gave me an excuse to drink at two in the afternoon.

Just before we got into Portland we passed by Multnomah Falls (pictured above), to which the whale commented as "not being that big of deal"

However after further research (wikipedia) I discovered that Multnomah Falls is the second tallest year-round waterfall in the United States after Yosemite Falls.

The third being David Hasselhof's drool when he's drunk.

Once we were settled in at our hotel, where Katie had met us from driving down from Bellingham, we met up with her friend Brittney and decided that 5:30 p.m. was an excellent time to start drinking (again).

First was Rogue (makers of Dead Guy Ale) Public House, which is local Oregon brewer. We chowed down dinner there and had some fancy beers (Or as I like to say "burs") and also went to the Bridgeport Brewery for some more fancy "burs" all in downtown Portland.

Feeling subsequently nice, we then were dropped off by Brittney at the Cellar bar which was an underground Mecca for Guinness-like beer, stories about high school athletics (?!?!?!) and good directions for more bars.

Our next bar, Ground Kontrol was heaven on earth for emo kids. It had essentially every classic arcade game you could think of, nintendos, ataris and playstations for sale. Games too. A nicely stocked bar with goodies. And techno music.

Not sure if enjoyed the techno music, but I did like to judge which emo kid were wearing girls pants and which weren't.

After this we snuck down into some wonderfully seedy bar called the Shanghi Tunnel where we ate fries with chopsticks.

And then, the Jupiter Bar.

Three mixed drinks later it was time to go home. Final count: 2 breweries, 4 bars and one vineyard. Hell of a night.

The next day can be completely written off as mentioned in the earlier blog, except for the Trailblazers game...

Portland sure does support their team, as their state-of-the-art arena of over 20,000 seats was nearly sold out on a Tuesday. Looks like when the Sonics move to Oklahoma, I'll have to jump ship here. Or maybe I already have.