Anya and Rob’s place was fabulous! They are renting a room from an artist named Remedios Rapoport. She is a very talented lady and uses words as a main focus in most of her paintings. Her most recent piece is a mobile with ways to create a better world. She was trying to shorten the width before sending it to Boston (I think that was it’s destination…). I helped her measure things and got to find out a little bit about her life. She’s always been into painting but worked as a sign painter for a number of years before becoming a professional painter.  Check her out for yourself at www.remediosrapoport.com.

Anyhow… Moving on…

Shortly after we arrived at Anya and Rob’s place on Tuesday (Day 44), Rob left for work and Anya took me biking through Portland. (Poor Mike had to be a responsible adult and work all day.) Our first stop was at a restaurant called Vege Thai. AWESOME vegetarian food! We walked down Hawthorne Street and checked out some of the interesting little shops. Then we visited Rob at work. He works at a non-profit computer recycling place called Free Geek. They provide computers for those who can’t afford them and recycle the parts that they don’t need. He’s interning there for the summer as well as fixing up bikes on the side to sell. After that, Anya showed me a park area across the bridge and then Powell’s Book Store which just so happens to be the largest book store in the world! (I love bookstores! ) We spent quite some time there. I didn’t buy any books, but Anya found two that interested her. Around 7p, we met back up with Rob at Free Geek to bike home with him. Some of his co-workers were going to Rock Bottom Brewery (I think that was the name…) for an organic beer and invited us to join. Great beer! Plus, the people were really nice. When the three of us finally got back to the house, it was getting late, so Anya, Rob, Mike, and I watched comedians on YouTube and called it a night. Remedios asked me to help her in her painting room, so I was the last the go to bed.

On Wednesday (Day 45), Rob and Anya made us apple pancakes. Mmmm…. SO GOOD! Then they both went out to work and left us home. Mike worked through the morning and then I chatted with Remedios in her studio. For lunch, I convinced Mike to leave the house and grab lunch at a French restaurant that Remedios recommended. I know he talked about it in his blog, so I won’t say much other than that the food was fantastic. Then, like he said, we walked down Hawthorne Street where Anya had taken me yesterday. There was a bedspread I wanted to check out, but it was a way out of my price range. No matter. Cool little shops.

Mike worked for a bit once when we got back to the house while I read my book in the backyard. It was a nice day and I decided it would be good to get some fresh air. We stopped by Anya’s work before leaving Portland to say goodbye. She works at a plant nursery down the road from where she lives. I love all the plants in Oregon. There is such variety! And it was great to see her, but I was sad to say goodbye. She and Rob are great people and I miss them like crazy.

Eugene has been a lot of fun so far. It’s fun to see Mike catch up with his old friend, Anna. She and Nate have been wonderful to us and we really appreciate it. Dinner was fabulous and then we went to a bar down the road for some music. The music wasn’t playing when we got there, but we drank pear cider, anyway. Neither of us had ever tried it, but it was very good.

Love and miss you all!

Shay

Hey all.  Shay and I are going to break down the past couple of days from our own perspective and our own adventures.  Here is my take on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

I have a pretty easy blog entry, actually.  I really haven’t done much other than work the past couple of days.  I’ve been working hard to keep up with things back in Minnesota so we can enjoy time off here and there without having to worry if things are falling apart in my professional world.  It’s been challenging, but successful.  So in the end, it all works out.

Yesterday, after mucho pleading and prying, Shay finally convinced me to take some time off and check out the Hawthorne and Division Streets of Eastern Portland.  We grabbed some lunch at a french place called Petite Province.  The food was fabulous and the waitstaff, although French, was actually quite friendly.  After lunch, we then went to Hawthorne street because Shay wanted to check out a bedspread she saw the day before when hanging out with Anya and Rob.  We went to check it out and although I can’t say rating bedspreads is a strength of mine, this one was very nice and unique.  You could tell it was hand-sewn and the attention to detail was superior.  But when asking the help how much is was, Shay fell less in love with it.  It was $500 for the spread and the pillow cases. She said she could knock it down to $450, but uh, no way.

Once we were done with walking around town, we headed back to the house and started to pack up and head to Eugene. I must say, the people we stayed with in Portland were super friendly people. Very hospitable and a lot of fun. And it was good to see Shay happy when being around Anya and Rob. You could tell she really missed them and was happy to be around them, if only for a short while.  So, we packed up, visited Anya at her work one last time and then headed down to Eugene to visit my friends.

We’re staying with Anna Warnes and her husband Nate Erickson.  Anna and I graduated high school together and really haven’t been in contact with one another until the past year.  Right before Shay and I headed out on this trip, I contacted Anna (knowing she was living in Oregon) and asked her about places to stay and see and all that good jazz. She was helpful with providing some information and as things turned out, we stayed in contact throughout the trip.  Right before we hit Oregon, she sent me a message on Facebook saying that if we come through Eugene, we should stop in and even crash here we’d like to. After talking with Shay and figuring out where we wanted to be and when, we thought staying in Eugene would make perfect sense and we took Anna and Nate up on their offer.

We got into town last night and spent the entire evening catching up with what we’ve all been doing since high school (which seems so long ago now…).  They made us dinner and bought some local microbrews that we sampled.  It was very delicious, all of it.  So after dinner, we walked to a bar that was nearby just to see what the Eugene atmosphere was like on a Wednesday night.  It wasn’t too crazy, but then again, we didn’t go out too late either.  We had one drink, sat around outside and then left. Nothing too crazy or wild, in fact, that seems to be the running theme when it comes to drinking and going out on the town for this trip.  Which is fine, actually, it makes the trip a lot less expensive.

Today, day 46, we’re gonna play by ear and write a blog about it when the time comes to say something.  We have unposted pictures from Portland still.  I’ll get those up sometime today.  Watch for Shay’s take on the past couple days in an upcoming blog!

Today we got to sample what downtown Seattle has to offer. We started by checking out the Space Needle downtown. It was built in the 60’s for the World’s Fair. We bought the tickets and went up to the observation deck. The view was spectacular. The only downside was the overcast skies, but it didn’t take away from the beauty Seattle and the Washington area has to offer. It was quite spectacular.

Once we were done with visiting the Space Needle, we checked out two museums that were nearby. One was a science fiction museum and the other was a music museum. Both were cool and had a lot to offer. I don’t think Shay appreciated the Sci-Fi museum as much as I did. The music museum was pretty cool. They had all sorts of guitars you could see and read the history about. We enjoyed that immensely. They even had a part of the museum where you could play and jam on instruments. They had guitars, bass guitars, drum kits and keyboards you could play around with. Very cool!

After we browsed the museums, we headed towards the world famous Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. We walked around and browsed the local fare and shops. We grabbed some sandwiches and just people watched. It was nice. It was cool seeing the market people throw around the fish and yelling back and forth. Just watch your head!

We left Seattle in the afternoon and headed towards Portland. We’re staying at a hotel nearby the airport. I’m hoping to leave early tomorrow morning and hit Minneapolis sometime in the afternoon. Shay will visit her friend Andrew in Corvallis, Oregon while I’m gone. I expect to be back in Portland on Monday sometime. Meanwhile, don’t expect a lot of updates to the site unless Shay gets bored and ends up doing things worth posting while in Corvallis.

So, until then, keep well and stay safe everyone!

Day 37 Pictures