Day 2: Portland

Day 2: Started the day at Voodoo Doughnuts, famous for their bacon-maple doughnut. AWESOME! Although we were apprehensive, the sweet and salty treat was incredible. We ate the doughnuts in the Tahoe on our way to the Evergreen museum in Mcminville. On our way out there we passed beautiful vineyards in the world renowned Willamette Valley. Something about the cool and dreary weather really highlighted the lush vegetation down in the valley. Jason remembered something in his high school science classes about higher nitrogen levels during storms that makes the green of plants more saturated in appearance. See,education stays with you for a lifetime, never take it for granted. We drove through various small towns with cottage style gardens in their front yards that gave way to enormous cedar and fir trees lining the road. Out of no where the trees cleared and the HUGE museum appeared to our right. In all honesty, we were expecting a far less statement than what the museum actually has. We toured the planes, most notably the Spruce Goose. Yes, THE Spruce Goose!! Howard Hughes, though "Two sanwhiches short of a picnic" as our decon Vietname vet said, really knew how to make a statement. The plane is spectacular! Though made entirely of wood, it only has a small amount of Spruce wood and is made mostly by Birch. The informational videos and signs really captured Hughes' personality. Our tour guide into the cockpit said that originally, the Goose was not supposed to fly on its inaugural day. However Hughes was a "Rule breaker, and by default a hero and badass"-Jason Hughes purposefully did not have a copilot on that historic day when he was only going to take the reporters on a "Taxi" through the bay. Two taxis later and a drop off of all but one reporter Hughes gunned the engines and flew the ship barely above the water and less than one mile, pissing off precisely everyone that he wanted to piss off HA!-American Hero!! We left the Goose Hanger and toured the Space Hanger where they had a SR71! This is the fastest, and highest flying KNOWN aircraft. Fun fact, the SR71 leaves the ground with almost an empty tank of gas and refuels in the air. This is due to the "Skin" of the plane-which feels like a chalkboard. The skin takes the fuel through all of its capillaries to cool the surface which approaches 400 degrees Fahrenheit. If the fuel tank was full on the ground, the plane would leek fuel on the ground because the capillaries expand and seal off the fuel only in the heat of breaking the sound barrier. This plane flies at Mach 3!! Or Los Angeles to Maine in 1 hour!! The docents of the museum were wonderful, most were Vets. We ended up meeting Bruce. Lo and behold, he and his wife are YouTube celebrities as "The Happy Huffmans". Very nice guy, he let us privately climb on a plane and pose with 50 caliber guns. Joseph remembered shooting these in the navy on the Kittyhawk and he said "it was so much fun" On the way back we stopped at Red Hills Market. Yelp suggested the Roast beef sandwich and DAMN was it good! On our way to Portland! Fun day of Sightseeing. We took LP to see the majestic Columbia Gorge waterfalls (Horsetail Falls, etc...) and the Historic 30 scenic view. For kicks (and so LP could do his WA FourSquare checkin!) we took a jaunt over to Washington state to hunt for natural hotsprings. Alas, these were all safely guarded by hotel properties or wealthy locals; we briefly flirted with the idea of starting an OCCUPY RURAL WASHINGTON movement but were quickly discouraged by the pouring rain. FAIL. Back to Portland We stormed back into the River City to knock out a few final purchases. We visited a badASS bicycle store (River City Cycles) with the friendliest staff imaginable. LP decided that one of his retirement plans would include owning a bicycle store, even if at a loss ;-) After RCC, we went to the gorgeous Starbucks overlooking a plaza in downtown Portland to refuel. LP was all smiles after getting his collectible SBUX mug, but it didn't come close to Crazy Cathy (that is a fictional name to mask her true identity, although it's debatable if she knows said identity). Cathy--truly crazy, or "Station 3" as the ER Department would say at Methodist Hospital, and her friend- a voluntary transient-were jamming out to their CD's on a portable CD player in a way none of us had ever seen before. Jason was blown away by her Madonna Insta-Shrine - she picked up her Madonna CD and gave it a big wet kiss followed by a belted rendition of LIKE A VIRGIN. We also couldn't help but love how Cathy and her Accolyte reveled at a Sarah McLaughlin song about her dog. LP needed to visit a CyberCafé to send off a little outstanding GE work, so we visited BackSpace. This place was a smorgasbord of PDX personalities - hipsters, cyber surfers, people pretending to be busy mashing their keyboards and a bearded stocky man in a rainbow-lit transparent vinyl raincoat. He was definitely the mover & shaker in the joint. Faced with growling stomachs, the trio headed back towards the Tahoe in search of food. Upon the cold and painful realization that our Noodle House eatery was nothing more than a shacked up food truck (most eateries close at 20h apparently) we walked right past the 24H Subway ("I will NOT eat Subway on vacation!" -LP) and peeled off for our hotel-recommended FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN. The joint was packed and we were grumpy - at the snap of a word our meal transformed into a series of TOGO boxes. We turned in for an early night, wolfing down super spicy wings and chicken sandwiches watching Rob Dyrdek's RIDICULOUSNESS on MTV (nothing like watching people hurting themselves in poorly thought-out games!) LP NOTE: Jason felt it was important to highlight that I not only did not care for the Playboy model on the show, but that I was indeed partial to the other female guest's teeth. In all, we had a great day of doing everything and nothing. Off to assemble our bikes and hit the road for CRESCENT CITY!!