Portland, Oregon 09/05/2018 - 09/09/2018
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The Itinerary:
Leave LAX 3:00pm Wednesday Sept. 5th
Get to Portland 7:15 pm Wednesday Sept. 5th
Leave Portland 7:51 am Sunday Sept 9th
Get to LAX 10:43 am
Wednesday Sept. 5th
Bollywood theatre
North
11am - 10pm
McMenamins Kennedy School
North
4p - 1a
Voodoo Doughnut
North West
24 hours
Thursday Sept. 6th
Kruger’s Farm - pick berries and honey
North West
Jet liner home:
Bald Peak Rd (near), Hillsboro, OR
West
Shanghai tunnels
North West
9a - 11p
Freakybuttrue Peculiarium
Northwest
10am - 8pm
Pok pok - bbq wings
North west
1130a - 10p
East
Go tubing at sandy river Drop off point- Dabney State Recreation Area
North East
Powell's books (good on a rainy day)
North
9a - 11p
rare book room 11a - 7p
Screen door - comfort food
Northwest
Saturday Sept. 8th
Hike at forest park.
north west
Saturday market
North West
10am - 5p
Salt & Straw - ice cream
North West
11-11p
Take a Picture in ace hotel
North
Go to a roller derby
North
Worlds smallest park
North west
Le Pigeon - Pigeon
North West
5-10p
My Check-ins
Pigeon and sushi pie
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Airplane Home.
September 8 at 5:20 PM · Hillsboro, OR ·
Come fly with me
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Portland Saturday Market.
September 8 at 2:13 PM · Portland, OR
Can't find anything special
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and Bear Redbourn at End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive & Visitor Information Center.
September 8 at 12:20 PM · Oregon City, OR ·
Died of dysentery.
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and Ellie Bear at Oregon City Year Round Farmers Market.
September 8 at 11:45 AM · Oregon City, OR ·
I wanna buy everything!
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and Bear Redbourn at Oregon City Municipal Elevator.
September 8 at 11:10 AM · Oregon City, OR ·
Meh
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Peculiarium.
September 7 at 5:01 PM · Portland, OR ·
I want a firetruck!
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Mill Ends Park.
September 7 at 4:04 PM · Portland, OR ·
Worlds smallest park
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Shanghai tunnels.
September 7 at 3:38 PM · Portland, OR ·
Best sushi in town
The rare book room
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Ace Hotel Portland.
September 7 at 2:07 PM · Portland, OR ·
Where is the photobooth?
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Forest Park - Ridge Trailhead.
September 7 at 1:23 PM · Portland, OR ·
Foresty
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Floatin' Barton To Carver On The Clackamas River.
September 6 at 8:00 PM · Damascus, OR ·
Listen to the rivers and the lakes like you used to.
Don't go chasing waterfalls.
Leo Mass is eating Lovely Food with Elena Kolm and Ellie Bearat Screendoor Restaurant.
September 6 at 11:58 AM · Portland, OR ·
Green fried tomatoes and praline bacon.
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and John St.John at Voodoo Doughnut (1501 NE Davis St., Portland, OR).
September 5 at 11:02 PM · Portland, OR ·
Mmmm ddoouughhnnuutttsss
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and John St.John at McMenamins Kennedy School.
September 5 at 10:35 PM · Portland, OR ·
School is in session
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Bollywood Theater.
September 5 at 8:54 PM · Portland, OR ·
We made it.
Music: TLC - Waterfalls
Getting Ready For The Trip
In our last episode trying to go to Hawaii but ending up cancelling because of a volcano eruption. We had to cancel our flights and rebook for the last minute Cancun trip. Thank God we got travel insurance and after a lot of back and forth with United, we finally got our money back. Now, everything was pretty much squared away but wait. From my Russia Experience, I knew that after cancelling a flight, you get flight credit. It was a far fetched idea because we already got our refunds from the cancelled flight to Hawaii, but I tried anyway. To mine and Yelena's surprise, it worked! We are flying to Portland pretty much free of charge. We had to pay a bit extra because we couldn't use Kevin's ticket as payment because he wasn't coming and it was only a one way trip with United to Hawaii. So, a free flight to Portland, yay! Using United again... boo!
09/05/2018 Wednesday
Yelena and I are all packed and ready to go. Dad drops us off at the flyaway and the bus is already there waiting for us this time. We get on and on our way to terminal number 7 at the airport, I already got this memorized. We get there and luckily none of us have any bags to check in, we just brought carry-ons. I was very impressed that we were able to travel with just two carry-ons. We find our gate and sit next to it. I made sure I had the stupid United App this time from our previous flight so I'm all set. Plane gets in just fine and we board. I wait to start my app till after take off because I know how this works and it doesn't start until we get a certain elevation up in the air. We get up in the air, and excited, I start the app on the phone. Which movie should I watch... I go through the list and choose one. "Error: App needs to be updated." You know that meme of Steve Carrell's character saying no over and over from the office?
That's how I felt. So frustrating, it's unbelievable! Guess what United, I can't download the stupid update to the app because there is no internet!!! I keep saying I won't fly United anymore, but they keep sucking me back in. Thank God there is a layover in San Francisco and I can try to upload it. Yelena was also smart enough to pre-load some tv series on her tablet so we watched a tv show sharing the headphones, left one in my ear and right one in hers.
We get to San Francisco without problems. While we are waiting for our next plane. I quickly sign onto the wifi and oh man, Silicon Valley, you are doing it right. They have an option to sign onto a 2.4g or a 5g network and it works! Without any gimmicks or having to watch ads or anything. Just click on sign in and you're in. I just hope they have internet on their Bart system also by now. Los Angeles is getting way behind with technology and I don't like it.
I look for the stupid United App and it says that I have the updated version already! Which means that there isn't anything that I could have done to watch a movie on the plane. Whatever, I uninstall the app I have on my phone and install it again, hoping that on the next plane this wouldn't happen again.
The next plane comes on time and we board. I try the app again and hoorah it finally works. I start watching the new Jumanji. about a quarter of the way it freezes. Odd, must be my phone, so I start everything over and it freezes at the exact same spot! I decide to skip forward but in order to do that I had to restart the app again. I skipped forward, it played for a bit ,then the audio cut off. I skipped forward again and the audio was back. I tried to go back, but the audio was cut off again which means that the video was uploaded this way. Whoever thought of this terrible way to entertain people on the plane with their own phones on apps that don't even work should try this out themselves and see how they like it, because I can't seem to understand it.
We finally get to Portland and quickly exit because we didn't have any luggage to wait for, which was pretty awesome. We are staying with my friends, Ellie and Allen. Allen was nice enough to order a Lyft for us. In Portland Lyft is the more popular rideshare company as opposed to Uber in Los Angeles. I didn't even know you can schedule a pick up for people but he did and we got picked up. Allen then texts me to say that he lives in a flag lot. I have no idea what a flag lot is, so I text him back to ask to explain. He sends me this informative diagram:
We do have something like these in Los Angeles but I never knew what they were called until now. Shaped like a flag, I get it. We get to their house and it is a very nice house. We were greeted by their 2 dogs and 2 cats.
They showed us our room upstairs and warned us that there is a train close by and it always choo choos at night. We didn't really think anything of it because we were so grateful that we were staying there already. We changed really quick and without missing a beat we asked Ellie and Allen if they wanted to go out since it was only 7:00 pm. They said they were tired but were even more generous in letting us borrow their car. It was a Subaru Outback and on the steering wheel they had a turning knob. I've never used one before so I tried it. I didn't think it was very useful, I guess people need to get used to it. However, I treated it like a fidget spinner while driving so I guess it can make the drive less boring.
Our first stop was Bollywood Theatre. I thought it was going to be a restaurant plus a Bollywood movie type deal but it was just an Indian Restaurant with a silent movie playing in the background.
I have decided I don't much like Indian food. Too many ingredients for me to enjoy and I can never get used to curry. I will still eat Indian food, it just won't be my go to restaurant.
After we finished, we drove to our next location called McMenamins Kennedy School. It's supposed to be a school themed bar. We put in the name and started driving according to our phone based google gps. We drive to what looks like an actual school. "Is this it?" We find parking on the side and there weren't any lights or anything inviting us in. "I think this is a real school," I tell Yelena doubting the directions the GPS has given us. We decide to try anyway, we get to the side school door and turn the handle. The handle doesn't turn, so I pull anyway. The door swings open as if someone didn't lock it right. We go in and see a few people roaming around in the halls. Still not really sure if it's a real school or not, we explore and finally find a bar with dimmed red lights. A tiny one, quaint but we decided to keep walking. Another tiny bar, I mean no more than 30 square feet where there are only like 2 tables in each one. We keep walking and see that this isn't only a school with bars in it but it is actually a hotel. McMenamins has taken an old school building and turned it into a hotel/bar. We keep walking and alas a huge bar down stairs in what used to be the broiler room of the school. Really cool actually. We decided to sit down at the big bar and wait for my friend John who promised to come and join us.
Shortly afterwards John showed up and we caught up. John lives in Washington not too far away from where we were. I haven't seen him since he moved to Washington for some time and it was great catching up.
We decided to roam around for a bit more and look at the creepy school paintings on the walls from when this was an actual school. Many group photos of students that went there and other interesting pictures. I loved it.
John decided to join us for our next stop which was Voodoo Doughnuts.
We get there no problem and order pretty much one of everything. I know we now have Voodoo Donuts in Los Angeles, but this is where they started. All in all, the donuts were subpar. Friends that have traveled to Oregon before warned me about this and told me to go to Blue Star Donuts instead, but they would have been closed by now and there wasn't any other time we would have went. Oh well next time. I'm not really a donut person anyway but so far the best donut place is Krispy Kreme in Burbank.
We say our goodbyes to John and head back home to sleep. We were greeted by their pets and one of the cats decided to sleep with us, right by our feet. I've never seen a cat actually sleep at the feet rather than chest or straight up face. It was actually nice. Then we heard it at 2:00 am, a train coming down the tracks and a huge Choo Choo. I was surprised it didn't shake the house it was so close. We went back to bed and slept quite nicely.
09/06/2018 Thursday
We wake up and are greeted by Ellie. We decide to go eat breakfast at the Screendoor. Ellie drives us there and we walk right in. Ellie was surprised because there is usually a wait, but they seated us right then and there instead. We ordered what seemed to be just 3 plates for us to share, but surprisingly it was still a lot of food.
The food was great. The best dish was definitely the Praline Bacon and the Green Fried Tomatoes came a close second.
Our next stop was the Multnomah Waterfalls. First, you park in the middle of the freeway and then go under the freeway to get there. Pretty neat. You come to a river where little salmon that look like tadpoles are swimming. You go more up and you see the beautiful waterfall.
Then you can go further up onto the bridge that's on the photo.
It was beautiful. Usually people are allowed to hike up to see the bottom of the waterfall as well but there has been a terrible fire recently which was started by some kid and because of mudslides and other dangerous terrain, it was closed off. I was a bit sad about that. Oh well, at least they didn't close the waterfall down.
Our next stop was to float down the Clackamus River. I asked Ellie if she had a raft, she said yes but it had a hole in it so we decided to go to a store and just buy a cheap one. First store we went to, they didn't have any because they were out of season. The second store we went to, also didn't have any. This reminded me of Washington where you can't get anything you want in a store like I can in Los Angeles. Oh small towns especially with seasons, how inconvenient you can be sometimes. We ended up finding like the last raft on some shelf but it cost a good $200. No thank you. At this point Yelena didn't even want to go rafting anymore, but I was determined. I asked Ellie how big the hole was and she said, "Not big at all. There were four of us on it and we did just fine on a 3 hour float." So I said that we will take it while feeling glaring eyes at me from Yelena.
We went back to her place and took the raft and pump and headed down to the river. The plan was for Ellie to drop me and Yelena off at the top of the river and then Ellie can pick us up at the bottom. Ellie said that it was a 3 hour float. To ease Yelena, I said, "How about we get dropped off about an hour away and we just float and finish in that hour?" We all agreed that that was a better plan and Ellie was trying to find a place to drop us off. We pull over to the side of the road and see that the hill is way too steep to be carrying a 4 person raft and pump down. We continue driving on to find a better location. There were just cliffs and before we know it, we are already at the 3 hour spot.
"Wait, are we just floating by ourselves with no guide?" Yelena asks now getting really worried. "Yep, it's very calm water and not deep at all." I answer trying to ease the situation. "I don't think I want to do this." she says. I glare at her this time and proceed with pumping the raft. Ellie tries to back me up and says that, "Don't worry, we did it and there were 4 of us, it will be great."
We pump the raft up and Yelena reluctantly comes with me.
We paddle to the middle of the river and just relax.
The river is pretty calm, beautiful, and just overall amazing. There were a few rocks we had to avoid and we did really well in paddling around them. We make a very good team. After a while I decide to take a dip.
Yelena thinks I'm crazy jumping into the cold river, but it was so warm outside that it was just as if a warm towel was being wrapped around you when you come back up. It reminded me at the time I swam in Michigan Lake when I went to Wisconsin during the winter. Having the sun warm you after a cold dip is just so refreshing, a great way to wake up. After a while, Yelena also decides to take a dip herself.
She didn't even want to get out of the water. At one point we got stuck because it got shallow and at this point the raft was sinking a bit from the left side because of the hole, so Yelena took charge and pulled the raft to safety. We were glad that we had paddles because we saw some group of people who kept getting stuck either on the side of the river or in the middle because there wasn't a fast enough current to push them through. It was getting quite cold at this point so being stuck in a shady area is definitely not a good feeling.
After the 3 hours, we made it. We saw the bridge that we were supposed to get picked up from and got off. We called Ellie to pick us up and everything went very smoothly. I knew if it didn't, I probably wouldn't hear the end of it. So I'm glad we did it, and glad that everything was great!
Ellie drove us home where Alan and their friend were waiting for us. Alan had prepared us food and it was nothing less than amazing. It was pasta with chicken and it was so good that we forgot to take pictures. I actually wish that we ate more of their home made meals than going out! After eating, we played some card games namely spoons and Russian BS. Reminded me of my houseboat trips. It was a lot of fun.
09/07/2018 Friday
We all decide to go to Forest Park for a morning hike. The park is located off of a very beautiful street.
There are stairs off the road to get to the hike and once you start, you can immediately see an amazing shot of a bridge.
Continuing on, there is nice green foliage all around. So breath taking. Especially seeing the sun rays going through some trees.
Going further in, there really wasn't too much of anything different to see. After a while, we decided to head back down. Next on the itinerary was the Ace Hotel photo booth.
Allen drives us over to the heart of Portland and we walk to the Ace Hotel. Allen says that he has heard of this place and they have some old timey photo booth that you can take old timey pictures at. We all get excited and we get to Ace Hotel and we don't see a normal looking, nothing special at all, photo booth. Maybe it's more inside, so we ask the concierge where it's at? "We don't have one." He replies. "Oh, that's a drag, where did it go?" I ask. "We have never had one. Someone posted it on a blog and people continue to do so, we have to keep asking them to take it down because we get tons of people like you coming down asking when we have never had one to begin with." So to the people reading this and wanting to go visit Portland, there is nothing special about Ace Hotel! Unless they do decide to put an old timey photo booth in, which I think would be a good business decision. Maybe call them and ask if they got one yet to be sure.
We go onto the photo booth they have and take picture together.
Then we head out to Powell's Bookstore. This is a huge bookstore that is about 5 stories high. I am personally not a book reader but this was pretty amazing. Every section of the bookstore had a theme. I've read online that there is a rare book room and asked a librarian where we can find such a room, and she said oh it's at the Pearl section in the 5th floor. We get there and attempt to go into the rare book room, but there is a sign saying that we won't be let in without some sort of badges. So we go to a help desk nearby and ask where we can get the badges, she lets us know that only a certain amount of people can go in and all the badges are already distributed. Once a person comes out you can grab the badge from them. So we waited for a bit until a few people came out and grabbed the badges to go into the rare book room.
I didn't know what to expect. I just love to be in rare places! This didn't disappoint. It had all the rare books from around the world in this room. It was essentially a book museum. The first thing I saw was the original 1950's signed Lord of the Rings book.
Then stumbled upon a book that was written in the late 1400's.
All these books were for sale. I think the signed Lord of the Rings book was only for about $500. After we were done looking around, we turned our badges back in and left. I wonder if I kept the badge, does that mean that they would allow one less person in the room?
We were getting hungry so our next stop was Bamboo Sushi. This place was actually really good, however, still no sushi compares to the one I had in China.
Speaking of China, our next destination was Shanghai Tunnels. I thought it was from the Shanghai City in China but no, Allen told us that people literally shanghaied people and took them to these tunnels. I also thought it was going to be like the tunnels you can walk through as I did in Washington, but also no. They are just little tunnels located under bars and other business you can see. Allen leads us into a bar and we go downstairs. Pretty creepy actually because no one else was there and it was lit with a red light. We go further in and you see the tunnel. It's blocked by plexiglass.
According to Wikipedia. "The tunnels connected the basements of many hotels and taverns to the waterfront of the Willamette River. They were originally built to move goods from the ships docked on the Willamette to the basement storage areas, allowing businesses to avoid streetcar and train traffic on the streets when delivering their goods." And according to Allen, some Middlemen kidnapped men by usually getting them drunk and taking them into these tunnels to have them work for no pay. A quick Google search tells me that this story, unfortunately isn't true. It seems to be called Shanghai Tunnels because they are under Chinatown, as I thought, but I can't be certain. Geeze Portland, is there anything that is true about you!? First the Bollywood Theatre, which isn't a theatre. Mcmenamin's school which isn't a school. Old photo booth at ace hotel? Nope! And now even the Shanghai Tunnels weren't even used to Shanghai people as it was told. You a fake Portland, just be yourself!
We keep walking across downtown to get to our next destination.
A nice walk across some nice greenery, nice views of bridges, and the huge river. The river definitely reminded me of the Mississippi River when I was in Missouri. There were Bird and Lime Bike Scooters everywhere. Allen says that they're becoming such a problem because people leave them on sidewalks and streets that there are a group of people dedicated to throwing them away when they see them or get rid of them other ways. Which really saddens me. The concept is so awesome that I'd hate it to go away. Even Los Angeles has banned them. I think the best way to resolve this issue is to just build optional racks everywhere. I'm sure if people see the scooter racks nearby they would use them even though they don't have to. Of course there will be some cretins who will still leave them on the street but just like people who litter we can only try to pick it up after them or ridicule them when we catch them in doing such foolish acts.
We get to the destination we were going to which is the Mill Ends park AKA The smallest park in the world! Located in the middle of the street, we have to huddle up and take a picture. All 4 of us can barely fit in this park.
Not much else to do at that park, we head to the Pecularium. I completely forgot why I had the Pecularium in the itinerary. Allen says that they had some sort of ice cream with bugs on it. Interesting, I don't like to eat bugs. I tried a grasshopper before and it was pretty gross. Oh well, let's see what else it has. We get there and it was just a little store with weird things in it.
I remember thinking that I still wouldn't put this in the itinerary for just a weird store. Then Allen asked if they had that ice cream he was talking about and they said that, even thought a lot of people come for it, the manager has decided to stop serving it. Because of course they stopped serving it! Rafts were "out of season" even though it was still pretty hot, all the stores stopped selling that. Ice cream seems like was a big seller, also stopped serving that. No wonder Portland has to make a lot of legends about places and things that aren't what they really seem to be. Their whole business model is absolutely atrocious! Then the store clerk asks us, do you guys want to go through the museum? Ah, I suddenly remembered why I wanted to go there. They had a ridiculous museum and it didn't disappoint!
My favorite part was going into a coffin and lying there. While closed, there is a movie playing right on top of your eyes where you have the 1st person view lying in the hole where your coffin is and people dressed in black burying you, as if you're dead and your soul is seeing the last moments of your family burying you. Very neat.
To the manager of this place. Please don't take away the museum. I don't know why you would, but you took away the ice cream so I can't rely on your decision making skills. Please listen to a random person on the internet, whatever is telling you to take this museum away, don't. Also, even though I don't like bugs, bring the ice cream back.
We get hungry again so we head to Pok Pok Restaurant. I read that they have the best BBQ Wings. Ellie told us that there is usually a big line so we'll have to wait for quite a while before we actually sit down. This trip must have been a very lucky one because we pretty much sat down right away. We look at the menu, and it's confusing as all hell. There is the name of the dish and everything that they put in it, like all the 500 ingredients. I don't like ginger, mint, or lemony food too much and every food in the menu contained at least one of those. The waiter comes up and says, we understand that the menu may be overwhelming and starts to try to explain it to us with his recommendations. Nothing sounded good to me, but I still had to try the BBQ wings. Oh, did I forget to mention that this is a Vietnamese Restaurant? I'm about to have BBQ wings at a Vietnemese Restaurant. We get our food and just as I thought, they put way too much ingredients onto it where, just like Indian food, it overwhelmed the taste. To me it's like drawing a picture, finishing the picture but then making a few changes here and there, and then adding a few more sketches to it, and then it becomes so convoluted that you can't even tell what the original drawing was supposed to be. Same thing with food, put too much in it and it just becomes slush for the taste buds. Needless to say, I didn't like it. Portland food, I would not recommend it. Go to Ellie's and Allen's house to eat and ask them about the Sabre Tooth Tiger living in their garage!
09/08/2018 Saturday
Allen takes us to the farmers market. It's amazing! Every stand had a free sample of whatever they were selling.
Unlike Portland restaurants, the farmers food was excellent. I wanted to buy everything! Instead we only bought every possible flavored honey they were selling and mixed nuts. I saw that Portland had a bunch of marionberries. I wanted to pick them to make pie like we did in Washington, but they were out of season too and Allen said that the wild ones that we saw on trees weren't good anymore. Boo.
Allen continued to drive us to the Oregon Trail Visitor Center. Midway, Allen said that we were about to pass the nations only vertical street. I told him to stop so we can check it out.
A vertical street to my understanding is basically a neighborhood on the bottom that continues on top attached by an outdoor elevator. I still can't quite grasp what it means but it was cool to be in one of only four elevators like this in the world. There is a person manning the elevator inside like the old times and on top you get a nice view of Oregon City.
We get picked up on top and continue on. We get to the end of the Oregon Trail, yes where everyone dies of dysentery.
We just hung outside and looked around. Read about people like Harriet Tubman and other early heroes. There was a museum you can go into, but we didn't really feel like going inside this one. After hanging out, we went to the Hospital to say hi to Ellie... and take her car muahaha. We relieved Allen of his tour guide duties and went on the rest of the way ourselves.
We went to what is called the Saturday Market. Just a little outdoor flea market that pops up every Saturday. We went in wanting to buy some souvenirs but came out empty handed. Nothing too special and the things we were interested in like plants in little snail shaped glass was too expensive for us. We were getting hungry and decided to walk to Killer Burger.
We have been told to try the bacon pickled burger. It sounds like a gourmet burger which I vowed not to eat anymore because I've never liked gourmet vs. a regular tomato, cheese, lettuce, onion, pickles burger. Still, this is so out of the ordinary, Yelena and I decided to split the burger and share it. We got it with tomatoes and lettuce as well. It was definitely interesting and even though we split the burger, also definitely filling. Probably the best gourmet burger I have had, but still not better than the classic cheeseburger. I'd recommend trying it once.
Onto our next item on the itinerary which was a good hour drive. Our next place was an airplane home. Don't know what it is? Well I didn't either, but sounded very unique and awesome. The internet told me to email before going so we can be sure that the host was home and I did the previous day, but I never got a response. Yelena, once again told me that maybe we shouldn't go because it's an hour drive and we are likely not even going to see it since we didn't get any email response. I guess someone doesn't yet know how stubborn I am. So we go anyway. She fell asleep on the way there. I thought, at the very least, she'll get a good sleep for a very nice drive.
The place was in Damascus, Oregon and it had beautiful hills full of fruit and wheat farms. It was all so pretty and colorful. I promised myself that we needed to stop and take a picture on the way back when Yelena was awake. We finally get there, now what looks like a forest, and in hind sight we could have driven up onto the driveway to park, but we didn't know this and didn't want to go onto a private property because we weren't sure this was the place. We find a little spot on the side of the road and start walking through private property to get to the house. All I can think about is, this better not be a fake out like some other things we have experienced in this trip. Then I see these signs:
Ok, we are at the right place at the very least. We keep walking up and we see the airplane just sitting there. Already this was worth coming to. There were people setting up for a concert that was going to be held there at night. I asked them if we can go inside the airplane and they told me to knock really loud to see if Bruce the owner would let us in. I read on the internet that a guy named Bruce Campbell owned the property and wondered if it was the actor.
I go up to the door and knock. I started to feel weird because no one else was there but the crew and maybe the owner didn't want us to disturb him? Maybe that's why he never emailed me back? As I was about to turn away I hear a noise inside and try to look through the foggy window but can't see anything. All of a sudden the door opens and a guy sticks his head half way out.
"Hello." He says. I introduce myself and told him that I've seen the house online and was wondering if we can get a tour, but if this is a bad time... "No, I'd like to apologize I just woke up. Please wait here or come inside but don't walk past the carpet." He tells me as he swings the door wide open to expose his fully naked self. Interesting. "Is someone with you?" I tell him that my girlfriend Yelena is here but taking pictures right now outside. "Ok, let me go get dressed, one second, please don't go past the carpet."
He gets dressed and Yelena joins us. He tells us very carefully, that the carpet inside is the only spot you can take your shoes in. "Please don't step outside of the carpet onto the floor with your shoes." So I carefully take off my shoe, as I take it off I put my foot right onto the floor of the airplane and same with the other. Yelena accidentally slips and touches her sock on the carpet. "Ohp, now you have dirty socks, you'll have to wear these slippers." He hands her some slippers. "Make sure they don't touch the carpet." This, I thought, is going to be so epic. We have a nice man who isn't afraid to be naked in front of people but is scared of a little dirt. We finally tend to do it right and get inside. It was really cool.
He tells us how the lights work and shows us the cockpit.
He then tells us to hang out as long as we want, he is going to go lie down. The couch is just on the side of the airplane, so he just gets undressed like nobodies business and lies down. Some people may mind this but I'm actually talking about this because this old man, probably without even trying, is making this whole situation much much much much much much more epic than I had ever anticipated. So we look around.
After we were done, we thank him and were about to be on our way until he asks us if want to learn how to open the emergency hatch? Hell yeah we want to learn. He puts on his shorts and shows us, now we are pros.
After we were done, we thank him and were about to be on our way until he asks us if we want to go upstairs on top of the plane? There is a top of the plane!? He takes us toward the back of the plane and asks if I got his email that he responded to. I told him I didn't get anything, I thought you missed my email. He apologizes and says he sent it just a few hours ago and tells us that if we want to go up it's completely up to us and we can't sue. An nice old now half naked man is asking me if I'd like to go on top of his airplane home and if anything goes wrong I consent to not sue. This my dear friends is becoming an adventure!
"Don't worry we won't sue." I tell him very excitedly. He leads us back toward the entrance and has me put on slippers. He then climbs up like a nimble teenager and explains to me where to put my footing so I don't fall. I have to get on a railing, grab onto some fixtures, and really climb to get up there. Yelena decided to take shots from the outside.
I decide to take shots from the inside.
He tells me that I can walk on top of the plane if I wanted to, but to be very careful because even if you slip a little bit, you can't grab onto anything while you're falling. This scared me a bit and I'm already scared of heights. So I walk a bit less than halfway and turn back around.
After we were done, we thank him and were about to be on our way until he asks us if we want to go to the basement of the plane? Oh... my... God... I think I was going to cry. This is so Awesome!
After we were done, we couldn't thank him enough and were about to be on our way until he asks if we want to stay for the party that the crew outside is preparing for. "I can squeeze you in, but I'll have to add your names to the list like right now. Very very regretfully we had to say no because this was our last day in Portland and he has been more than nice to show us his place and so accommodating it's not even a joke. If all people were like this, we would never have a war or any fights. Just plain amazingness and on top of which, he gave us USB reading lights to take home with us. I think a tear appeared in my eyes at that point. I wish we also would have brought something in return.
He told us that he is trying to have another airplane home in Japan which we are going to next year! Hopefully we'll see him there and gift him something. So if you're ever visiting Oregon, please make sure to add this to your itinerary and bring something for this sweet sweet man.
Also, we saw the pictures of the end result for the concert.
Would have been so awesome if we had just another day in Oregon. Alas, we would have to save it for a next time. On our way back, we took some nice photos as I promised myself we would do.
Our final stop on the itinerary was Le Pigeon Restaurant. Yelena tries calling the restaurant to make a reservation but they say they're all full for the night, we can try and sit at the bar if it's available when we come in. After about an hour, we get there and there is already a line of people waiting for the bar like us. We aren't too hungry, so we decide to walk to the nearest mall for those souvenirs that we couldn't find at the flea market. We wanted to ride a Limebike Scooter because they were contracted with Yelena's work but all the scooters we came across ran out of batteries. We make it to the mall and still cannot find anything. We ended up just buying one of those glow in the dark bubble balloons for Kevin. I think he had mixed feelings about it. Liked it at one point, didn't at another, and liked it again. I thought it was a cool idea.
We took a Lyft back to the Le Pigeon restaurant. Guess what we had? That's right a pigeon to eat. I can now say that I have tried pigeon and I didn't really care for it. It tasted kind of like duck but even more gamey which I didn't care for. Yelena had a sushi pie, which was just ok. Bamboo sushi was much better. Very tired and full, we drive home.
09/09/2018 Sunday
We wake up and get dressed. The night before, before going to sleep, we have scheduled Lyft to pick us up in the morning to get to the airport. It was very early in the morning so Ellie, Allen and all the pets were sleeping. We get out and the Lyft arrives just on time. First I didn't know you can schedule a Lyft for people and second I didn't know you can schedule a time, so convenient! We get to the airport and fly back pretty smooth this time without any problems.
All in all the trip was great! I wouldn't recommend the food but the people there sure are great. I want to thank Ellie and Allen so much for being such great hosts. We were so glad you guys were able to do some of the stuff with us and we appreciate it because we probably wouldn't have been able to do some stuff like floating without you guys. Can't wait to see both of you again soon. I want to thank John for joining us a bit. Even if it was for a little bit, it was great seeing you and catching up, thank you for taking the time. I want to thank Bruce Campbell for showing us around your amazing airplane home. It definitely was one of the highlights of the trip and you just being yourself was a bonus to that. I want to wish you the best of luck in your future upcoming adventures. I want to thank Yelena for letting me be stubborn and just going with the flow. While complaining a bit, you still did it! That's all I ask of you. Also, the two of your most major concerns turned out to be your favorite parts of Oregon which were the floating and airplane home. Which just means that you should say yes to anything I plan even if it sounds like not a good one at the time :)
Things we didn't get to try and need to next time:
-Salt and Straw Ice Cream.
-Blue Star Doughnuts (Holy cow, I just found out that there are 2 ways of spelling donut.)
-Hike on top of the Multnomah Falls.
-Go to a Jet Liner Home party
View all of our pictures here!
Colorado don't go freezing without us!
The Itinerary:
Leave LAX 3:00pm Wednesday Sept. 5th
Get to Portland 7:15 pm Wednesday Sept. 5th
Leave Portland 7:51 am Sunday Sept 9th
Get to LAX 10:43 am
Wednesday Sept. 5th
Bollywood theatre
North
11am - 10pm
McMenamins Kennedy School
North
4p - 1a
Voodoo Doughnut
North West
24 hours
Thursday Sept. 6th
Kruger’s Farm - pick berries and honey
North West
Jet liner home:
Bald Peak Rd (near), Hillsboro, OR
West
Shanghai tunnels
North West
9a - 11p
Freakybuttrue Peculiarium
Northwest
10am - 8pm
Pok pok - bbq wings
North west
1130a - 10p
Friday Sept. 7th
Multnomah WaterfallEast
Go tubing at sandy river Drop off point- Dabney State Recreation Area
North East
Powell's books (good on a rainy day)
North
9a - 11p
rare book room 11a - 7p
Screen door - comfort food
Northwest
Saturday Sept. 8th
Hike at forest park.
north west
Saturday market
North West
10am - 5p
Salt & Straw - ice cream
North West
11-11p
Take a Picture in ace hotel
North
Go to a roller derby
North
Worlds smallest park
North west
Le Pigeon - Pigeon
North West
5-10p
My Check-ins
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Le Pigeon.
Pigeon and sushi pie
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Airplane Home.
September 8 at 5:20 PM · Hillsboro, OR ·
Come fly with me
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Portland Saturday Market.
September 8 at 2:13 PM · Portland, OR
Can't find anything special
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and Bear Redbourn at End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive & Visitor Information Center.
September 8 at 12:20 PM · Oregon City, OR ·
Died of dysentery.
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and Ellie Bear at Oregon City Year Round Farmers Market.
September 8 at 11:45 AM · Oregon City, OR ·
I wanna buy everything!
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and Bear Redbourn at Oregon City Municipal Elevator.
September 8 at 11:10 AM · Oregon City, OR ·
Only one of 4 vertical streets like this in the world
Leo Mass is eating wings with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Pok Pok.
September 7 at 6:46 PM · Portland, OR · Meh
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Peculiarium.
September 7 at 5:01 PM · Portland, OR ·
I want a firetruck!
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Mill Ends Park.
September 7 at 4:04 PM · Portland, OR ·
Worlds smallest park
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Shanghai tunnels.
September 7 at 3:38 PM · Portland, OR ·
Getting Shanghaid
Leo Mass is eating Partyzone with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Bamboo Sushi.
September 7 at 3:18 PM · Portland, OR · Best sushi in town
The rare book room
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Ace Hotel Portland.
September 7 at 2:07 PM · Portland, OR ·
Where is the photobooth?
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and 2 others at Forest Park - Ridge Trailhead.
September 7 at 1:23 PM · Portland, OR ·
Foresty
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Floatin' Barton To Carver On The Clackamas River.
September 6 at 8:00 PM · Damascus, OR ·
Listen to the rivers and the lakes like you used to.
Don't go chasing waterfalls.
Leo Mass is eating Lovely Food with Elena Kolm and Ellie Bearat Screendoor Restaurant.
September 6 at 11:58 AM · Portland, OR ·
Green fried tomatoes and praline bacon.
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and John St.John at Voodoo Doughnut (1501 NE Davis St., Portland, OR).
September 5 at 11:02 PM · Portland, OR ·
Mmmm ddoouughhnnuutttsss
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm and John St.John at McMenamins Kennedy School.
September 5 at 10:35 PM · Portland, OR ·
School is in session
Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Bollywood Theater.
September 5 at 8:54 PM · Portland, OR ·
We made it.
Music: TLC - Waterfalls
Getting Ready For The Trip
In our last episode trying to go to Hawaii but ending up cancelling because of a volcano eruption. We had to cancel our flights and rebook for the last minute Cancun trip. Thank God we got travel insurance and after a lot of back and forth with United, we finally got our money back. Now, everything was pretty much squared away but wait. From my Russia Experience, I knew that after cancelling a flight, you get flight credit. It was a far fetched idea because we already got our refunds from the cancelled flight to Hawaii, but I tried anyway. To mine and Yelena's surprise, it worked! We are flying to Portland pretty much free of charge. We had to pay a bit extra because we couldn't use Kevin's ticket as payment because he wasn't coming and it was only a one way trip with United to Hawaii. So, a free flight to Portland, yay! Using United again... boo!
09/05/2018 Wednesday
Yelena and I are all packed and ready to go. Dad drops us off at the flyaway and the bus is already there waiting for us this time. We get on and on our way to terminal number 7 at the airport, I already got this memorized. We get there and luckily none of us have any bags to check in, we just brought carry-ons. I was very impressed that we were able to travel with just two carry-ons. We find our gate and sit next to it. I made sure I had the stupid United App this time from our previous flight so I'm all set. Plane gets in just fine and we board. I wait to start my app till after take off because I know how this works and it doesn't start until we get a certain elevation up in the air. We get up in the air, and excited, I start the app on the phone. Which movie should I watch... I go through the list and choose one. "Error: App needs to be updated." You know that meme of Steve Carrell's character saying no over and over from the office?
That's how I felt. So frustrating, it's unbelievable! Guess what United, I can't download the stupid update to the app because there is no internet!!! I keep saying I won't fly United anymore, but they keep sucking me back in. Thank God there is a layover in San Francisco and I can try to upload it. Yelena was also smart enough to pre-load some tv series on her tablet so we watched a tv show sharing the headphones, left one in my ear and right one in hers.
We get to San Francisco without problems. While we are waiting for our next plane. I quickly sign onto the wifi and oh man, Silicon Valley, you are doing it right. They have an option to sign onto a 2.4g or a 5g network and it works! Without any gimmicks or having to watch ads or anything. Just click on sign in and you're in. I just hope they have internet on their Bart system also by now. Los Angeles is getting way behind with technology and I don't like it.
I look for the stupid United App and it says that I have the updated version already! Which means that there isn't anything that I could have done to watch a movie on the plane. Whatever, I uninstall the app I have on my phone and install it again, hoping that on the next plane this wouldn't happen again.
The next plane comes on time and we board. I try the app again and hoorah it finally works. I start watching the new Jumanji. about a quarter of the way it freezes. Odd, must be my phone, so I start everything over and it freezes at the exact same spot! I decide to skip forward but in order to do that I had to restart the app again. I skipped forward, it played for a bit ,then the audio cut off. I skipped forward again and the audio was back. I tried to go back, but the audio was cut off again which means that the video was uploaded this way. Whoever thought of this terrible way to entertain people on the plane with their own phones on apps that don't even work should try this out themselves and see how they like it, because I can't seem to understand it.
We finally get to Portland and quickly exit because we didn't have any luggage to wait for, which was pretty awesome. We are staying with my friends, Ellie and Allen. Allen was nice enough to order a Lyft for us. In Portland Lyft is the more popular rideshare company as opposed to Uber in Los Angeles. I didn't even know you can schedule a pick up for people but he did and we got picked up. Allen then texts me to say that he lives in a flag lot. I have no idea what a flag lot is, so I text him back to ask to explain. He sends me this informative diagram:
We do have something like these in Los Angeles but I never knew what they were called until now. Shaped like a flag, I get it. We get to their house and it is a very nice house. We were greeted by their 2 dogs and 2 cats.
They showed us our room upstairs and warned us that there is a train close by and it always choo choos at night. We didn't really think anything of it because we were so grateful that we were staying there already. We changed really quick and without missing a beat we asked Ellie and Allen if they wanted to go out since it was only 7:00 pm. They said they were tired but were even more generous in letting us borrow their car. It was a Subaru Outback and on the steering wheel they had a turning knob. I've never used one before so I tried it. I didn't think it was very useful, I guess people need to get used to it. However, I treated it like a fidget spinner while driving so I guess it can make the drive less boring.
Our first stop was Bollywood Theatre. I thought it was going to be a restaurant plus a Bollywood movie type deal but it was just an Indian Restaurant with a silent movie playing in the background.
I have decided I don't much like Indian food. Too many ingredients for me to enjoy and I can never get used to curry. I will still eat Indian food, it just won't be my go to restaurant.
After we finished, we drove to our next location called McMenamins Kennedy School. It's supposed to be a school themed bar. We put in the name and started driving according to our phone based google gps. We drive to what looks like an actual school. "Is this it?" We find parking on the side and there weren't any lights or anything inviting us in. "I think this is a real school," I tell Yelena doubting the directions the GPS has given us. We decide to try anyway, we get to the side school door and turn the handle. The handle doesn't turn, so I pull anyway. The door swings open as if someone didn't lock it right. We go in and see a few people roaming around in the halls. Still not really sure if it's a real school or not, we explore and finally find a bar with dimmed red lights. A tiny one, quaint but we decided to keep walking. Another tiny bar, I mean no more than 30 square feet where there are only like 2 tables in each one. We keep walking and see that this isn't only a school with bars in it but it is actually a hotel. McMenamins has taken an old school building and turned it into a hotel/bar. We keep walking and alas a huge bar down stairs in what used to be the broiler room of the school. Really cool actually. We decided to sit down at the big bar and wait for my friend John who promised to come and join us.
Shortly afterwards John showed up and we caught up. John lives in Washington not too far away from where we were. I haven't seen him since he moved to Washington for some time and it was great catching up.
We decided to roam around for a bit more and look at the creepy school paintings on the walls from when this was an actual school. Many group photos of students that went there and other interesting pictures. I loved it.
John decided to join us for our next stop which was Voodoo Doughnuts.
We get there no problem and order pretty much one of everything. I know we now have Voodoo Donuts in Los Angeles, but this is where they started. All in all, the donuts were subpar. Friends that have traveled to Oregon before warned me about this and told me to go to Blue Star Donuts instead, but they would have been closed by now and there wasn't any other time we would have went. Oh well next time. I'm not really a donut person anyway but so far the best donut place is Krispy Kreme in Burbank.
We say our goodbyes to John and head back home to sleep. We were greeted by their pets and one of the cats decided to sleep with us, right by our feet. I've never seen a cat actually sleep at the feet rather than chest or straight up face. It was actually nice. Then we heard it at 2:00 am, a train coming down the tracks and a huge Choo Choo. I was surprised it didn't shake the house it was so close. We went back to bed and slept quite nicely.
09/06/2018 Thursday
We wake up and are greeted by Ellie. We decide to go eat breakfast at the Screendoor. Ellie drives us there and we walk right in. Ellie was surprised because there is usually a wait, but they seated us right then and there instead. We ordered what seemed to be just 3 plates for us to share, but surprisingly it was still a lot of food.
The food was great. The best dish was definitely the Praline Bacon and the Green Fried Tomatoes came a close second.
Our next stop was the Multnomah Waterfalls. First, you park in the middle of the freeway and then go under the freeway to get there. Pretty neat. You come to a river where little salmon that look like tadpoles are swimming. You go more up and you see the beautiful waterfall.
Then you can go further up onto the bridge that's on the photo.
It was beautiful. Usually people are allowed to hike up to see the bottom of the waterfall as well but there has been a terrible fire recently which was started by some kid and because of mudslides and other dangerous terrain, it was closed off. I was a bit sad about that. Oh well, at least they didn't close the waterfall down.
Our next stop was to float down the Clackamus River. I asked Ellie if she had a raft, she said yes but it had a hole in it so we decided to go to a store and just buy a cheap one. First store we went to, they didn't have any because they were out of season. The second store we went to, also didn't have any. This reminded me of Washington where you can't get anything you want in a store like I can in Los Angeles. Oh small towns especially with seasons, how inconvenient you can be sometimes. We ended up finding like the last raft on some shelf but it cost a good $200. No thank you. At this point Yelena didn't even want to go rafting anymore, but I was determined. I asked Ellie how big the hole was and she said, "Not big at all. There were four of us on it and we did just fine on a 3 hour float." So I said that we will take it while feeling glaring eyes at me from Yelena.
We went back to her place and took the raft and pump and headed down to the river. The plan was for Ellie to drop me and Yelena off at the top of the river and then Ellie can pick us up at the bottom. Ellie said that it was a 3 hour float. To ease Yelena, I said, "How about we get dropped off about an hour away and we just float and finish in that hour?" We all agreed that that was a better plan and Ellie was trying to find a place to drop us off. We pull over to the side of the road and see that the hill is way too steep to be carrying a 4 person raft and pump down. We continue driving on to find a better location. There were just cliffs and before we know it, we are already at the 3 hour spot.
"Wait, are we just floating by ourselves with no guide?" Yelena asks now getting really worried. "Yep, it's very calm water and not deep at all." I answer trying to ease the situation. "I don't think I want to do this." she says. I glare at her this time and proceed with pumping the raft. Ellie tries to back me up and says that, "Don't worry, we did it and there were 4 of us, it will be great."
We pump the raft up and Yelena reluctantly comes with me.
We paddle to the middle of the river and just relax.
The river is pretty calm, beautiful, and just overall amazing. There were a few rocks we had to avoid and we did really well in paddling around them. We make a very good team. After a while I decide to take a dip.
Yelena thinks I'm crazy jumping into the cold river, but it was so warm outside that it was just as if a warm towel was being wrapped around you when you come back up. It reminded me at the time I swam in Michigan Lake when I went to Wisconsin during the winter. Having the sun warm you after a cold dip is just so refreshing, a great way to wake up. After a while, Yelena also decides to take a dip herself.
She didn't even want to get out of the water. At one point we got stuck because it got shallow and at this point the raft was sinking a bit from the left side because of the hole, so Yelena took charge and pulled the raft to safety. We were glad that we had paddles because we saw some group of people who kept getting stuck either on the side of the river or in the middle because there wasn't a fast enough current to push them through. It was getting quite cold at this point so being stuck in a shady area is definitely not a good feeling.
After the 3 hours, we made it. We saw the bridge that we were supposed to get picked up from and got off. We called Ellie to pick us up and everything went very smoothly. I knew if it didn't, I probably wouldn't hear the end of it. So I'm glad we did it, and glad that everything was great!
Ellie drove us home where Alan and their friend were waiting for us. Alan had prepared us food and it was nothing less than amazing. It was pasta with chicken and it was so good that we forgot to take pictures. I actually wish that we ate more of their home made meals than going out! After eating, we played some card games namely spoons and Russian BS. Reminded me of my houseboat trips. It was a lot of fun.
09/07/2018 Friday
We all decide to go to Forest Park for a morning hike. The park is located off of a very beautiful street.
There are stairs off the road to get to the hike and once you start, you can immediately see an amazing shot of a bridge.
Continuing on, there is nice green foliage all around. So breath taking. Especially seeing the sun rays going through some trees.
Going further in, there really wasn't too much of anything different to see. After a while, we decided to head back down. Next on the itinerary was the Ace Hotel photo booth.
Allen drives us over to the heart of Portland and we walk to the Ace Hotel. Allen says that he has heard of this place and they have some old timey photo booth that you can take old timey pictures at. We all get excited and we get to Ace Hotel and we don't see a normal looking, nothing special at all, photo booth. Maybe it's more inside, so we ask the concierge where it's at? "We don't have one." He replies. "Oh, that's a drag, where did it go?" I ask. "We have never had one. Someone posted it on a blog and people continue to do so, we have to keep asking them to take it down because we get tons of people like you coming down asking when we have never had one to begin with." So to the people reading this and wanting to go visit Portland, there is nothing special about Ace Hotel! Unless they do decide to put an old timey photo booth in, which I think would be a good business decision. Maybe call them and ask if they got one yet to be sure.
We go onto the photo booth they have and take picture together.
Then we head out to Powell's Bookstore. This is a huge bookstore that is about 5 stories high. I am personally not a book reader but this was pretty amazing. Every section of the bookstore had a theme. I've read online that there is a rare book room and asked a librarian where we can find such a room, and she said oh it's at the Pearl section in the 5th floor. We get there and attempt to go into the rare book room, but there is a sign saying that we won't be let in without some sort of badges. So we go to a help desk nearby and ask where we can get the badges, she lets us know that only a certain amount of people can go in and all the badges are already distributed. Once a person comes out you can grab the badge from them. So we waited for a bit until a few people came out and grabbed the badges to go into the rare book room.
I didn't know what to expect. I just love to be in rare places! This didn't disappoint. It had all the rare books from around the world in this room. It was essentially a book museum. The first thing I saw was the original 1950's signed Lord of the Rings book.
Then stumbled upon a book that was written in the late 1400's.
All these books were for sale. I think the signed Lord of the Rings book was only for about $500. After we were done looking around, we turned our badges back in and left. I wonder if I kept the badge, does that mean that they would allow one less person in the room?
We were getting hungry so our next stop was Bamboo Sushi. This place was actually really good, however, still no sushi compares to the one I had in China.
Speaking of China, our next destination was Shanghai Tunnels. I thought it was from the Shanghai City in China but no, Allen told us that people literally shanghaied people and took them to these tunnels. I also thought it was going to be like the tunnels you can walk through as I did in Washington, but also no. They are just little tunnels located under bars and other business you can see. Allen leads us into a bar and we go downstairs. Pretty creepy actually because no one else was there and it was lit with a red light. We go further in and you see the tunnel. It's blocked by plexiglass.
According to Wikipedia. "The tunnels connected the basements of many hotels and taverns to the waterfront of the Willamette River. They were originally built to move goods from the ships docked on the Willamette to the basement storage areas, allowing businesses to avoid streetcar and train traffic on the streets when delivering their goods." And according to Allen, some Middlemen kidnapped men by usually getting them drunk and taking them into these tunnels to have them work for no pay. A quick Google search tells me that this story, unfortunately isn't true. It seems to be called Shanghai Tunnels because they are under Chinatown, as I thought, but I can't be certain. Geeze Portland, is there anything that is true about you!? First the Bollywood Theatre, which isn't a theatre. Mcmenamin's school which isn't a school. Old photo booth at ace hotel? Nope! And now even the Shanghai Tunnels weren't even used to Shanghai people as it was told. You a fake Portland, just be yourself!
We keep walking across downtown to get to our next destination.
A nice walk across some nice greenery, nice views of bridges, and the huge river. The river definitely reminded me of the Mississippi River when I was in Missouri. There were Bird and Lime Bike Scooters everywhere. Allen says that they're becoming such a problem because people leave them on sidewalks and streets that there are a group of people dedicated to throwing them away when they see them or get rid of them other ways. Which really saddens me. The concept is so awesome that I'd hate it to go away. Even Los Angeles has banned them. I think the best way to resolve this issue is to just build optional racks everywhere. I'm sure if people see the scooter racks nearby they would use them even though they don't have to. Of course there will be some cretins who will still leave them on the street but just like people who litter we can only try to pick it up after them or ridicule them when we catch them in doing such foolish acts.
We get to the destination we were going to which is the Mill Ends park AKA The smallest park in the world! Located in the middle of the street, we have to huddle up and take a picture. All 4 of us can barely fit in this park.
Not much else to do at that park, we head to the Pecularium. I completely forgot why I had the Pecularium in the itinerary. Allen says that they had some sort of ice cream with bugs on it. Interesting, I don't like to eat bugs. I tried a grasshopper before and it was pretty gross. Oh well, let's see what else it has. We get there and it was just a little store with weird things in it.
I remember thinking that I still wouldn't put this in the itinerary for just a weird store. Then Allen asked if they had that ice cream he was talking about and they said that, even thought a lot of people come for it, the manager has decided to stop serving it. Because of course they stopped serving it! Rafts were "out of season" even though it was still pretty hot, all the stores stopped selling that. Ice cream seems like was a big seller, also stopped serving that. No wonder Portland has to make a lot of legends about places and things that aren't what they really seem to be. Their whole business model is absolutely atrocious! Then the store clerk asks us, do you guys want to go through the museum? Ah, I suddenly remembered why I wanted to go there. They had a ridiculous museum and it didn't disappoint!
My favorite part was going into a coffin and lying there. While closed, there is a movie playing right on top of your eyes where you have the 1st person view lying in the hole where your coffin is and people dressed in black burying you, as if you're dead and your soul is seeing the last moments of your family burying you. Very neat.
To the manager of this place. Please don't take away the museum. I don't know why you would, but you took away the ice cream so I can't rely on your decision making skills. Please listen to a random person on the internet, whatever is telling you to take this museum away, don't. Also, even though I don't like bugs, bring the ice cream back.
We get hungry again so we head to Pok Pok Restaurant. I read that they have the best BBQ Wings. Ellie told us that there is usually a big line so we'll have to wait for quite a while before we actually sit down. This trip must have been a very lucky one because we pretty much sat down right away. We look at the menu, and it's confusing as all hell. There is the name of the dish and everything that they put in it, like all the 500 ingredients. I don't like ginger, mint, or lemony food too much and every food in the menu contained at least one of those. The waiter comes up and says, we understand that the menu may be overwhelming and starts to try to explain it to us with his recommendations. Nothing sounded good to me, but I still had to try the BBQ wings. Oh, did I forget to mention that this is a Vietnamese Restaurant? I'm about to have BBQ wings at a Vietnemese Restaurant. We get our food and just as I thought, they put way too much ingredients onto it where, just like Indian food, it overwhelmed the taste. To me it's like drawing a picture, finishing the picture but then making a few changes here and there, and then adding a few more sketches to it, and then it becomes so convoluted that you can't even tell what the original drawing was supposed to be. Same thing with food, put too much in it and it just becomes slush for the taste buds. Needless to say, I didn't like it. Portland food, I would not recommend it. Go to Ellie's and Allen's house to eat and ask them about the Sabre Tooth Tiger living in their garage!
09/08/2018 Saturday
Allen takes us to the farmers market. It's amazing! Every stand had a free sample of whatever they were selling.
Unlike Portland restaurants, the farmers food was excellent. I wanted to buy everything! Instead we only bought every possible flavored honey they were selling and mixed nuts. I saw that Portland had a bunch of marionberries. I wanted to pick them to make pie like we did in Washington, but they were out of season too and Allen said that the wild ones that we saw on trees weren't good anymore. Boo.
Allen continued to drive us to the Oregon Trail Visitor Center. Midway, Allen said that we were about to pass the nations only vertical street. I told him to stop so we can check it out.
A vertical street to my understanding is basically a neighborhood on the bottom that continues on top attached by an outdoor elevator. I still can't quite grasp what it means but it was cool to be in one of only four elevators like this in the world. There is a person manning the elevator inside like the old times and on top you get a nice view of Oregon City.
We get picked up on top and continue on. We get to the end of the Oregon Trail, yes where everyone dies of dysentery.
We just hung outside and looked around. Read about people like Harriet Tubman and other early heroes. There was a museum you can go into, but we didn't really feel like going inside this one. After hanging out, we went to the Hospital to say hi to Ellie... and take her car muahaha. We relieved Allen of his tour guide duties and went on the rest of the way ourselves.
We went to what is called the Saturday Market. Just a little outdoor flea market that pops up every Saturday. We went in wanting to buy some souvenirs but came out empty handed. Nothing too special and the things we were interested in like plants in little snail shaped glass was too expensive for us. We were getting hungry and decided to walk to Killer Burger.
We have been told to try the bacon pickled burger. It sounds like a gourmet burger which I vowed not to eat anymore because I've never liked gourmet vs. a regular tomato, cheese, lettuce, onion, pickles burger. Still, this is so out of the ordinary, Yelena and I decided to split the burger and share it. We got it with tomatoes and lettuce as well. It was definitely interesting and even though we split the burger, also definitely filling. Probably the best gourmet burger I have had, but still not better than the classic cheeseburger. I'd recommend trying it once.
Onto our next item on the itinerary which was a good hour drive. Our next place was an airplane home. Don't know what it is? Well I didn't either, but sounded very unique and awesome. The internet told me to email before going so we can be sure that the host was home and I did the previous day, but I never got a response. Yelena, once again told me that maybe we shouldn't go because it's an hour drive and we are likely not even going to see it since we didn't get any email response. I guess someone doesn't yet know how stubborn I am. So we go anyway. She fell asleep on the way there. I thought, at the very least, she'll get a good sleep for a very nice drive.
The place was in Damascus, Oregon and it had beautiful hills full of fruit and wheat farms. It was all so pretty and colorful. I promised myself that we needed to stop and take a picture on the way back when Yelena was awake. We finally get there, now what looks like a forest, and in hind sight we could have driven up onto the driveway to park, but we didn't know this and didn't want to go onto a private property because we weren't sure this was the place. We find a little spot on the side of the road and start walking through private property to get to the house. All I can think about is, this better not be a fake out like some other things we have experienced in this trip. Then I see these signs:
Ok, we are at the right place at the very least. We keep walking up and we see the airplane just sitting there. Already this was worth coming to. There were people setting up for a concert that was going to be held there at night. I asked them if we can go inside the airplane and they told me to knock really loud to see if Bruce the owner would let us in. I read on the internet that a guy named Bruce Campbell owned the property and wondered if it was the actor.
I go up to the door and knock. I started to feel weird because no one else was there but the crew and maybe the owner didn't want us to disturb him? Maybe that's why he never emailed me back? As I was about to turn away I hear a noise inside and try to look through the foggy window but can't see anything. All of a sudden the door opens and a guy sticks his head half way out.
"Hello." He says. I introduce myself and told him that I've seen the house online and was wondering if we can get a tour, but if this is a bad time... "No, I'd like to apologize I just woke up. Please wait here or come inside but don't walk past the carpet." He tells me as he swings the door wide open to expose his fully naked self. Interesting. "Is someone with you?" I tell him that my girlfriend Yelena is here but taking pictures right now outside. "Ok, let me go get dressed, one second, please don't go past the carpet."
He gets dressed and Yelena joins us. He tells us very carefully, that the carpet inside is the only spot you can take your shoes in. "Please don't step outside of the carpet onto the floor with your shoes." So I carefully take off my shoe, as I take it off I put my foot right onto the floor of the airplane and same with the other. Yelena accidentally slips and touches her sock on the carpet. "Ohp, now you have dirty socks, you'll have to wear these slippers." He hands her some slippers. "Make sure they don't touch the carpet." This, I thought, is going to be so epic. We have a nice man who isn't afraid to be naked in front of people but is scared of a little dirt. We finally tend to do it right and get inside. It was really cool.
He tells us how the lights work and shows us the cockpit.
He then tells us to hang out as long as we want, he is going to go lie down. The couch is just on the side of the airplane, so he just gets undressed like nobodies business and lies down. Some people may mind this but I'm actually talking about this because this old man, probably without even trying, is making this whole situation much much much much much much more epic than I had ever anticipated. So we look around.
After we were done, we thank him and were about to be on our way until he asks us if want to learn how to open the emergency hatch? Hell yeah we want to learn. He puts on his shorts and shows us, now we are pros.
After we were done, we thank him and were about to be on our way until he asks us if we want to go upstairs on top of the plane? There is a top of the plane!? He takes us toward the back of the plane and asks if I got his email that he responded to. I told him I didn't get anything, I thought you missed my email. He apologizes and says he sent it just a few hours ago and tells us that if we want to go up it's completely up to us and we can't sue. An nice old now half naked man is asking me if I'd like to go on top of his airplane home and if anything goes wrong I consent to not sue. This my dear friends is becoming an adventure!
"Don't worry we won't sue." I tell him very excitedly. He leads us back toward the entrance and has me put on slippers. He then climbs up like a nimble teenager and explains to me where to put my footing so I don't fall. I have to get on a railing, grab onto some fixtures, and really climb to get up there. Yelena decided to take shots from the outside.
I decide to take shots from the inside.
He tells me that I can walk on top of the plane if I wanted to, but to be very careful because even if you slip a little bit, you can't grab onto anything while you're falling. This scared me a bit and I'm already scared of heights. So I walk a bit less than halfway and turn back around.
After we were done, we thank him and were about to be on our way until he asks us if we want to go to the basement of the plane? Oh... my... God... I think I was going to cry. This is so Awesome!
After we were done, we couldn't thank him enough and were about to be on our way until he asks if we want to stay for the party that the crew outside is preparing for. "I can squeeze you in, but I'll have to add your names to the list like right now. Very very regretfully we had to say no because this was our last day in Portland and he has been more than nice to show us his place and so accommodating it's not even a joke. If all people were like this, we would never have a war or any fights. Just plain amazingness and on top of which, he gave us USB reading lights to take home with us. I think a tear appeared in my eyes at that point. I wish we also would have brought something in return.
He told us that he is trying to have another airplane home in Japan which we are going to next year! Hopefully we'll see him there and gift him something. So if you're ever visiting Oregon, please make sure to add this to your itinerary and bring something for this sweet sweet man.
Also, we saw the pictures of the end result for the concert.
Would have been so awesome if we had just another day in Oregon. Alas, we would have to save it for a next time. On our way back, we took some nice photos as I promised myself we would do.
Our final stop on the itinerary was Le Pigeon Restaurant. Yelena tries calling the restaurant to make a reservation but they say they're all full for the night, we can try and sit at the bar if it's available when we come in. After about an hour, we get there and there is already a line of people waiting for the bar like us. We aren't too hungry, so we decide to walk to the nearest mall for those souvenirs that we couldn't find at the flea market. We wanted to ride a Limebike Scooter because they were contracted with Yelena's work but all the scooters we came across ran out of batteries. We make it to the mall and still cannot find anything. We ended up just buying one of those glow in the dark bubble balloons for Kevin. I think he had mixed feelings about it. Liked it at one point, didn't at another, and liked it again. I thought it was a cool idea.
We took a Lyft back to the Le Pigeon restaurant. Guess what we had? That's right a pigeon to eat. I can now say that I have tried pigeon and I didn't really care for it. It tasted kind of like duck but even more gamey which I didn't care for. Yelena had a sushi pie, which was just ok. Bamboo sushi was much better. Very tired and full, we drive home.
09/09/2018 Sunday
We wake up and get dressed. The night before, before going to sleep, we have scheduled Lyft to pick us up in the morning to get to the airport. It was very early in the morning so Ellie, Allen and all the pets were sleeping. We get out and the Lyft arrives just on time. First I didn't know you can schedule a Lyft for people and second I didn't know you can schedule a time, so convenient! We get to the airport and fly back pretty smooth this time without any problems.
All in all the trip was great! I wouldn't recommend the food but the people there sure are great. I want to thank Ellie and Allen so much for being such great hosts. We were so glad you guys were able to do some of the stuff with us and we appreciate it because we probably wouldn't have been able to do some stuff like floating without you guys. Can't wait to see both of you again soon. I want to thank John for joining us a bit. Even if it was for a little bit, it was great seeing you and catching up, thank you for taking the time. I want to thank Bruce Campbell for showing us around your amazing airplane home. It definitely was one of the highlights of the trip and you just being yourself was a bonus to that. I want to wish you the best of luck in your future upcoming adventures. I want to thank Yelena for letting me be stubborn and just going with the flow. While complaining a bit, you still did it! That's all I ask of you. Also, the two of your most major concerns turned out to be your favorite parts of Oregon which were the floating and airplane home. Which just means that you should say yes to anything I plan even if it sounds like not a good one at the time :)
Things we didn't get to try and need to next time:
-Salt and Straw Ice Cream.
-Blue Star Doughnuts (Holy cow, I just found out that there are 2 ways of spelling donut.)
-Hike on top of the Multnomah Falls.
-Go to a Jet Liner Home party
View all of our pictures here!
Colorado don't go freezing without us!
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