Goodbye PDX!!

This was a momentous trip for lots of reasons, but consistent in that we had great beer, wine, food, fun and company.

We love you PDX!  See you next year!

Alameda Brewing

Having our last lunch before heading home at Alameda Brewing.  Pretty good beers!

And a nice big lunch before we only get chips and chocolate in Comfort Plus on the way home (thanks Delta for not making companion ticket flights upgradeable to first class.  Jerks.)

Dinner at Ava Gene's

Lovely lovely dinner at Ava Gene's, with Commons beer on tap. 

They have a very different take on pasta, but we enjoyed our dishes and the charcuterie and cheese board that we started with.

And thanks to our Christmas present of an Amex gift card from N&J, almost free.  :)

Upright Brewing

Stopped at Upright today and ran into a guy that works at Northern Brewer and his wife and baby.  Weird, right?

Even weirder, another guy was there and we each kept looking at each other like we knew each other. And yes we did.  He was the guy that last sold me and Chris shoes at Shuler's.   I mean what are the odds?!

10 Barrel

Well we just had the loveliest lunch - wings, kale Caesar, and a BLTAE samdwich.  One of the best I have ever eaten.

Saturday...it's HOT!!

It's supposed to be about 100 degrees today, so we extended the rental car and we're hitting a few breweries and then dinner at Ava Gene's.

Right now we are eating lunch at 10 Barrel Brewing, and enjoying a sampler.  They have some really good beers!!

After that, Upright and a drink somewhere with Owen, Chris's friend in the beer industry who I happen to like immensely.

PDX Day 1 Plan (Posted out of order because I just realized I never posted it Wednesday - I can't tell you how much I HATE that)

Oh it is so nice to wake up in Portland...it really is.

Here's a run down of our plan for the day, which I'm super excited about.

We'll take the train, then walk to The Cheese Bar and have a lovely late breakfast/early lunch of cheese!  Then another walk to Belmont Station where it's Puckerfest!!  So they will have an amazing selection of sour and wild beers.  OMG.  Freaking out about it.

After that we will hit The Commons, Cascade Barrel House, and maybe another one.  We're going to have a snack or lunch at Bazi Brasserie, which looks amazing.  I'm getting frites.

After that, we are headed over to Apex Bar, which might be my favorite over Bailey's Taproom on this round.  I go back and forth...  But the best thing about Apex is that we are meeting a past co-worker from Target there for a beer!  He just started a week and a half ago at Nike, so I'm very interested in how it's going for him there.  He's a great guy, it will be a good catch up!

Finally, we're going to hit Kachka for dinner - Russian restaurant.  Oh, I'm pumped about that.

I'm not sure how much we'll walk today, but I should plot that out.  Since beer has zero calories, I should lose weight on this trip, right?

BTW - this is us last night, grumpy in coach.

Photo Moment at Sokol Blosser

We made it to four wineries, but didn't drink at the last one (Sokol Blosser) because I thought I might barf.  So we took pictures.

Sokol Blosser is really beautiful.  It was a hot today, or we might have lingered a little longer...

Lunch at Red Hills Market!!

What is that saying?  "...consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds..."

Well too damn bad, because the coppa and mozzarella pizza and the ham and gruyere sandwich at Red Hill Market are good.   EVERY.  SINGLE.  TIME.

Patricia Green Cellars

Well, you could call our wine tasting day a success, or a failure...I'm going with success.

Success in that we went to three great wineries, sampled a total of 24 different wines, and then I was so thoroughly in the bag, we stopped at three.

We had a lovely time at Brick House, then a quick trip to Beaux Freres.  The third stop, Patricia Green Cellars was awesome.  We sampled 8 of their wines, which were all really really good, and we were able to do barrel tastings of four more!  We've never gotten to do that here!  

Here's Patricia Green barrels (random) and some pics in the winery including one that Chris called "the super hammered picture in front of the barrels."  This is a good winery - I'll add it to our list.

Audible...Beaux Freres

Called an audible...headed to Beaux Freres for an impromptu tasting - Steve at Brick House called them for us.  I love these people.

I forgot to take a picture.

Brick House

10:24 am and Chris and I are on our way to our SECOND wine tasting.  Take that, amateurs.

Brick House was lovely as expected.  My god they have great wine.  Good thing we bought a case that will arrive in October. 

Friday Wine Day

We are off for the day to visit five different wineries in the Willamette Valley.

Two are new (Patricia Green Cellars and Deponte) and three we've been to before (Brick House, Sokol Blosser, and Argyle).

It's going to be a great day, and I have to run since our first tasting is at 9:30.  Tee hee!

Only in Portland...

Tillamook and de Garde Brewing

de Garde Brewing is this funky little brewery - all sours.  It's a super cool little place, but in the middle of nowhere (industrial park) in the middle of nowhere (Tillamook) in the middle of the coast in Oregon.

Here are my observations:

• All the people there are beer geeks.  Not just beer geeks like I know, but serious beer geeks.  I kind of wanted to punch some of them.
• A guy at the counter literally unwrapped at least 3/4 of a pound of blue cheese, and another 1/2 pound of some other cheese, meats, and a little box of Ritz crackers.  Hey asshole!  Get the fuck out of the way of those of us that want to order beers!!
• The place smelled funky as you would expect, but this was...special.  And not at all pleasing.  Chris told me later it was "butyric" meaning it was some sort of bad shit growing on their barrels - and it was indicative of baby vomit.  That wasn't a good thing to think about after those oysters.
• Some of the beers were pretty good, and they had alot that you could drink on premise.

Like I said, the day was beautiful, and it was nice to just hang out and people watch.

Lunch in Bay City

After Haystack Rock, we drove further down the coast to Bay City to have lunch.  Where lunch was...meh.

This is me with my oyster shooters which were huge and I kind of wanted to barf after.  And lunch was then just OK.

Cannon Beach and the Coast

I'm sure I've said this before, but if you haven't been to Cannon Beach to see Haystack Rock you should really put it on your life list...it's so beautiful.  It's a huge monolith and at low tide there are tide pools and I think you can get there on foot.

We walked through the little town - very busy yesterday as it was a gorgeous sunny day but only about 68 degrees.  Perfect!!

We headed down the beach when we realized that Chris's foot/ankle/Achilles problems would make getting down to the surf, and maybe the trek over to Haystack Rock just wasn't in the cards.  So Chris rooted himself in the sand to take pictures and I walked down to the surf.  It was a beautiful, breezy, cool day with lots of waves and surf.  And this is weird...little chunks of ice floating in on the surf!  Yes, chunks of ice.  The water was chilly!

Here are some fabulous pics Chris took, including me way far away in the waves.

Such a perfect day.

Thursday, A Day Like Lots of Other Days...

Yesterday was our day to head down the coast to Tillamook to see the sights and stop at a brewery.

So of course we started the day with breakfast at Panera.  I swear, I think we have been to a Panera in every state we have been in.  When you want a bagel sandwich, they do it up right.

We then headed over to Queen Bee Creations where I picked up my new awesome bag that I ordered a few weeks ago.  Super cute, and it will hold all of our crap when we head to wineries in a few minutes (today/Friday).

As I was looking for pictures of yesterday, I found these when I downloaded from our little camera. I had forgotten he was taking them on continuous exposure. This is why I'm in charge of pictures.

Adventures in Thai Food

I'm not sure if any of you remember my post from 2011 in Vermont, where we went to a Thai place that was amazing but the food we ordered was so hot I thought maybe I would die in the middle of the meal.

I think that happened again last night.

So we had a drink at Apex - love that joint, let me tell you, and though it might be cliche for me to have had a Pliny and Blind Pig, and not to venture out into something different, it's not cliche.  It's me ordering beers on tap that I really really like that I can't get at home.  And they were good.

We met a prior co-worker from Target at Apex for a drink - he just started at Nike a week and a half ago.  SO FUN.  Learned a ton about Nike - sounds amazing and fun and wow awesome - and had a really great time.

We then decided that YES, we were going to eat at Pok Pok this time.  It's a Thai place and is regularly on best restaurant lists.  (Sidebar...oddly, our new dentist knows the owner - she and Chris talked about that a few weeks ago at his appointment.  Odd huh?)  I did take a 25 minute nap leaning on Chris while we sat outside and waited.  CLASSY.

Anyway, the menu is SUPER intimidating.  I mean, there are so many words on it, and I was a little more than anxious.  So we asked the waiter to just recommend things.  We NEVER do that.  But seriously, I might have accidentally ordered the "raw or undercooked food" disclaimer, the menu was so intense.

We started with the wings.  He said, "Regular or spicy?" and I said, "Spicy!"

They came, they were sticky and glossy and big and had sesame seeds on them.  And they were sweet.  And spicy.  Spicy in a way that is a slow weird burn until while you are eating them your nose is running and your heart starts racing, but you aren't sweating because frankly you think you might just be dying because your heart feels like it will soon explode.   And...

THEY WERE AWESOME!!!!!

But it was almost like I couldn't recover from them when my pork belly curry with coconut rice dish came.  Which was great too, except after a day of drinking copious amounts of beer, eating globs of pork belly fat with rice doesn't make for a good sleep.  Let's just say...well.  I won't say.  You get it.

Chris had a flank steak salad with sticky rice.  I didn't like that as much, but he said it was interesting.

So if you come here and eat at Pok Pok, get the wings.  Just don't expect to sleep well.

Ex Novo

What a great beer name, don't you think?

Let's catch you up...

Lots of beer at The Commons, one of our favorite breweries.

Cheese plate and sandwich.

Oh Sour Beer...how we love thee...

At Belmont Station, and it's Puckerfest!

Nom nom nom...

First beers...

After walking a mile here (and sweating cuz it is kind of hot) these are our first beers at the Cheese Bar.  Easy Jack from Firestone Walker. 

And the Buddy Up cheese and meat plate with a ham and brie sandwich!

Oh dear...COACH!!!

We are flying coach for the first time since 2013.  I know alot of you don't care, are cursing me, and calling me an elitist bitch. 

Here is what I will tell you. 

If you had flown first class you would understand. 

We are plebs again.

And I don't like it.

PDX Bound...

I'm two beers in at the airport bar, and boarding in 20.

I've been so stressed out about work stuff (all facets) that this trip is needed.

As I was literally having a crying jag about work at 3:30 today, Chris was trying to talk to me.

He said, "I won't say anything about work stuff, but are you ok about flying????"

And I said, "Well yes.  For fucks sake who cares about flying?!?!?"

So I guess I've come a long way.  As long as I'm loaded.  Which I am.

PDX here we come, for 4 days of drink, food, and the lovely Portland.  The ONLY drawback is that JH and KK couldn't make it this year.  PDX 2016!!!  That is our year.