Jul 21, 2013

We drove from Oregon to the Redwoods area of northern California and stopped in Crescent City. Joanna dropped me at the Starbucks with my bike and headed down to the forest for a hike. I got lunch and a couple of local beers at Good Harvest Cafe before braving the big hills of Route 101 South. Coming out of Crescent City there's a big climb that doesn't stop for a long time. I took at least one opportunity to stop and rest on the way. The road continued like this, but it was more balanced. Big, big climbs followed by beautiful, breezy, downhill coasting that seemed to last forever. All the while I had views of the gargantuan redwoods on either side of me.

Aside from the hills, traffic was my other concern. It seemed like people were accustomed to cyclists on this road, so it wasn't too bad. I still worry. The ride was amazingly grueling, yet exhilarating and rewarding. This amazing view was just one of many. I stood and watched this for a while. It was chilly and windy, especially near the open ocean sections, but pedaling hard warmed me up. I met Joanna in Klamath, a little town along 101, after riding a hard 21.5 miles. It was fantastic. I felt great.

We met next to an emu farm so we talked to this guy for a while. I think I named him Frank or something like it. He's from Australia. Once we left Frank, we went down to Redwoods State/National Park and walked the Revelation Trail. It's a really short trail near the parking lot with a lot of very old and amazingly huge redwoods and sequoias. It was dusk, but we could still see the immense size of some of the trees. It was a nice, relaxing little walk. 

We got showers and pitched our tent in the biker/hiker area since the campground was full only to get told by a ranger when we were parking the car that we had to take it down since we are neither bikers nor hikers. I wanted to tell her about my recent long-ass bike ride, but I refrained. We had to drive pretty far up the road before we found a place to park and camp for the night.

Jul 20, 2013

We drove back to Mt. Rainier and up to Sunrise Visitor Center where we would begin our hike to the Mt. Fremont Lookout. The trail starts up a paved, steep section that is part of several other trails. There were quite a few people here. We passed many of them and it became less crowded as we got onto the next part of the trail.

We passed Frozen Lake, which has an amazing huge blue hunk of ice floating in it. It looks like a little glacier and it's awesome. After passing a field of beautiful wild flowers, the trail continues from here up a gravel path with big rocks and a steep drop.

The views of Mount Rainer from this part of the trail are amazing. It seems so close and so big. As the path narrows and we have to cross over a long section of bigger rocks, people are stopped and looking at mountain goats far down below. I never actually saw them, but Joanna insists they were there.

When we got near the end of the trail I could see clouds resting below the peaks in the distance. I've always wanted to hike above the clouds and see just the tips of mountains peaking out above them. This is the closest I've gotten so far, but I'll take it. For now.

The fire tower lookout at the end allows you a slightly better views of the full area. There are mountains stretching off in every direction and a chilly breeze blowing in. I liked the reflection in the fire tower windows.

We stayed up there for a while, taking in the amazing views of this massive mountain. Somehow this vantage point just made it seem unreal that we were standing next to something so big. I loved it. We took a different path for the hike down, requiring us to do some more snow sliding and possibly trail blazing. We had to take a dirt road back to the parking lot, but we made it.

After leaving the park we headed back toward Portland, stopping there again to go to Laughing Planet Cafe and Little Big Burger for food. We found a Trader Joe's to resupply on some foodstuffs then continued on to Eugene, where Saturday night was in full swing. We went to the Rogue Public House for a flight. They serve beers by Rogue and Eugene City Brewing, which is a small operation parented by Rogue. Their Libertine Imperial IPA is really good as is the Electric Peach by Rogue that I tried. There was a regular customer that was talking my ear off about local breweries and how things used to be as I sampled.

We walked down the road to Falling Sky Brewing, which looked good online and my bartender at Rogue said it was a good place to check out. I really like this place a lot, and they had an awesome selection. First of all, everyone was really nice there in helping me pick out my flight. Second, I love their presentation and their packaging. Their flight is served in this cloud and they give out free stickers. Can't go wrong with that.

I liked the Upside Brown Ale and the Kama Sumatra Coffee Porter, but the Standout was definitely the Don't Panic American Pale Ale. It was fantastically balanced and tasty. I wasn't ready to stop drinking just yet after the flight so I got another beer. I was just in a good mood and having a good time so I got another drink. Joanna and I were having a serious conversation about politics or the world or something else, which hasn't happened in a while so it was nice to discuss things over a beer even if I was the only one holding one. She still smelled them. We basically stayed there until they closed and then got back on the highway until we got to a rest stop on the I-5 with a nice grove of trees where we could set up our tent for the night out of sight.

Jul 18, 2013

Once we left the Not a Crack House headquarters for the last time we headed to a little place downtown where we got two-for-one parfaits for breakfast. We sat in the car deciding what we'd do with the day while we ate. I needed to get cash so I went to a grocery store where an employee suggested I buy one grape to use the cash back option. I did so, and it cost 2 cents and I got my cash. Brilliant. It was a delicious grape too.

Joanna dropped me off downtown with my bike and she headed off on her own for the day. I biked down by the river and decided I'd like to go for a run. I ran along the river and over a few of the bridges and back, completing about 3.5 miles total. I absolutely love running here. There is something great about it. The scenery and the atmosphere are just great.

I headed a few blocks down to Rock Bottom Brewery for a bite and a flight. They had quite a few tasty beers, including their Belgian White which was fantastically refreshing after a run, and the Imperial Smoked Red Ale, which is just a hearty and full-flavored beer. I got some snacks and talked to the guy next to me at the bar for a long time. He travels down to Portland for work and comes into the bar all the time. He was a really nice guy, and we talked for a long time about traveling and beer tasting. It was a great bar experience.

I hopped back on my back and went for a short ride over the bridge and down the path a bit until I found a nice bench in the shade of a bridge overhead. I enjoyed lounging on the bench, bobbing on the floating dock with the waves from passing boats. I watched Orange is the New Black on my phone for a while until Joanna called to meet up a couple miles away.

When we were reunited in a mall parking garage, I affixed the bike to the car and we moved on to Portobello Restaurant. We sat at the bar for quicker seating and perused the menu. I ended up going with a pizza and a lemonade because that just sounded perfect at the moment. Joanna got some tasty fried balls in marinara sauce that we shared. Everything we had was fantastic. I even took some pizza to go.

Before leaving the area we dropped by Voodoo Doughnut for some fine vegan treats. We got a few tasty pastries for the road and headed up to Mt. Rainier National Park. We got there late and had to drive through all the campground loops before finding and open space. There was a cone there so we weren't sure if we were supposed to stay at the site, but we did it anyway.

Jul 17, 2013

Surviving the night at the house whose WiFi name was "Not a Crack House" after lying on the couch and trying to count the amount of different people I saw pass by and go out the door in the morning, we headed out to the food trucks a few blocks away. We waited for the vegan truck to open and ordered sandwiches. I ended up really liking Joanna's fish sandwich so we switched and I finished it. So good.

We hopped on our bikes and took to the streets of Portland. I love biking in this town. We rode down to the waterfront and planned out a tentative route around over the bridges. We went down the river, zig-zagging across the bridges back and forth along the nice paths made available. There were a couple of detours we had to follow that took us of the path, but we found our way.

Along the route we came upon a brewery called Hair of the Dog so I decided we should go in. It was a nice place for a break and some brews. The Little Dog and Blue Dot were both very good, and the Peach Fred from the Woodshed was amazing. It's a peach beer aged in a bourbon barrel. It was light and huge in flavor. After I finished my pretty-looking beers and had a few glasses of water we hopped back on the bikes and pedaled on.

There are just so many great little things to see as you cross the river. I love this sign, and if you turn the other way you can see Mount Hood. It's such a great town to exist in. I'd really like to live here someday.

We went down to a strip mall that had a lot of vegan stores, like a bakery, clothing store, and grocery. I got a big bottle of Sriracha because why not? I can use that forever on everything. After Joanna finished shopping and I had a chat with my mom on the phone we headed down to Deschutes Brewpub. I know this brewery by name, but not much by beer. Everything was pretty good, but I was really blown away by the Black Butte Porter. That's one I need to pick up again.

We biked to get pizza at a place that was recommended to us. It was pretty good, but not exactly what we had hoped for. We had to ride a bit back to the park. It was up a very large hill through the park, but we were able to cut some distance off by going this way. Once we got back to the car we went directly to Back to Eden for some ice cream. And it was awesome.

We went to McMenamin's Kennedy School, an old elementary school that was converted to be many things, including a movie theater filled with comfortable couches and chair. We got a great seat on a couch and settled in to watch The Internship, which was really funny. It helped that it was such a cool theater and that we had a couch to sit on. Pretty fantastic. I think I love McMenamin's.

We knew we had some time before the party was going to die down at the house we were staying at, so we went down to The Mash Tun, where I got a flight and we started playing billiards for free! The beers were good (especially the Mild Ale) and the pool was great. The jukebox was also open to play for free so we put on some good tunes from Garden State while we played. We ended up playing pool with people we met instead of passing the table back and forth. They were really nice and it was cool talking to other people.

As the party was still not over, we went to The Bye and Bye to pick up food. I got a meatball sub that was sooo delicious. We took the food back to in front of the house to eat our food and watch some Breaking Bad while we waited for the insanity to die down. Once it did that somewhat we went inside and got our couches ready while people still wandered around at the end of the party. Someone almost pitched a mattress on the floor right next to the couches, but after I suggested that I might step on him he angrily moved away. It was strange, but we eventually got to sleep very late.

Jul 16, 2013

After saying a somber goodbye to Amol and Matt (and Seattle) we left the apartment and went to Araya's Place for their Thai buffet. It was a lot of really good food, including this fantastic peanut sauce that I want to put on everything I ever eat from now on. We took the 5 South toward Portland, stopping at SeaTac DGC before we got too far away from the city. The course was set in a nicely wooded area, making good use of the space. My favorite part was seeing the planes fly overhead every few minutes.

The course was pretty cool, if slightly confusing at times. It wasn't always apparent where the next hole was. There was a course regular waiting for people to show up that helped us along the way. It's definitely not a "mark to return" course, but it was fun at the time. I don't know what's going on in this picture except that I had to use the bathroom so I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

The long road to Portland was filled with slight traffic jams and minor annoyance, but we made it there and found McMenamin's Crystal Ballroom where Jimmy Eat World was playing and I got my show information then went to the bar beneath. I got a sampler of the beers they brewed there and sat back to enjoy being back in the city. The Hammerhead, Sunflower IPA, and Ruby were all great. We hung out there for a while until I could properly put away my flight and still had time to go elsewhere!

The Rogue Taphouse was just a couple blocks away so it was the obvious next stop. We pulled up our chairs at the bar and I picked out a few beers from the huge tap list that I hadn't tried before. It's a hard decision. I ended up doing two flights. I really liked the Dad's Little Helper and Juniper Pale Ale. I tried the infamous Beard Beer, made with a yeast strain cultivated from a brewer's beard hair. It was good. The standout was clearly the Younger's Special Bitter. I love a good ESB, but this one takes the cake. I would like a case of this please.

After all the wonderful beer tasting it was time to go back to the Ballroom, where I weaved up toward the front. Jimmy Eat World came out and played an amazing damn set. They always do, but this crowd, this room, and being on a trip just amplified everything. I love seeing this band live so much more every time. They played 4 (four!) Clarity tracks and covered "We are Never Ever Getting Back Together" in such a way that Taylor Swift should consider retiring. I was bouncing and singing to every song. Hopefully I helped some other people get into the show as well. It's amazing how they can play all of their hits and it still seems like a fan-favorite setlist. I want to see them again immediately.

Joanna was outside to pick me up when the show was over. I rolled up, sweaty and smiling like a lunatic I'm sure, and actually took off my shirt to cool off and dry before I put on another. She had gotten donuts so I had a lovely treat to partake in while we hung out by the car. We headed over the bridge to our Couchsurfing hosts and found the house after a couple of tries. The guy hosting was very nice and offered us the couches. The house was quite a mess and it seemed that a lot of people lived there, but I didn't really care. Joanna was a bit squeamish about the conditions, but once we had our sleeping bags on the couch, it was a really nice night (with the door open) to sleep.