The Road Trip Part 5. The Portland Strikes Back

Never before have I felt more
like Food Network

So my trip to Portland has been pretty exciting so far. I woke up that morning, got a call from a friend inviting me to hang out that evening and go to some hippie street fair. I was all "Sure." and since I had a whole day to kill, I decided to check out a few places my sister recommend. First up, as usual: LUNCH.

I went to this neat little place called Meat Cheese Bread, which served exactly what it says on the tin. I got a locally made not-coke and a french onion soup with my delicious sandwich. Overall this was probably the most satisfying meal of the trip so far.

You can't see it, but over to the right there's an actual physical newspaper which I perused so I could feel retro, and I saw an article about Last Thursday. What do you know? The article talked about how the City was worried that a profoundly Portland-y event might become commercialized or somesuch. Anyway, interest thoroughly piqued.



After that I wandered around town a little before heading off to the world-famous Powell's Books!

Still has books? I'm good.

Wait, whoops. Turns out that I went to the wrong Powell's books. There's more than one apparently. This one was a somewhat smaller establishment but pretty cool regardless. Powell's Books on Hawthorne. With the "On Hawthorne" in italics so you know it's emphasized. As though the sign is saying it with extra emphasis to clarify that you're dumb and should quit just going to the first location that showed up on Google Maps.

Still, what the hell. I went in and picked up a few little things. Most notably this pretty damn cool book. Also for clarity I also purchased the Serenity: Official Visual Companion which had the shooting script for the Big Damn Movie. As well as this charming and beautifully illustrated book. I'll talk about those later probably. 


So after hanging out at the bookstore for a bit I grabbed a coffee and headed over to my friend Kyle's place. He apparently hadn't gotten off of work yet, so I hung out with his housemates. We ended up just playing Mario Kart. I got my ass kicked handily in several rounds before someone suggested we play Smash Bros.

I managed to redeem my prowess with my Falco skillz. Which was comforting. It was around this time that Kyle showed up. We drank a few beers and he then informed me that he had forgotten that he had made plans to catch dinner with a lady. Gentleman that I am I did not want to intrude, and so he went off and I played more videogames and caught an episode of The Walking Dead with his super-cool housemates.

Pictured: Awesomeness

Anyway Kyle sent me a text to meet up with him at a bar called The Alleyway on Alberta. So I went, I had to park a couple of blocks away, and even that wasn't easy. There were a lot of goddamn cars.

Oh and 8-foot tall hippie children.

I swear, the random encounter table is getting kind of weird these days.

Anyway we wandered around Last Thursday, which was basically an impromptu convention festival thigny. Street vendors hawking wares, jugglers, musicians, there was this one vaudeville thing too!

Or maybe Epic Meal Time

Conveniently on the same street though, was this neat little place my sister recommended: Pine State Biscuits Wherein I got a biscuit with bacon, cheese, egg, and fried chicken, with a cradle of cheese fries and a locally brewed beer on the side.

If lunch was the most satisfying, this may have been the most transcendentally empowering and decadent.

The rest of the evening was spent recovering from this meal.

I regret nothing.


~Ying Out.