Chamberlain Creek CA through San Francisco CA

Nick: Waking up after sleeping in the driver's seat of a car for the second night in a row was rough.

Brian: Don't worry parents, as of today that was the last night we've slept in the car on the side of the road.

Nick: I think I knotted up something in my stomach being crumpled up for so long because I've had searing pain in the area since then. Another casualty of the road I guess. We drove for a while down some pretty gorgeous highway, then pulled off and dined at a boring little cafe. Why do I mention that humble eatery? As I was to discover later, that cafe would be a place of great concern to me, though I couldn't have known it at the time. After some food, we drove a bit longer on a quest for some quality beach time. After a couple failed attempts, we finally found a sweet stretch of coast completely unoccupied by anyone except a group of pretty subdued sea lions. A herd of sea lions? A flock? I'm not a zoologist. It's not my problem.

Brian: I would think that sea lions would travel in prides.

Tyler: I think they were actually seals.

Brian: Anyway, way to totally not mention that at this point we are traveling on Highway 1 which is arguably the most beautiful scenic highway in America. I don't know if we can put the beauty into words but imagine epic Lord of the Rings style cliffs with 15 foot waves smashing up against rocky beaches under rolling farm country, or just check out the pictures on our Photobucket account.



Tyler: I think I saw Gollum... or maybe that was just a crackhead. I also wish I could post all the photos I've taken so far this trip but I'm already somewhere in the 5-6 gigs range.

Nick: Mm, maybe I forgot to mention the view because instead of enjoying my time up on the rocks, I was running back to the beach to move all of our stuff further up the cliff. Things you wouldn't want washed away, like, I don't know, car keys. I'm glad one of us is responsible in this group.

Brian: A bold statement considering the location of your laptop at that time...

Tyler: Okay so we stopped at a beach in Sonoma county just off CA-1 and decided to spend the entire day there: I don't think anyone mentioned this yet and just sort of assumed you knew where it was. We read, we lounged, we drank boxed wine and played beach bocce ball. This game proved to be incredible. First we found a distinct rock to serve as the bocce, then each of us selected two rocks to serve as our bowling balls, the great part about this being that you can select rocks that fit your play style, flat if you like to just plop them down, round if you prefer the roll, etc.



Nick: I think rolling is generally superior, and to prove my point, rolled my way to a sweeping come back victory.

Tyler: While we played this game Brian's plastic cup of red wine started to grow some interesting... developments.

Brian: Somehow while I was drinking my wine a bundle of sand-fly larvae landed directly in my cup. At least I hope that's how it happened, because I had been drinking out of that cup for about 10 minutes and it gives me the creeps to think that I was drinking around the pupae without noticing they were in there. Tyler was so grossed out that he threw away his own wine that wasn't even contaminated.



Tyler: Yeah, even looking at the picture makes me a little sick.

Nick: Whatever, you eat a ton of bugs in your sleep. Get over it. After the beach, it was time to head into San Francisco. It was dark by the time we arrived, but the Golden Gate Bridge was still clear from miles away against the illuminated back drop of the city. It was even more clear when we had to pay six dollars to cross the damn thing. We met up with our hostess for the evening, Katie, then got back to work on our Franzia.

Brian: We also tried to bust out our laptops. Tyler and I succeeded, and Nick succeeded in realizing that his laptop was in a cafe 3 hours away. Hopefully. (It was, we got it back later.) Anyway, what was supposed to be a couple glasses of wine and maybe a beer out at Katie's favorite local establishment turned into a raucous night of debauchery tagging along with some guys 25th birthday celebration.

Nick: Doesn't it always?

Brian: I think his name was Sam. Also I met some Australian guys who said I can stay on their couch for as long as I want if I go to Australia. Yeah and we got kicked out of a bar and I don't know why.

Tyler: Yeah, I remember going to the bathroom and then seeing an old man with a huge beard yelling at every member of our group. Oh well, that place smelled like a portapotty, and not a clean one.

Nick: I challenged him to a duel on the field of honor to resolve the matter, but that didn't seem to help much at all. Live and learn, I guess. Brian was getting fussy, so we headed back to Katie's apartment to indulge in the luxury of not sleeping in a seated position. It was everything I had hoped it would be. Maybe more.

Tyler: I slept outside on the porch, it was awesome. BNT out.

Gold Bluffs Beach CA through Chamberlain Creek CA

Brian: The rain pounded on the roof of the car relentlessly through the night and into the morning. We woke up with headaches and backaches and I doubt any of us slept longer than an hour at a time for the entire night. But road tripping is about making do, grinning and bearing it, sucking it up and making it work. We waited for a break in the downpour, rolled up our jeans, ran to collapse the soaked through tent and stuffed it in the cooler. That was an especially wise decision retrospectively because the cooler is a perfectly tent sized waterproof container. Casualties of the storm include my pillow, the tarp, and maybe a pair of shoes?

Nick: All in all, no great loss. To my delight the road back out, which had seemed perilous even before the rain, was relatively clear.

Tyler: We hung out in Arcata, specifically a play ground and patch of grass in Arcata that passed as a park. As a side note: setting up a tent, pulling out a plethora of wet towels, shoes and camping gear right next to play ground seems a little sketchy. But the old man who walked by rather slowly and just stood and stared at the playground as if wishing for the laughter of children, a large van and a bag candy seemed a little more creepy.

Nick: I've not much to say about Arcata. So I won't.

Tyler: This was my second time through Arcata and I still can't decide if I like the town or not. For those of you who don't know it's a college town in Humboldt county about 20 minutes from Eureka. The town has a lot of street kids (young people intentionally homeless) but not as many as other towns, there are no breweries actually in the town but many exist in the surrounding area but it does have a fairly laid back vibe that one would expect from a coastal California town. All in all a pretty average place with a little character and few to no big box stores, great for the aspiring college hippie or middle age enviroconscious yuppie.

Brian: Yeah there were a lot of those there. We spent the first half of our day in a busy little cafe in the central square. I can never keep the names of these places straight but I think it was a woman's name. There were some guys slack-lining between some light posts in the square, and Tyler is a slacklining genius but I couldn't talk him into jumping on it. On Tyler's recommendation we headed over to a bar with a ton of local brews on tap.

Tyler: Slacklining = walking on a piece of climbing webbing strung up between two objects, kind of like tight-rope walking but it's more slack and dynamic hence the name...slacklining.

Nick: We blogged for a while in the bar, then headed out. Still cloudy, still rainy. Not my favorite. We pulled over at some point and, after finally convincing my comrades that box wine was the way to go in terms of the most efficient alcohol-cost ratio, we picked up a box of Franzia and continued on our way. I'm sad to say that we were once again out of couch surfing prospects and with the sky dark and heavy, our leaky tent seemed like a poor sleeping choice. So, once again, we pulled off the side of the road, checked for bears, then fell asleep in the car. I found that the fetal position is the way to go.

Tyler: What were your specific instructions for your special sleep-in-car-mega-sweet-position?

Brian: Something about tuck and fold right?

Nick: Assume the fetal curl, then fold over in a diagonal direction. If you fold first, your spine snaps in a dozen places. So don't do that

Brian: And with that image I think we will sign off. BNT Out.

Florence, OR through Gold Bluffs Beach CA

Brian: We rose early and showered (first shower of the trip, yikes!) before heading south along the Oregon Coast and hopefully into the California Redwood forest. It was my turn to drive as Nick has acquired a job as a traveling writer and needed to start working on his articles about road trips (a subject I daresay he is an expert on).

Nick: Ah, let's not be too hasty. I needed to work on an application for a travel writing job. Unfortunately, Pride, Prejudice and Zombies was playing, so I was a bit less than productive....

Brian: For breakfast we stopped at a super-healthy diner/natural food store. I'm not being sarcastic for once, my gluten-free biscuits were covered in vegan gravy and I had a cage-free local organic egg on the side. I'll take that over scrapple any day. So we hit the road and listened to more Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I originally thought was going to be good. However, I didn't consider that most author's writings will pale in comparison to Jane Austen's satiric genius.

Tyler: Yeah, I have a hard time believing Elizabeth could walk around on her finger tips regardless of who she trained under in China, and scenes in which she strangles ninjas to death using their own intestines seems to be a scene from a cheesy early 90's kung-fu movie, not a piece of literature that the author claims got no criticism except "not enough zombies."

Nick: I listened to the book as though I would a good movie on TV: enjoyable while it was playing, but occasionally interrupted with an obnoxious interjection I wish would just end so I could get back to my flick. (If your not familiar with the work, P, P and Z is Austen's famous book filled with a contemporary author's vision of an 18th century England filled with zombies.) A great idea that just wasn't fleshed out the way I might have liked. After some considerable driving, Brian pulled over at a scenic lot overlooking a coastal view. I like pretty things, but I wanted to be on my way, dammit. Only after exiting the car was I pleasantly surprised by Brian's detour.

Tyler: Yes, the view proved to be more spectacular than words or pictures can suffice. Although there will be pictures included here. It looked like a computer generated landscape meant to be more beautiful than physically possible. However one detractor almost knocked us off our feet. Literally. The wind had us leaning at 45 degree angles to keep from being blown over and at one point this awe inspiring force of nature claimed two pairs of sunglasses. One was swept over the side of a cliff and the other shattered into a million pieces as soon as they struck the ground.






Brian: Inspired by the beauty of the cliffs and awed by the ferocity of the wind, we pulled off at nearly every viewpoint possible along the southern Oregon coastline. One such pull-off had a thin grassy path to the beach below. One thing we haven't mentioned in the blog yet but have noticed several times is that we are much like hobbits in that we are on an epic journey and we have hairy feet. What kind of hobbits would we be if we didn't explore this trail fully? However, much like the Fellowship in the Misty Mountains above Khazad-dûm (the Dwarrowdelf) we were turned back by the intense Voice of Saruman. If we had turned the corner I fear more than my sunglasses would have been lost to the powerful winds.

Nick: We turned back, but it seems the Mines of Moria are closed during the off season. We just stuck with Highway 101. Another such side trip is especially worth noting, in my opinion anyway. It was a large beach, completely deserted, but punctuated with dramatic rock formations and a wind that pulled long trails of sand across it's unusually smooth surface. After running up and down the beach until our pants, shoes and socks were sufficiently full of sand and water, we piled back into the car and mare our way to Gold Bluffs Beach, a location Tyler has mentioned to us on a number of occasions and which we anticipated with great enthusiasm and zeal. If only we had known what horrors awaited us there...

Tyler: Gold Bluffs Beach is a secluded campground within the string of national and state parks that makes up "the redwoods". This particular campground is about 5 miles away from the nearest gas station "town" and about 5 miles down a hilly, one lane, gravel/dirt road surrounded by towering redwoods that blot out most of the already clouded sunlight. Yet, the campsites are right on the beach and because of the size of the road the annoyingly large R.V.s can't make it into the campsite. We set up a quick camp and went for a walk along the secluded beach. The entire time the only detraction from the nearly perfect scenery hung low in the sky in the form of dark gray clouds. We wished for sun, but sadly those desires would remain unrealized.

Brian: Splendidly ominous, Tyler. After a hearty dinner of pasta and bananas (our parents should be glad to hear) we retreated to our tent for our nightly game of Chrononauts. A light spattering of rain began but with foresight we had set up the rain-fly so we all doubted that it would affect us. As we retired for the evening Nick noticed some very minor leakage around the seams. Nothing a small towel barrier can't handle, until I turned my pillow over and realized that it had been absorbing water for upwards of a half-hour and consequently weighed about 135 lbs. Decision time.

Nick: OK team, here's the plan: Grab everything from the tent and run like little girls to the car. More plans to follow in the car...

Tyler: Screaming scared little girls in a haunted house, running from Freddy Kruger. But we were still manly.

Nick: Alright, we made it to the car. Here's the new plan: fall asleep. What? Sleeping in an already stuffed car, hammered by a ferocious thunderstorm with an uncertainty as to whether or not your fuel efficient yet generally wimpy car can make it back up the ridiculous wooded road now flooded in a deluge of rain water is difficult for you? Suck it up butter cup, we're men and this is the work of men. But, you know, I think it's OK if you want to scan the radio about thirty times over the course of the night to check for hurricanes. No one will judge us. Hurricanes are scary. We've had enough of them.

Tyler: Also, waking people up to listen to the rain is manly too, right?

Brian: Also taking off your soaking wet skinny jeans in the middle of the night is manly too, right?

Nick: Right!

Brian: Needless to say, none of us slept that well. You'll have to wait for the next post to hear about our morning (so chaotic we make Benny Hill look like Ben Stein). Like the Flintstone's cat, we are out for the night.

Beverly Beach State Park, OR through Florence, OR

Nick: Mm, campfires in the morning.... pleasant. After enjoying the quite magic that only campfires in the morning can provide, we saddled up and hit 101 south. After a bit of driving down their scenic coastal highway, we came to Newport, which boasted a number of seaside attractions. Our first stop was Mo's, which had been mentioned in the book Brittany (my little sister) had given us specializing on legendary local chow. First round: steamed clams in the butter and garlic sauce. Outstanding. For the main event, I ordered shrimp and clam chowder in a sourdough bread-bowl, and though this particular dish was supposedly what had originally put Mo's on the map, I found myself a bit dissatisfied. Pity. Next stop. You have three guesses... Yeah, we went to the local brew pub Rogue.

Tyler: Rogue consistently produces some of my favorite beers and as somewhat of a beer snob (though still willing to drink the cheap stuff) this is a difficult task to accomplish. They had two of my favorites on tap at the time. Their chocolate stout, which in the bottle tastes okay but on tap is like drinking a candy bar, and their hazelnut brown ale. Just writing about it makes me thirsty. After having a sample tray and a pint the journey continued.

Brian: Before we move on it may be worth noting that the bartender there was able to hold four pint glasses in one hand, fill them with water, and serve them each to a customer without really spilling that much. I was moderately impressed. Another thing worth noting is that a main topic of debate at the brewery was the origin of the mermaid myth. We can all agree that seafarers who have been on the water too long could potentially mistake a sea lion for a mermaid, return to port, and regale his mates with tales of this fantastic creature. Nick however contests that it was common practice for these same seafarers to somehow subdue or seduce said sea lions, and gain carnal knowledge of them. When they were confronted by their mates, they would simply claim that the creature they were with was not a sea lion, but in fact a mermaid. He has been hard pressed to find evidence to support this claim.



Nick: I submit to you, humble ladies and gentlemen of the blog, the following overwhelmingly convincing circumstantial evidence for my claim. First, seafarers in those times were often out to sea for long periods of time fishing, exploring, or trading. Like, weeks and months at a time. Lonely, lonely weeks and months at a time. Second, seals and sea-lions are easily mistaken for humans, especially at night and especially under the influence of a stiff bottle of grog. Sharks think so, that's why they attack us from time to time (thank you shark week.) I'm not entirely sure how the seamen in question could lure said sea creatures into the fearfully improper situation of mating, but the burden of proof for this fact is not on me. We all know pirates in our lives, and we're aware of what they're capable of. Finally, we all know sailors love a good yarn, and a tall tale about mermaids would be the perfect cover-up for a night of infidelities with the ocean's ever lovely sea-cow. After all, are not mermaids always portrayed as sexually attractive? And if they do exist, why don't sailors tell more tales about mermen, hm? I have more evidence, but I feel as though I've made my case.

Brian: Mistake not evidence for conjecture. It's circumstantial evidence at best.

Nick: I leave it to you, loyal readers, to decide the truth for yourselves. After the bar, we found ourselves a pleasant little camping site deep in the woods that would serve our purposes for the night and set up the tent. Hot dogs for dinner, along with beer and what little remained of our most excellent moonshine left us all feeling rather satisfied with another excellent day on the road. We played a rousing game of Chrononauts and spoke long about the mysteries of the universe before finally laying on the hard, cold ground and falling into a restful, yet occasionally lumpy, sleep. TNB out.

Portland, OR through Beverly Beach State Park, OR

Brian: If there is anything I remember specifically about this day, it is that our diets were the worst yet on this trip. The day started with a long blogging session at our old stand-by, Borders, and over the course of a couple hours we consumed no less than 4 sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches and a bagel with a smear of creme fromage. I found a book there titled something like, "The Illustrated Guide to 20 Common Surgical Operations." Unnerving.

Tyler: Yes, I remember we were going to give each other appendectomies but Borders sadly does not stock scalpels or a means of anesthetizing a "patient".

Nick: A little refresher course is helpful for everyone, even brain surgeons. The food did not improve. The next stop of the day was Wendy's. A truckload of C-Nugs later, Brian and Tyler expressed interest in watching Avatar in 3D. I'd already seen it... twice... and so opted for the football game that I'd be sure to find broadcast in a local sports bar. On our way to the theater, we drove past a so-called "sexy barbershop." I love America? Well, turns out Avatar was a bust: apparently lots and lots of other people love blue aliens and loin cloths because the movie was sold out. Resigned to our fate, we found a small park, tossed the disk around for a while, then hit the road yet again.

Tyler: The drive was okay: no major sights, scenes or attractions until the coast. At this point the game that Nick wanted to watch, something that involved a ball of some sort and some big yellow forks, was fast approaching. Especially because he hadn't accounted for the time change between here and EST. Luckily a road-side casino showed up on the road, a seemingly perfect place to watch a game, eat dinner and have a few beers.

Brian: And it was perfect, other than our continued attempts of suicide by arterial blockage. I won't go into details, but I will say that each of us consumed at least a pound of french fries, and that one person's fries were slathered with chili and cheddar (that might have been me). Anyway, after the games...

Tyler: Yeah, it was real fun sleeping in an enclosed space that night with Mr. chili cheese fries.

Nick: The Eagles are dead to me...

Tyler: Hotel California is an okay song.

Nick: I mean the football team.

Tyler: I know, that's kind of the joke...

Brian: ...we decided to be healthy and take a little stroll *cough* around the casino *cough*, before heading off to our camping destination of the evening on the Oregon coast. The night was particularly clear and warm and the stars were maybe the best I've ever seen. As we settled into our tent for the night our food began to digest and we began to pay dearly for the culinary crimes committed earlier that day.

Nick: It's a generally accepted principal that if you must fart, you are obliged to at least open the tent flap and make an honest attempt at dissipating the offensive odors to some degree. With this trip however, it all becomes rather futile as the horrible things we've put into our bodies during the day manifest themselves into thick, black smog clouds of revenge, choking the life out of all within their wispy grasp. As such, we decided to take a late night stroll along the beach in an attempt to work the wretched gases from our systems before returning to an enclosed sleeping area. I'm not fully convinced of the effectiveness of that strategy, but as Brian mentioned, the night was pretty spectacular. I've not spent much time on beaches, least of all at night, and the experience was one I'll remember at least until I finish this sentence (we tend to completely forget about things after we've blogged about them). It's our brain's way of keeping from being overloaded with awesome (we suspect). Anyway, that about wraps up day 3 of part deux. BTN reporting from the coast. Over and out.

Portland, OR

Day 2

Brian: Ahhh, the oh so familiar fog of war after a hard fought night. At least I had a comfortable futon to sleep on, and Nick had a broken-in couch. Wait, where did Tyler sleep? Oh that's right, the porch.

Tyler: The porch was amazing and their couch out there was incredibly comfortable.

Brian: Maybe there is something to be said for that though, because while Nick and I were being intermittently roused by the comings and goings of the other house members preparing for work, Tyler simply had to contend with the soothing patter of raindrops on the street. And the nearby construction. We sipped tea and discussed our plans for the day. First stop? A photo shoot at an awesome park beneath one of Portland's bridges on the north side of town.

Nick: Yeah, that was a great idea. We decided to chase a big flock of geese in order to get a dramatic picture aflutter with wings and feathers as the birds gracefully departed for the river. What we got was mud up to our ankles which then splattered on our clothes and soaked through to our socks. This was especially annoying when one considers that laundry is something of a luxury on this trip, and that having all of one's vestments soiled so early on our sojourn is really quite a loss.

Tyler: and we didn't really get any pictures of us with the birds...

Nick: Ah well. After some more snappy photos, we headed over to an eatery called McMenamins which has since become one of my favorite places in Portland. The walls and ceilings were all covered with interesting artifacts from across the globe, the adjoining theatre showed second-run films for a few paltry dollars, and the food was really outstanding. Once there, we met my friend from Broad Street, Peter, and had lunch. We caught up. It was good to see him.

Tyler: Brian Sara and I all got drinks to go with our 11 am breakfast. I know what you're thinking but we're on vacation. After breakfast/lunch we headed over to one of Sara's favorite breweries, Amnesia, which by the way I think is an amazing name for a place that serves alcohol. The place had a fairly familiar brewery look to it, chalk board menus, funny signs on the walls and large metal brewing tanks in the back. We got our beers and sat down to plan the rest of the day. Sara had only gotten about three hours of sleep the previous night thanks to a combination of hanging out with us and a 7:00 am job as a sign language interpreter. So she decided to exercise her cartography skills and create a brewery crawl map for us so she could head back to her house and catch some sleep. Thus the famous Mapkin came into existence.



Brian: We headed over to a brewery/bar called Roots that had a beer called Epic. What was epic about it? Well it is 12.75% abv, so the only serve it in 10 ounce glasses, to start. The bartender was a cute girl name Paige I believe, and she recommended that we check out Portland's reggae scene. We also handed out a couple of our new business cards which have our blog address on them. You can tell we are road tripping pros at this point. So after a drink there we consulted the Mapkin and found another bar nearby. Shortly after arriving we noticed a remarkably cute girl with J.R.R. Tolkien's personal name symbol tattooed on her forearm. Naturally we called her out on it. She introduced herself as Mercedes, chatted with us for a while, and we met a cute hipster friend of hers named Tokyo that was more than willing to talk about video games. Where have these girls been all my life!

Nick: Portland continues to impress. We left the bar then met up with Sara at an interpreter's gathering at (brace yourself) another bar.

Official disclaimer: We are not alcoholics. We're simply aware of the fact that one day, our bodies will be old and worn, and unable to bear the burden of partying of this magnitude. In the meantime, we're going to live it up. Do not press us on this issue.

Anyway, the Green Dragon, which is where Sara and her compatriots were was fine. We all hung out for a while, ate some left over french fries and taters, then headed over to a nearby dance club which was initially lame and empty but which over the course of a few hours filled up and erupted into a full blown party. I enjoyed the live band playing on the dance floor amidst a swarming cloud of dry ice fog. And the crazy techno lights.

Tyler: Yeah, alternating sets of amazing live DJs and electronic style bands, made for a crazy time with lots of amazing dancing.



Nick: And also the Dino Tarot station set up on the way to the bathroom. Pardon? You've not heard of Dino Tarot before? Choose a couple dinosaurs from a tray, arrange them in a manner pleasing to your aesthetic disposition, and a trained Dino Tarot professional will tell you a bit about your present, past, and future. Definitely not dark-sided. The last stop of the evening was a small gathering of food carts offering a wide assortment of late night eatables sure to please even the most discerning drunken fried-food connoisseurs.

Brian: Everything was going fine until a homeless guy and his girlfriend showed up and started spitting some gibberish. We were all kind of talking to the dude and for some reason it struck us as funny when we learned his name was Brian (because my name is also Brian). Sara started laughing and then all of a sudden the girlfriend charged up on her like a rhino, wrenched the pork pie from Sara's grip, and threw it to the ground with such force that it shattered into a million little pork and dough pieces. I can't remember whether Tyler still ate it or not.

Tyler: I didn't....but I thought about it.

Brian: Well they were escorted away by the security dude and the pie guy fried another one for her free of charge. Sara shared it with us but I think she was a little scarred by the experience because she wouldn't let any of us hold the pie while we took bites. Another great night, my only regret is that I did not sit for a Dino Tarot reading of my own.

Tyler: After a second long night and possibly a third tonight we're all looking forward to a little r&r from our r&r, can't wait to get to the coast and start camping. Nick, Brian and Tyler out.

Seattle, WA - Portland, OR

Day 1

Brian: The road trip is officially resumed. With three people in the car space is at a premium, so we spent Thursday morning packing the car with Tetris-like efficiency and left for Portland around noon. I had barely torn into my first of many delicious jerky slices (thank you, Grandpa) when everybody's favorite song came blasting through the speakers. What is more definitive of our trip than "Party in the USA" except perhaps for Moxie? The universe itself seems to bless our journey.

Tyler: Yeah, not a huge fan but at least it's not that Kings of Leon song, which I've heard five times in the last two days.

Nick: It was happy and wonderful, but in a way, a little sad. It was as though Miley was holding us in her tender musical embrace we've been comforted by so many times and whispering in perfect auto-tuned harmony the words: "Though you might not always hear me on the radio, I am with you in all that you do. The first leg of the journey is over, and all that was is now in the past. A new day has dawned. Go forth, find a new teen idol to bop along to, and learn to love again." We will Miley. After a pretty quick drive, we arrived in Portland. First stop, REI. Tyler needed some new hippie gear I guess. We were also dangerously low on gas because someone neglected to fill up.

Brian: Sorry.

Nick: We coasted to a station, then set off to find our first of many a beer on this trip. Deschutes brewery was the worthy candidate to host such a momentous occasion.

Tyler: Yes the beer was good and we conversed loudly about jenkum, a great time to be had by all. After the brewery the time came for us to head to a tree party that a couch surfer invited us to. The party consisted of free beer and cocktails in a tree museum that took us about half an hour of navigating one way streets and windy roads to find. We stood just outside the entrance of the museum debating whether or not we wanted to spend 8 bucks to get in and whether or not we had to spend 8 bucks to get in. Turns out we were on the list, and the entire debacle cost zero dollars.

Brian: Technically it was a coffee party at a tree museum, but with free booze. As to the "cost" of the event, my liver might disagree. Either way the gracious and lovely (though spoken for) marketing goddess Lauren turned us loose in her after-hours event and we meandered around sampling various coffee-flavored local brews for a couple hours. Oh by the way, Portland has the most breweries per capita of any city in this country. Everyone you meet here will tell you that. I'm not complaining though. The point is they do beer pretty good...

Nick: Pretty well?

Brian: ...around here. We left the tree museum and headed over to a bar, the concept of which excited me so much I can't even write about it.

Tyler: Yeah pretty much Brian's biggest fantasy.

Nick: So check it out: when I first read the message from Sara, our couch surfing host in Portland, regarding the evening's activities, I had to tell Brian not to fall in love. I'm sure he tried, but I'm not sure he was ultimately successful. The first place we went to was a bar that served cheap PBR tall boys. O.K., so far so good. Oh, and they also had tons of classic arcade games and pinball machines. What? Yes, it's true. The DJ spinning chip music sealed the deal as the greatest bar of the trip.

Tyler: Yes, blasting zombies on House of the Dead is significantly easier with a beer in one hand and a great DJ in the room.

Nick: Turns out Tyler and I both have an affinity for melting the faces off the living dead with unlimited rounds of small arms fire. We almost beat the whole game... But the night had only just begun.

Tyler: Our host sped us off to the next bar but didn't tell us the "theme" until we got there. She asked us as we neared the entrance: "So, have you guys ever been to a drag show before?"

Nick: Yikes

Tyler: The place had fairly good prices on drinks, a bracelet netted you five PBRs for six bucks so the four of us got two bracelets total, not per person. We sat at our table and watched men dressed as a ladies lip-sync to classic pop tunes. The sheer novelty of it astounded all of us, and because Brian didn't join the other men on stage, Nick now owes me a beer from the Rogue brewery once we get there. In the adjoining bar/other room dance music and low lighting prompted all of us to dance until the late hours of the night and there may or may not have been cages involved.

Brian: Point of clarification: That bet was made entirely without my knowledge. I never expressed a desire to dress up as a woman and sing Whitney Houston or to be on stage with someone engaging in said activity. I guess Nick just thinks he can talk me into anything if I'm drunk enough. I guess that might be partially true...

Tyler: All true...

Nick: Point of clarification: I can talk you into anything if you're drunk enough. I didn't really try to get you on stage because I guess I figured it would just happen naturally in due time. Oh well.

Brian: So after a while we got tired of massive she-males and decided to hit up one last bar before the inevitable drunken food run. The name of the establishment escapes me but I do recall that the only person on the dance floor was a girl with a collection of hula-hoops. I'm not sure if it was the fatigue from our earlier dancing, or alcohol-related lack of coordination, but none of us could keep the hoop going for more than a few seconds. Sara consoled us by suggesting that the hoops were too small, and therefore our failure was inevitable. I know I can hula, so I want a second chance.

Tyler: I never tried: Nick and Brian looked like big enough fools without my contribution.

Nick: I resent that man. I think we were close, I really thought it would liven the place up if we could. But we couldn't. Depressing. The next place cheered us right up, though. Before I describe it however, I submit a side note to the humble readers of this blog: for literally years, I have been proposing the idea of a caramel drizzled piece of bacon as a delicious piece of culinary progress. I think the sweet and salty would be great, and I've never given up on these scruples despite severe persecution from friends and colleagues alike. Voodoo Doughnuts, which was our last stop of the night, was clearly founded by a baker with the same gastronomical imagination and courage I myself possess. There were a myriad of doughnuts: some with cereal bits sprinkled all over them, some with Oreo and peanut butter slathered on top, some that looked like mini birthday cakes. The best of all however, the sultan of all the doughnuts, was a maple flavored pastry topped with crispy, peppery bacon. It was truly spectacular. In fact, I think I can comfortably say the supreme rightness of that doughnut undid all of the past wrongs, all of the past edible evils we've endured on this trip thus far. I'm talking to you, crab sandwich.

Brian: Ok, first of all that soft-shell crab was delicious. Secondly, people have been putting maple syrup on their bacon since the dawn of breakfast, so although your caramel dipped bacon is a great concept, it hardly qualifies you as a culinary savant. Well that basically brings Day 1 of Part 2 to a close. Crazy bars, crazy food, free stuff from cool people, all in a days work for us road trippers. Brian, Nick, and Tyler out.