This past weekend, I and the two girls from Revolution Gardens, Ginger and Jesse, took a field trip into Portland. I had visited Portland before, but not really experienced it in all it's glory. In my opinion, the only way to explore the city of Portland is to do it by bicycle. Portland is an amazingly bike friendly place, and there are bike lanes there that give the rider a feeling as if he or she has their very own peddling highway. Also, with all the shops, restaurants, art installments, and overall weirdness in general, a bicyclist has plenty of sights to enjoy along the way. With all the other cyclists around, it is very easy to immediately feel a part of the peddling community there as well. Basically, all the cool folks in Portland are out there on bikes, and if you're on one too, well, youre on your way to hipsterdom.
So, for our first evening in P-town, we arrived at Dan and Persephone's house to visit for a bit and also to be entertained by Dan's comical rantings. The guy is relentless, and he'll keep you in stitches for the duration of any encounter. After our initial safety meeting, we all geared up and headed out by bike for an evening of Roller Derby fun with the "Breakneck Betties." Our ride across town, over the bridge and down by the river was quite an enjoyable cruise, and we grabbed a nice dinner at a nearby brewpub before the match. I had macaroni and cheese, blue cheese topped, and a salad with garlic chees bread, oh, and I also had the LSD IPA to drink. Watch out, it'll twist yer mind!
After dinner we were on to roller derby, and we missed the 1st half where the Bettie's were losing, but after our arival the Betties came back to win by over 80 something points. Good job Betties! This was my first roller derby experience, and it was really cool to see all these skilled skaters taking big hits and speeding past one another with such agility and calculation. I certainly wouldn't want to mess with any of those girls! Good job Betties! So, afterwards we headed to the pub to celebrate the win with the girls, but somehow on our way, Jesse and I got separated from the crew, and for about 45 minutes we were lost in Portland not sure of where to go, or where are friends had gone. It is kind of an exciting feeling I must say. Anyways, we found everyone and spent some time there at the pub revelling among the Betties.
The real excitement of the evening didn't occur until later, but the truly amazing spectacle to be experienced is that of Peddlepalooza, which is a wee-long event with all kind of bike related events, rides, and workshops. As for this particular evening, we were going to try and make the "naked bike ride." It wasn't hard to find. Very quickly we ran into a crew of peddlers who seemed to know where they were going, and one bike had a side car with a boombox blaring, while another bike was a double decker, about 8 to 9 feet tall, ridden by some girl in costume. It was a small parade that grew quickly, gathering up riders as we went. Everyone was still clothed, but soon enough we arrived in the industrial district to a mass of folks, who were all disrobing and preparing for the ride. Wow! This was amazing. Before long, folks were all stripping down and preparing to ride. I told myself, "when in Portland." The next minute our Revolution Garden crew among several thousand other folks began the ride through town. It was quite the amazing experience. I was grinning the whole time, and people lined the streets to cheer us on. Police blocked off the side streets and folks stood by with high fives for the riders.
The whole time I thought wow, what a crazy-ass city, I love it!! It was the most amazing way to experience a new city, not that all cities can be experienced in this way, but I would certainly recommend it to anyone feeling a bit new to an area. Nothng says "here I am folks" quite like a naked parade through the streets of town.
The ride was certainly the highlight of our visit, but the next day we did also make it down to the Gay Pride parade, which Jesse was very excited about. Farm girls' gotta be on the lookout for them city lesbians y'know! Ginger spotted a courier bake with coffee dispensers mounted on it, so we had to check that out, for business research, so before I knew it we were in the parade. So, that takes care of all my gay needs for the year! My favorite was the dragqueens on seguays, scooting around and waving frantically. Such divas!
The rest of our trip was about good food. Whole Foods is an amazing place, almost dangerous how much good and tempting looking food they have there. However, the most amazing meal experience was had at this tiny little sushi place called Saburro's. This little hole in the wall place has a line that forms for dinner out front as early as 4 pm. So we stood and waited, but when we finally got in and placed our order, the food that came was amazing. I've never seen such large suchi rolls. Also, the cuts of fish were so fresh and large. We are not sur ehow they manage to stay in business serving such food at such low prices. Maybe they are some kind of Japanese mafia, and the restaurant is just some kind of a cover for their undercover operations. Whatever the deal is, they've got amazing sushi.
So, that was Portland for the weekend. That place definately has all kinds of things to do and experience. Powell's books is one of the most amazing book stores ever. Next Adventure is also an awesome independant outdoor store with a whole basement filled with used gear for sale, and Andy and Bax is a true military surplus heaven. There is so much more there for me to discover, so I'll have to do more research for next trip, but if you're ever in the area, you'll certainly not be lacking for things to do.
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