Boarder
9/19/2006, 11:54 PM
Ok, yes, the game outcome wasn't primo but the trip to Oregon was cool. Me and Mrs SB left on Thursday and stayed in Portland. Here's my story:
We stayed in downtown Portland. It's right on a Columbia River slough. The downtown area is really neat. There are a lot of stores, bars, and restaurants and all of it is easily walkable. It rained a bit and I got a nice rainbow shot:
(FYI: you can click on all of these pictures and see a bigger picture)
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/53/653/5/93/46/2250593460062315930ydQkRH_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2250593460062315930ydQkRH)
Which leads me to another thing. When we left on Friday to go to Astoria, while driving out of the downtown area we stopped at a stoplight. I noticed on one side of the street was a bath house. On the other side was a mens underwear store. There was a billboard for a male theater sort of thing. Then, I noticed two dudes at the crosswalk. It was the gay section of town. I imagine there's a lot of people who have seen this sort of thing often, but not me. It was a little shocking at first.
We drove out to Astoria and the coast for the real part of our trip. It is beautiful country:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/57/557/1/18/28/2075118280062315930sVEvWZ_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2075118280062315930sVEvWZ)
This cracked me up:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/14/15/8/56/28/2102856280062315930XDSxIF_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2102856280062315930XDSxIF)
The Columbia River is massive. And Awesome. Here's the bridge to Warshington in Astoria:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/57/757/4/73/25/2715473250062315930EZfaOY_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2715473250062315930EZfaOY)
Which brings us to the real reason we came (the game just happened to be going on at the same time). In Astoria, there are several locations where they filmed The Goonies. First there's the store where the housekeeper was shopping:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/59/59/8/56/68/2084856680062315930QHBBcZ_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2084856680062315930QHBBcZ)
Here's the bowling alley where Chunk saw the car chase in the opening (where he runs to the window and slaps his pizza on the glass:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/26/26/6/47/13/2182647130062315930sGWmoH_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2182647130062315930sGWmoH)
The County Jail where the Fratelli guy came out of jail:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/18/18/4/65/98/2837465980062315930xkLCnb_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2837465980062315930xkLCnb)
And, the piece de resistance (or whatever)...the house where Mikey lived:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/53/453/1/0/83/2588100830062315930wMuOkI_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2588100830062315930wMuOkI)
The Goonies tour was cool. We then went down to Cannon Beach. There are several locations where Point Break was filmed, along with The Goonies. The first was Haystack Rock. You can see it on the right side of the first picture. It's the huge rock in the water. That whole beach area is breathtaking. I highly recommend visiting. Surfing is big there, too. I saw a seal on the beach that had been bitten in half. Probably by a Great White shark (sorry, no pics). Therefore I won't be surfing there any time soon.
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/26/27/6/98/57/2539698570062315930aJrVMq_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2539698570062315930aJrVMq)
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/22/23/6/36/60/2792636600062315930CeRdLF_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2792636600062315930CeRdLF)
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/59/659/7/77/73/2815777730062315930mjuZYR_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2815777730062315930mjuZYR)
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/32/33/2/30/64/2851230640062315930gOPhBF_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2851230640062315930gOPhBF)
When do right, no can defense! (notice the shadow of Mrs SB expecting me to fall at any time)
We met up that night with Ocatvian, DoLeMiTe, and Yermom at Rockbottom in Portland. That place is delicious. Awesome pretzels. VERY awesome Oatmeal Stout. Good times.
Next day we drove down to Eugene. Not a bad drive at all. I'm pretty sure 75% of the people in the stadium drove down from Portland. Here's the view from the top of the OU section:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/18/18/9/85/49/2108985490062315930Kjzayn_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2108985490062315930Kjzayn)
It's a nice stadium. And, they do get loud sporadically. But hey, even the Fock gets loud once or twice a year. I hate to burst the bubble, but "The most intimidating place in the Pac-10 to play"? If that's true, everywhere else must be really unintimidating. If these people ever went to aTm they'd poop thier pants. One dude bragged to Octavian about how "thier stadium holds 55,000...how many does yours hold?" Oh, 85,000 or so. "Umm...ok (he shuts up). It's a nice clean newer stadium. Nice seating. I give it a thumbs up. The replay booth needs updating, obviously.
We flew out Sunday morning at 11:15. I wanted to work out that morning before I left. I noticed there were a bunch of signs around about the Race For the Cure (the breast cancer foundation thing). It was a 5k that started at 7:30 and the starting line was two blocks from my hotel. So, I figured what the heck. I got up early, registered, and ran it:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/28/28/0/54/76/2540054760062315930obporN_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2540054760062315930obporN)
I finished in 29:45. Not bad for me, a fat guy who ate calamari and Rockfish LaFitte the night before (at Jake's Crawfish restaurant...a really old and awesome seafood place) and hadn't really been training. Notice I did sport not only the Poser Gym wear but the OU hat. I found out just how big of a deal it was. There was between 45,000 and 50,000 people there between all of the runs and walks. As I was running I could see the people with the celebration of or in memory of signs on thier backs with names on them. Just running, listening to David Crowder, and thinking about it I got a bit teary. It's a good cause.
We made it to the flight on time and went to Vegas, stayed a couple of days, and got back today. It was a great trip. Sunday night we saw the new Cirque de Soliel show called "Love". (http://www.mirage.com/entertainment/entertainment_cirque_du_soleil.aspx) It has all Beatles songs. I recommend that, too. I've seen a lot of Cirque shows and it's not as good as "O", but is excellent. "O" is amazing and really unfair to be compared to. You can really see why the Beatles were so popular. They just flat out have good songs.
Awesome trip. Nice memories that no stupid referee can dampen.
We stayed in downtown Portland. It's right on a Columbia River slough. The downtown area is really neat. There are a lot of stores, bars, and restaurants and all of it is easily walkable. It rained a bit and I got a nice rainbow shot:
(FYI: you can click on all of these pictures and see a bigger picture)
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/53/653/5/93/46/2250593460062315930ydQkRH_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2250593460062315930ydQkRH)
Which leads me to another thing. When we left on Friday to go to Astoria, while driving out of the downtown area we stopped at a stoplight. I noticed on one side of the street was a bath house. On the other side was a mens underwear store. There was a billboard for a male theater sort of thing. Then, I noticed two dudes at the crosswalk. It was the gay section of town. I imagine there's a lot of people who have seen this sort of thing often, but not me. It was a little shocking at first.
We drove out to Astoria and the coast for the real part of our trip. It is beautiful country:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/57/557/1/18/28/2075118280062315930sVEvWZ_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2075118280062315930sVEvWZ)
This cracked me up:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/14/15/8/56/28/2102856280062315930XDSxIF_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2102856280062315930XDSxIF)
The Columbia River is massive. And Awesome. Here's the bridge to Warshington in Astoria:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/57/757/4/73/25/2715473250062315930EZfaOY_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2715473250062315930EZfaOY)
Which brings us to the real reason we came (the game just happened to be going on at the same time). In Astoria, there are several locations where they filmed The Goonies. First there's the store where the housekeeper was shopping:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/59/59/8/56/68/2084856680062315930QHBBcZ_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2084856680062315930QHBBcZ)
Here's the bowling alley where Chunk saw the car chase in the opening (where he runs to the window and slaps his pizza on the glass:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/26/26/6/47/13/2182647130062315930sGWmoH_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2182647130062315930sGWmoH)
The County Jail where the Fratelli guy came out of jail:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/18/18/4/65/98/2837465980062315930xkLCnb_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2837465980062315930xkLCnb)
And, the piece de resistance (or whatever)...the house where Mikey lived:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/53/453/1/0/83/2588100830062315930wMuOkI_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2588100830062315930wMuOkI)
The Goonies tour was cool. We then went down to Cannon Beach. There are several locations where Point Break was filmed, along with The Goonies. The first was Haystack Rock. You can see it on the right side of the first picture. It's the huge rock in the water. That whole beach area is breathtaking. I highly recommend visiting. Surfing is big there, too. I saw a seal on the beach that had been bitten in half. Probably by a Great White shark (sorry, no pics). Therefore I won't be surfing there any time soon.
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/26/27/6/98/57/2539698570062315930aJrVMq_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2539698570062315930aJrVMq)
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/22/23/6/36/60/2792636600062315930CeRdLF_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2792636600062315930CeRdLF)
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/59/659/7/77/73/2815777730062315930mjuZYR_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2815777730062315930mjuZYR)
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/32/33/2/30/64/2851230640062315930gOPhBF_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2851230640062315930gOPhBF)
When do right, no can defense! (notice the shadow of Mrs SB expecting me to fall at any time)
We met up that night with Ocatvian, DoLeMiTe, and Yermom at Rockbottom in Portland. That place is delicious. Awesome pretzels. VERY awesome Oatmeal Stout. Good times.
Next day we drove down to Eugene. Not a bad drive at all. I'm pretty sure 75% of the people in the stadium drove down from Portland. Here's the view from the top of the OU section:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/18/18/9/85/49/2108985490062315930Kjzayn_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2108985490062315930Kjzayn)
It's a nice stadium. And, they do get loud sporadically. But hey, even the Fock gets loud once or twice a year. I hate to burst the bubble, but "The most intimidating place in the Pac-10 to play"? If that's true, everywhere else must be really unintimidating. If these people ever went to aTm they'd poop thier pants. One dude bragged to Octavian about how "thier stadium holds 55,000...how many does yours hold?" Oh, 85,000 or so. "Umm...ok (he shuts up). It's a nice clean newer stadium. Nice seating. I give it a thumbs up. The replay booth needs updating, obviously.
We flew out Sunday morning at 11:15. I wanted to work out that morning before I left. I noticed there were a bunch of signs around about the Race For the Cure (the breast cancer foundation thing). It was a 5k that started at 7:30 and the starting line was two blocks from my hotel. So, I figured what the heck. I got up early, registered, and ran it:
http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/28/28/0/54/76/2540054760062315930obporN_th.jpg (http://community.webshots.com/photo/2540054760062315930obporN)
I finished in 29:45. Not bad for me, a fat guy who ate calamari and Rockfish LaFitte the night before (at Jake's Crawfish restaurant...a really old and awesome seafood place) and hadn't really been training. Notice I did sport not only the Poser Gym wear but the OU hat. I found out just how big of a deal it was. There was between 45,000 and 50,000 people there between all of the runs and walks. As I was running I could see the people with the celebration of or in memory of signs on thier backs with names on them. Just running, listening to David Crowder, and thinking about it I got a bit teary. It's a good cause.
We made it to the flight on time and went to Vegas, stayed a couple of days, and got back today. It was a great trip. Sunday night we saw the new Cirque de Soliel show called "Love". (http://www.mirage.com/entertainment/entertainment_cirque_du_soleil.aspx) It has all Beatles songs. I recommend that, too. I've seen a lot of Cirque shows and it's not as good as "O", but is excellent. "O" is amazing and really unfair to be compared to. You can really see why the Beatles were so popular. They just flat out have good songs.
Awesome trip. Nice memories that no stupid referee can dampen.