A Week to Remember

Week in Review

High and lows of the past week:

- Monday:

We leave for our trip, already behind schedule. We do finally make it to Oregon, after a stop in Weed, California…to see the…umm…weeds. We also met an interesting fellow named Andrew of the Unification church. He is from the Ukraine and is traveling the world for his church. I love people who go out there and pursue things that they are passionate about, so naturally we made a donation to his church. In return, he gave us a butterfly wind-chime and a promise that he would stop calling me Korean. While stopped at a Barnes & Noble to use the internet (this looks like a recurring theme this trip: spending time in B&N, Starbucks, and McDonald’s to use the internet), we get interrogated by an officer in Medford, Oregon as if we are criminals. Seriously, this dude had issues…he approached us in his jet black SUV in a way that I can only describe as straight ridiculous. He accused us of stealing the internet (we paid for this service homey), and made us leave. We slept in another parking lot that night and I’m the only one that got decent sleep (another recurring theme, lol).

- Tuesday:

I wake up last, and realize that Mike and Chris are already in Starbucks/B&N using the ‘net. I am welcomed by the jealous remark “hey Sleeping Beauty” by Chris, which is then immediately echoed by Mike. Apparently there were some shady characters near our car all night and several cops driving by. Didn’t bother me. After a visit to Crater Lake (my feelings on that experience is my other blog entry The Oregon Trail), we decided to book a hotel in a neighboring Portland town because according to Mike and Chris: “We ain’t sleeping in no damn car anymore.” That didn’t take long to get past the whole “roughing it” thing. We eat at Cha! Cha! Cha! (We’re working on an Eats page that will detail our meals and how we felt about them, by the way) and after seeing how dead— and I mean right before a showdown in a western DEAD, Portland is in the night, we decide to call it.

- Wednesday:

On the recommendation of a couple girls in the Portland area, we go to restaurant called Silk. It had wonderful atmosphere and overall ambience in the place, screaming of high class, but oddly their menus were poorer than one’s you would find at Denny’s. They were black and white copies of one original menu and weren’t even laminated. Well, I guess they had to cut costs somewhere… Luckily, they made up for it with some great dishes, which had Chris saying, “this is DAMN good.” Thanks to the recommendations (If you are ever in the Portland area, you HAVE TO try to the Shaken Beef) of our helpful waiter, Kim the fly fisherman, we enjoyed the place. We decided we were over Portland, seemed kinda boring. One quirky thing we found out about Oregon: It is a state law that they pump gas for you. Ray and Chris: “Are we gonna tip?” Mike: “Hell no, they get paid for that shit.” On that note, we head to Washington. We literally stop on a four lane freeway and walk a couple hundred feet back along the road to take a picture in front of the Welcome to Washington sign. Better times ahead, we hope. After a visit to Arby’s we head to Saltwater State Park to set up camp. It is closed. It closes at 8:30pm. Crap. We decide to go to a rest stop we saw earlier along the freeway because according to Chris, “it has free wifi.” So apparently we will sleep in the car as long as there is free wireless internet, lol. It didn’t even work.

- Thursday:

A couple sleeping pills later, we find ourselves heading for the Pike Place Market. Talk about a good call. This place is can’t miss in Seattle (we are also working on a page with all the landmarks we’ve visited and whether or not we think it is can’t miss, so look out for that). There are quirky shops there, but really the Marketplace is where it’s at. Delicious fruit, huge seafood, extravagant flowers, and just plain great atmosphere decorate the best Farmer’s type market I have ever seen. In the same area we encounter a street performer called Vinny, who sounds exactly like Johnny Cash. He does a great performance for our cameras and we decide to call him Vinny Money. In the same area is the very first Starbucks and we visit that. We have lunch at Brasserie Margeaux, a French place in the Seattle area. After another delicious lunch, we have made two agreements. We will eat good lunches sandwiched by a light breakfast and dinner, and that we value good food over good sleep, so the rest stop it is again tonight. Before that though, we had much more on the agenda. We had gelato at the highly rated Gelatiamo (I’ve had better in San Francisco), and sign up for the Underground Tour (www.undergroundtour.com). It was, in a word: Boring as hell. Ok, that’s three words, but it is in line with they type of bad jokes they will tell during the tour. The tour guide, Heather, who worked as a seamstress as night (inside joke) was hella cool and hooked us up with a free picture and tips about the nightlife in Seattle. A few two-dollar beers later—the best part of the tour was the discount in the bar above—we headed to 24 hour fitness and worked out in the gym. An interesting thing about working out, or rather about after working out: we all normally don’t shower at the gym, because normally we can go home and do it. 48 states in 5 months is not a normal situation, so we shower and take care of our business in the gym. Thing is, were also not used to taking showers with other VERY naked men in the same area, and by naked I mean NAKED, and by same area I mean NAKED area. Something to get used to, I guess. After a few extremely insensitive jokes, aimed primarily at Mike’s boobs, we have some slices of turkey and carrot sticks in the parking lot. Back to the rest stop!

Friday:

We work out again in the morning and head out. Parking in Seattle is a bitch. Pretty much like any major city I’ve been to, parking can be a chore, especially at lunchtime. Finally we make it to lunch at the highly rated (Zagat, Citysearch), Wild Ginger, which was pretty damn good. After, we zip to the Space Needle (www.spaceneedle.com), and buy a two-tiered ticket—one visit during the day and one at night. It was beautiful, but come to the conclusion that it would be much more beautiful while under the influence. So after quite an annoying search for alcohol, which is described best in Mike's blog, we went back to the Space Needle…buzzed. For once, we were right. The needle was really beautiful at night, and especially fun when the three of us are getting hyphy in there. After some peer pressure (it really didn’t take much), Mike asked the elevator operator, “Do you know what hyphy means?” She didn’t. With that behind us, it was time to go BACK TO THE CLUB!!!! We were going to go to club Trinity, but saw that Blank & Jones were going to be at The Last Supper Club. We went there and had a good time for a while, but it was so damn packed that we left and went to some other clubs/bars. Not enough peoples, so we called it. To the rest stop Batman!

Saturday & Sunday:

A.K.A. The Laborious Weekend. This debacle deserves its own blog entry. But let me give you a little taste: we had the good idea of going to a casino. We all love to gamble.