Went on down to Portland..and beyond

I've been to Portland once before. Its a nice place. Imagine Seattle without all the Microsoft moneybags and replace them with hippies and I think you get Portland. So it's sort of like a more run down version of Seattle. Still pretty nice. Last time I just came down for kicks. This time I had a purpose. My roommates and I were on a mission, but first a stop by everyone's favorite bookstore, Powell's.

What does it mean when one of the biggest attractions in your city is a bookstore? I mean, it seriously is a nice bookstore, but it is still just a really big bookstore. The woman that the legs in the upper corner of that picture belong to got mad at us for taking a picture without her permission. Just a first example of one of Portland's themes:

After some dinner, we stopped by Voodoo Doughnuts, a local favorite. I declined the phallic doughnut, but still in the spirit of keeping it weird I opted for their one of a kind bacon maple bar. I saw this on Food Network once so its the real deal.

As with most things, bacon only made it better. Yeah, I know. I least of all should have been surprised, but somehow I was. Weird. I also had the Heath Ledger. It was a cream filled doughnut covered with crumbled heath bar. An appropriate and touching memorial to Heath.

So my roommates and I went down because our alma mater, Utah, was coming up to the northwest to play a football game. We met up with the MUSS in Portland the night before the game. Nice group.

Next day we headed out early to drive down to Eugene to Autzen Stadium. It was a rainy day...rats. Before the game we enjoyed a pregame pep rally with the U of U Alumni Association complete with food, prizes, and cheerleaders.

Then it was game time.

All I'm gonna say was that things did not turn out as we would have liked, but there were 2 things that made the loss bearable. First, despite what everyone told us before going to Eugene, the Duck fans were nothing, but nice and polite to us. I wasn't spat on once. Maybe because we aren't part of the PAC-10 or probably because they beat us. Still way nice to us. Second, on the long drive home we were constantly updated on the thrashing that Florida St. gave to the team down south. That always makes things better. Even with our one disappointment during the trip it was a fun weekend.