4th of July in Clackamas Equals a Whole Lot of Wow! - State #2

Technically the 50 state project started even before I really knew it had as it does for most of us.  I am originally from San Francisco but really don't want to start it off that way.  The truth is, nobody really cares anyway.  Why?  because discussing me walking to school and eating pizza rolls at my friends' houses is pretty damn boring!  So, I will start with Oregon though it is technically state #2.    So here is a classic Portland entry to start things off.  There are a lot of entries in Oregon as some of my family resides there.  Enjoy the wonders of Clackamas!  

Woo Hoo!  The 4th!

For Independence Day 2008, I decided to leave the crappy sauna that is NYC and head out west to visit some family and friends in Portland, Oregon to escape the torture that is known as an East Coast summer.  You see, NYC summer's say good morning with a slap in the face of unbearable heat and humidity and sends you off to bed in the same manner.  This mixed with the lovely aroma of rotting garbage and human stank make the summer at times less than ideal.  The West Coast on the other hand has many days filled with hot, dry heat ranging in the 70's to 80's and end with cool nights filled with light whips of crisp breeze.  Because of my love for the West Coast summers, I planned to stay for a full week to soak it all in.

  

Crossing into Portland

My first time to hang out with friends was on a Tuesday, not the best night as many people do this thing called work.  Luckily, my friend Angie isn't about sleep and was ready to roll!  It was a beautiful evening in Portland; picture book perfect actually.  The day had been warm, 85 degrees, but the night had cooled off to one of those breezy West Coast nights that I was raised on.  A night like that can only mean one thing to me and Angie.  Time to go to Waterfront Park!

I met up with Angie and we headed towards downtown.  The sun was easing into the west kissing the sky with a lovely orange pink glow.  We rolled down the windows letting the fresh air surround us and cranked up the K103.

Now K103 won't make sense to people who haven't spent a lot of time in Portland.  K103 is that cheesy music channel that every major city has that plays mostly love songs; especially at night.  I don't normally listen to this type of music, but when in Portland with Angie, we crank it up.  Why?  Because we like to laugh and seeing the looks on other peoples faces as we pass by is priceless!

As we got closer to Waterfront, we were surprised to see a parking space open right across the street.  It doesn't get any better than this in Portland.  No, seriously, it doesn't, but I am getting sidetracked.  After celebrating our parking victory we exited the car and headed to the Waterfront walkway, but not before I spied the back of Angie's car.  Their was bird pooh everywhere!  It was as if a group of kamikaze birds had gone crazy and hit the back of Angie's car over and over.  Why she was picked, we will never know, but it made for a great photo op!

No Liquor, Yet Every One Has Some

Back to the story!  When it gets warm in Portland everyone and their mother goes to Pioneer Square or Waterfront; it's just the way it is.  Because of that the place was crawling with all different types of people.  There are a lot of nutty people in Portland so Angie and I blended right in.

The walk along Waterfront Park brought back a lot of memories for the both of us.  Getting hit on by some random homeless guy, fleet week and the soldiers scoping the grounds for chicks, hiding from ex boyfriends we spotted on the walkway; the list goes on and on.

Waterfront is a place I would recommend to anyone who visits Portland.  It is a great place to people watch, ride your bike, walk, skate or sit and talk with friends.  Angie and I did the latter since we hadn't seen each other in a while.   We also decided to take a portrait of the both of us at Waterfront to remember this wonderful Portland moment.  So we set the camera down on part of the railing and prayed it didn't fall into the water.  The camera was new so this was an extremely dumb move.  Luckily, the camera gods were with us and the camera was spared.  Unfortunately, the photo was frightening (Exhibit A Below). 

An hour or so later, we decided we were hungry so we headed towards Clackamas.  Yes, Clackamas!  Everything we passed was either closed or a strip club.  Here's the thing.  In the Portland area there are strip clubs everywhere; that and Fred Meyers and churches.  My friend who visited a recently still talks about all the strips clubs, Fred Meyers and Churches he witnessed while in Portland.  But we didn't want to go to a strip club; we just wanted to eat without being disturbed by booties. 

Hot Flaming Mess

Every place I suggested along the way home was closed.  How could this be, it was only 10PM?  Angie had to gently remind me that I had been spoiled by NYC.  Nothing was open at 10PM on Tuesday in Oregon; except bars, but we weren't feeling that for the first time in our lives.  So we had to settle on a Shari's Restaurant which is pretty much a Denny's with a more homey decor.

I used to go to Shari's all the time as a teenager, but not because it was good!  It just happened to be open all night!  Well, it was still as lousy as ever.  The service was slow and the food was as I remembered it, nasty with a side of yuck.  A Banquet Frozen Dinner would be better than Shari's and it only costs a buck at the .99 store!

We paid the bill as quickly as we could (which isn't fast at Shari's) and headed to Angie's car so she could drop me off.  We were discussing our plans for the Fourth of July the next day as we were dive bombed by a huge moth that had snuck into her car.  I hate bugs and I ran out of the car screaming.  Portland has its own way of saying welcome back.  

A few days later, I met up with a group of friends to celebrate 4th of July.  There is nothing better than the 4th of July in Oregon.  Okay, that's an exaggeration, because every 4th of July ends up getting a good dose of rain without fail!  But a miracle happened the summer of 2008.  There was not a drop of rain to be found let alone clouds.  Could Al Gore be right?

Yay 4th of July!

Around noon I headed out to meet Angie in Clackamas.  Yes, the town is really called Clackamas.  Angie and her family had invited me to spend the afternoon at the Clackamas River before Angie, David and I celebrated the 4th of July our own way for the evening.

The part of the Clackamas River that we were on is where you will find many people intertubing on the water.  It isn't that deep, but it has a decent current so hundreds of people go there on the weekends or 4th of July to escape the heat.  I passed as I am not a fan of water; in fact only two members of the group decided to go down the river.

The rest of us stayed on the porch at the house as hundreds of intertubers drifted by.  The current was so strong that 75% of the people would end up caught up on the rocks below us because they underestimated the distance between the rocks and the rest of the river and didn't leave enough room.  We laughed as we enjoyed our chicken, potato salad and corn.  It was even funnier when we spotted the two members of our group who had also ended up stuck on the rocks.  We pointed, laughed and took photos as they crawled up out of the river and onto the deck to grab a beer and some chicken before heading back out on the river to finish the run.

The Beer Goddess!

But before they left we were granted a visit from the Beer Goddess.  Yes, she does really exist and we spotted her on the Clackamas River carrying a cooler on her back and a cold one in her hand.  Her owner was watching her closely because every man was eying her; every man wanted her.  She was desired by all! I just hope the beer wasn't Pabst.

As evening descended, things on the river started to slow down, so Angie, David and I said goodbye to the others and went back to Angie's house to celebrate Independence Day our way.  We hadn't really prepared much, so Angie  dug through her car and found old fireworks from the year before.  The amount of fireworks we had were dismal.  We had around 16 sparklers and 12 blooming flowers.  Wow!  But I didn't care!  This pyro loves fireworks and I began lightening them up and was soon joined by Angie and David.  The grand finale was when I put two sparklers in my hands and twirled them around.  This amazing display took all of 10 minutes.

Whoopie!

When our last sparkler died, we heard loud booms tearing through the sky.  We turned to see the most brilliant and beautiful display of fireworks just two blocks behind us.  At least someone on our block wasn't lame.  Sure those kind of fireworks are illegal in Oregon, but they sure are pretty to look at.

After the fireworks were done for the evening, we decided to fill the void with some Chinese food.  We had to waste some time because I had to wait for the drunks to go home and it would be at least a few hours before the roads thinned out from the traffic from the huge fireworks display on the river, so we decided to get crazy and pulled out the trivia games.  Oh yeah, Portland!  Life in the fast lane!