We spent a good full day in the Portland metro area once again. We spent a good portion of the morning and afternoon at the Oregon Zoo, visiting all the exhibits and sharing our love for each other and the animalian world. Which brings me to Memorable Moment of the Trip #4.

We were very hungry and needed food, so we walked down to the Africa section of the zoo, past the elephants, past the tigers, and into the AfriCafe — sort of like a McDonald’s smack dab in the middle of the zoo. There were a bunch of people in line ahead of us (sign #1 that our AfriCafe experience was going to suck), and when we got to the counter five minutes later, we saw nothing but young high school kids on summer break running the dining establishment (that was sign #2 that we were in hell). Eventually we order a couple burgers, some fries and a drink between us. The girl didn’t know how to run the credit/debit card machine (sign #3) so I stood there while Aftan went and got some Coca-Cola and Idiot Girl called the manager over. After that 10-minute debacle was complete, she tells us that it’s going to be a long wait for our food, maybe about 30 minutes (sign #4, and it’s getting really bad…) or longer. We said okay and went to go wait…and while we did, we overhear conversations between other pissed-off customers and the managerial staff asking why they had waited 45 minutes and received no food (sign #5). The kid behind the counter proceeds to tell them that only one fryer is operational and there is a huge backlog of food orders waiting to be completed (sign #6).

So we wait about another five minutes, and we notice a couple of staff members going on lunch break….with french fries on their tray (sign #7, and the ultimate sign that we HAD to get out of there). Aftan asked a clueless young girl why the people were getting to go on lunch break with their own fried food while customers have been waiting 45 minutes for theirs. To make a long story short, she had an angry exchange with Clueless Girl while I had one with Young Manager, almost demanding that I get a refund AND free food. Then Afty realized it wasn’t worth our wasted time, so we got the refund and left.

We could have used the Israeli military’s help. I’d love to see the AfriCafe burned down soon. In fact, I’d laugh and go back to the zoo just so I could play in the ashes.

Anyway, on to more highlights of the day…we rode MAX into downtown and stopped at Lloyd Center, where we peeked into a few stores to kill some time before Aftan’s math class. I went to the Disney store and bought Afty a stuffed animal version of Thumper from Bambi (which, in fact, she is cuddled next to peacefully sleeping right now). We rode MAX back into the Washington Park station, which just so happens to be the deepest subway station in North America. No kidding. An elevator took us down 265 feet to a nice little tunnel where the trains met us. It was neat.

Later, Aftan and Trina went to math class while I pulled my hair out over my site being down most of the day. Turns out DreamHost, my hosting company, had one of their servers crash and render most of their customers’ sites inoperable. It was so bad that some people lost service for 72 hours…and people were frantically looking for any sort of word as to what was happening, so much so that “DreamHost” was one of the Top 10 search terms on Technorati.com. Just look at this and you’ll see how many people suffered web outages because of DreamHost’s folks living in DreamLand and not paying a good amount of attention to their servers. I would not want to be working for DreamHost right now and I can bet they will lose a significant amount of business over this issue.

Anyway, math class ended and we came home, and watched Back to the Future. And here I am now, typing to you.

More photos are up, which makes 331 photos that Afty and I have uploaded to the Internet for this trip. Check them out, it’s free and for your enjoyment.

See you tomorrow.

Today we had an awesome time hanging out at Aftan’s family reunion and then driving around the back roads of Columbia County. Roads that are FAR less traveled than say, Highway 30, or even Fern Hill Road, for that matter, were the ones we traversed today. We took Scappoose-Vernonia Road from, well, Scappoose toward Vernonia to go to her family reunion at Big Eddy County Park on Hwy. 47. After that, we took a short drive into Vernonia, shot some photos, and hopped back in the car to drive down Hwy. 47 all the way to Apiary Road.

We drove about halfway down Apiary and stopped into Camp Wilkerson for a little bit to scope out their camping area. Afty used to go to 4-H camp there and showed me what the place is all about. Pretty neat place, and it would be an ideal little spot to hold a weekend church retreat or something. We took a ton of cool and crazy photos there, check ‘em out.

After we went to Wilkerson, we drove the rest of the way down into Rainier….well, a little bit west of it, and sauntered on into Clatskanie where we ate dinner at Fultano’s Pizza, which is now an official Chris Brewer Recommended Dining Establishment. Great place to eat, and if I could eat there every day I could. In fact, everyone, make your way to Clatskanie, Oregon, 97016 as fast as you can and go eat at Fultano’s Pizza. Then call them up just to tell them how much you love the food, and that Chris Brewer sent you. Soon I will have sent enough people there to where anyone could walk up to the counter and say “Chris Brewer sent me,” and get a $3 discount on a large pepperoni pizza.

Anyway, enough from me. We’re getting ready to watch a movie.

UPDATE!!! There are now 318 photos in the PhotoCenter, so check them out now. I will do my best to tag them all this week.

Quick rundown of the last two days.

Friday, we went to go visit Aftan’s grandma and have lunch with her at Sizzler over in Longview. We drove a few of the backroads of Rainier and snapped a couple shots of some beautiful views of Mt. St. Helens and the surrounding area.

Yesterday, we took a trip to Tacoma and visited with some of my old COGOP friends up at Pastor Rob Judd’s house. It was pretty cool getting to introduce Aftan to them, and them to Aftan. We only got to stay for about three hours though…after we came back to Rainier, we remembered they were holding the Days in the Park celebration so we stopped in to talk with a couple folks and see fireworks. It’s amazing how many people we went to high school with still remain deeply connected to the area…we counted 90 people we recognized (officially). Amazing.

It’s off to Vernonia today to go see some of Aftan’s family. Then when we come back we might just chill out for awhile. One more week of vacation to go…it’s gonna be great.

And on that note, there are only four months left until my time in the Air Force is over. YUS.

Yesterday was Day 9 of the trip. It seems like it’s been a lot longer than that, which is good because it means we are doing fun and awesome stuff each day. Yesterday was no different, as we went to go see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Great movie, even though I didn’t care for the first. Awesome use of computer generated images, animations, etc. I really liked it.

After that we met up with my brother Jason, and good friends Kristin, Cris and his dad Bob to go eat at HomeTown Buffet off Andresen Rd. in Vancouver. Not the best place to eat but it was a good time of fellowship.

We took more pictures, I will post them soon.

Not much happened yesterday. I think I woke up at noon or something like that, then Afty and I headed into Portland to go hang out at Lloyd Center. We ended up spending a couple hours there as we ate lunch and visited stores we like. Suffice to say that we have totally different interests…I frowned on her wanting a Coach purse for $240, and she frowned upon me wanting a Mariners replica jersey for $75. I don’t understand…I think the jersey is much more useful than a purse. You actually wear the jersey, but you get the purse so all your friends can think you’re cool. Aftan’s cool anyway and she doesn’t need a purse to prove it, so that’s even one more reason that she doesn’t need it.

Women, I don’t understand them and I never will.

Anyway, after that, she and Trina headed to their obligatory math class while I chilled out at Trina’s place, used her internet and tagged a lot of my photos taken over this trip. Then we came back home and watched National Treasure. Call me out of touch, but I had never seen it before last night, and I was pleasantly surprised. A decent Nicolas Cage movie. Wow! I really liked National Treasure, it was full of adventure. It really made me wonder if the Declaration of Independence has an invisible map on the back. I think I’m gonna go steal it sometime.

Today is a full day so I had better go. We are going to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and also going to dinner with a few friends in Camas/Vancouver/wherever this buffet place is that we’re going to.

I’m out for now.

Yesterday we met up with Ryan Tack, one of my friends from high school, and my younger brother Jason, and all four of us piled into Aftan’s beast of a Mustang to drive east on Washington’s State Route 14 and hike up Beacon Rock.

It was a great hike. To get to the top of Beacon Rock, you have to take a trail that seems to switch back forever and ever, and cross a few bridges as well. You pass the occasional out-of-state tourist on your way up, and the trail narrows so you have to wait for them to pass on one of the switchback turns. Keep walking and ascending higher, higher, higher and higher…and suddenly you get a view of the windswept Columbia River Gorge to the east, with Cape Horn, Interstate 84, and a few other state parks in sight. And keep hiking further and further up, and finally you reach the top…with a magnificent view of everything within a good 15-20 mile radius of the rock. We saw Bonneville Dam, the town of North Bonneville….it was awesome.

After that, we decided that Beacon Rock wasn’t enough so we drove a little further east on SR 14, then paid the required $1 to cross the Bridge of the Gods into Oregon. We took I-84 to the Historic Columbia River Highway, then stopped to hike up Multnomah Falls. Great view, but a defnitely more intense hike than Beacon Rock. It seemed to take forever. Our knees told us to stop after we got back down to the bottom and enjoyed some ice cream at the snack bar.

Finally, we stopped at Popeye’s in Troutdale (I think it’s one of only 3 Popeye’s on the West Coast) to get some chicken and biscuits. It was wonderful, and thanks Ryan for the idea! Jason didn’t partake, quirky little guy that he is. Instead, he made Aftan drive him into Washougal and stop at Jack in the Box so he could get two tacos and a chocolate shake. Then we dropped him off, and Ryan soon afterward.

Aftan and my day wasn’t complete, though…we went back to her place and watched Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one). She’s really excited about going to see the second one, but movies about ships and pirates and all that jazz don’t really interest me, so suffice it to say I barely paid attention to the first one….but I’ll still take her to see Pirates 2 anyway. Enjoying her company is better than any movie anyway.

Don’t know what’s on the docket for today, but whatever it is, I’ll write about it later.

Today we lounged around the house just a little bit more, then went to Burgerville (one of my favorite dining establishments ever) for some chicken strips and their regionally famous milkshakes. After driving around for a little while, I was impressed to see how much the area has grown since I left.

Seriously, it appears that the St. Helens/Scappoose area is poised to become a suburb of Portland, should Portland grow exceptionally large in the future (which I am sure it will). The other day when Aftan was driving me out to what used to be rolling plains near St. Helens to take a look at the new church that Grace Baptist has built, we passed row upon row of brand-new houses that she said weren?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t even there nine months ago. Amazing. It seems many of Portland?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s surrounding communities are growing quickly and don?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t show any sign of stopping anytime soon.

Anyway, back to current events. Right now I?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢m sitting in the lobby of Portland Community College?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s Rock Creek campus while Aftan takes a math test. Not much else is going on, but I think we are going hot tubbing back at her friend Trina?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s house in just a little while. Not sure, we?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢re gonna have to see how it goes. Then it?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s off to bed a little early tonight, and for good reason.
Tomorrow we are going to hike up Beacon Rock. Located just west of Stevenson, WA (and the Bridge of the Gods), Beacon Rock towers over Highway 14 and once you?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢re at the top, offers a great view of the Columbia River, Interstate 84 in Oregon, and many of the waterfalls and other natural wonders that make the Northwest the most beautiful place to live in the entire world (at least I think so).

I would comment on other things that are happening in the outside world, such as stuff happening back at my temporary place of living in Virginia, but I refrain because I am stuck in my own little vacation land.

Ciao.

Yeah, we spent most of yesterday lounging around Aftan’s place and just chilling, watching movies and doing a whole bunch of other cool stuff.

Earlier in the morning, we attended church at Grace Baptist Church in St. Helens. A bit different from what I am used to but still it was good. Really nice people there, and we went out to eat with a few of them at El Tapatio in Rainier after it was over. Then we all came back to hang out at Afty’s.

Today is going to be much more of the same. Tomorrow, Day 7, the adventures start back up again.

Hope you all are enjoying the photos, while Aftan is in class I’m going to write descriptions of them all tonight.

We pretty much just walked around Seattle yesterday, taking in the sights and sounds. And it was HOT too, I think the mercury topped 90. But it was a nice dry heat, no humidity at all. It was awesome walking with my girlfriend, down by the Seattle waterfront and also through the streets of downtown to the Seattle Center.

Good points about the trip: Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, Westlake Center, sushi and nice people giving directions to two lost lovebirds.

Bad points: traffic, the Experience Music Project, downtown streets smelling horrible, and the Monorail being shut down.

After we left Seattle, we drove through Tacoma and Olympia and stopped at Millersylvania State Park, where the Washington State COGOP had just finished their summer camps for the year. We tried getting onto the Environmental Learning Center where the camps are held, but another group was there and we didn’t want to disturb them. I recounted many a camp memory and she listened, while we walked and walked and walked and walked a few miles of trail in the forest. It was crazy but fun.

Then we headed home.

Day 5’s description is coming later tonight, kids.

Seattle lost the game 6-1. But it was still a great birthday present from Aftan, for which I am grateful. We got stuck in some seriously horrible traffic in Tacoma, then we got stuck in downtown Seattle — long story. Something I’ll have to share later.

As for now, we stayed overnight in Seattle and are going to go “touristing” as I call it. Photos from the game last night are available in the PhotoCenter, as always.

Toodles.