The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Portland

Yeah, it's a bit late, but whatever. Here's my take on our recent trip to Portland.

The Good

• Phenomenal weather, 17 breweries/brewpubs, friendly people and plenty of antacids. I'd guesstimate that I ranked 75% of the beers I drank at 3 or higher on my little beer-rating scale (1-5) and really, I don't think we had any major stinkers. Portland delivers once again. Rogue was, yet again, probably one of our favorite places to visit. And as usual, many of the places you think aren't going to be worth visiting end up being homeruns and those for which you have high expectations end up disappointing a little bit.
• I do not think you can beat sitting in a strip joint (Mary's Club) where you are recognized, eating doughnuts and drinking beer. Voodoo doughnuts (which were as good as expected) and craft beer, nonetheless. Hell, even the decor was cool, what with a Pacific/sailor kind of theme. Did I mention the place had strippers? Nimble ones too.
• I enjoyed the heck out of our little tiki adventure. It would have been nice if Alibi had been a little brighter so as to see the decor and all the funky lamps, carvings, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed Thatch as well. The drinks were awesome, and I'm not much of a rum guy.

The Bad

• Pukers on both the outgoing and return flight as well as a severely terrified man sitting next to me on the return flight...never pleasant.
• We saw the worst looking quesadilla, ever, made by an ugly and toothless cook, served by an ambiguously aged and apathetic server, while sitting in an unwanted booth placed next to the kid play area, in a restaurant who's bathrooms were a trainwreck. That's appetizing! Laurelwood gets this honor (well, Laurelwood's evil twin anyway, Laurelwood on Sandy Blvd).
• Driving a brand, spankin new Cadillac...*shiver.* It was like flying the Space Shuttle, only more complicated. We didn't have to worry about our heat shields or anything, but the damn thing kept auto adjusting seats and mirrors and the left rear door was possessed. This experience could almost have made it into the Ugly category as we were on fumes when we returned the car to the rental office. Man, it was close.

The Ugly

• Seeing someone, who shall remain nameless, stand up, vigorously spank himself while saying "Oh yeah!" in a loud voice in a crowded restaurant. I must mention that this was after a long day spent drinking beer at three brew pubs and rum concoctions at two tiki bars. The only reason I'm not going to have a separate bullet for the "peeing in the woods" adventure which really consisted of peeing in someone's yard is that there were no witnesses to that lewd act.
• I loved seeing the sea lions and hearing them hoot and holler. Hearing THAT LADY hoot and holler like a sea lion...not so good. See if you can tell which is which.