Manic!

Manic is the present word over at Apples to Apples, and it very squarely describes my week. I know I have been AWOL for about 6 days, but I was spending time with Ché! We had a frantic and incredibly fun week. She drove all day Monday; it's about 10 hours drive (give or take an hour or two depending on traffic and ferries) from there to here . She got in Monday evening and left early yesterday morning; in between, it was nonstop fun and craziness. I'll write more about the time we spent together in another post, but here is our itinerary. I'm sure I've probably forgotten something, so I may update this post later on.

Tuesday was the only relatively slow day...we hung around the house, had lunch at Burgerville (inconveniently located for most of America) and took my kids to see Wall-E. We barbecued hamburgers for dinner and then went shopping at the huge Target not far from my house.

Wednesday, the festivities began! I got a sitter for the kids so we would be free to spend the day on the town. We took Max downtown, where we shopped at Nordstrom Rack, walked on the waterfront, and ate at Jake's Grill. Then we hopped the streetcar and went shopping on NW 23rd (aka Trendy-third). Hopped the streetcar again, and took it down to the Portland Aerial tram, which we rode to the top and back for the incredible view of Portland it offers.

Then we went to Powell's City of Books. Powell's is locally owned, deals in new, used and rare books. It is roughly one city block, four+ floors of nothing but books. We had decided to go there last so we wouldn't have books to carry all around town, but I think in retrospect we were pretty tired when we were there, and I think we'll drive down there next time and spend some quality time in the stacks. Nonetheless, Ché did pick up a few treasures there.

We took Max back to the Park-N-Ride, intending to head home, but were distracted by the clearance sale at the Fred Meyer near there. So by the time we got home, it was close to 10:00 and we were hungry. After some thinking, I remembered the Powerstation Pub at McMenamin's Edgefield is open late, so we had a very late (great) dinner.

My parents had picked up the boys for a few nights sleepover on Wednesday afternoon, so Thursday and Friday we were free as birds.

Thursday we were torn between Hawthorne and Sellwood...weirdness or antiques? Hawthorne first. We had lunch at Chez Machin Creperie, shopped at Red Light and Buffalo Exchange. Then we headed to SE Milwaukie Avenue in Sellwood to do some antiquing. We went to Stars (two locations) and The Silver Lining. Then we headed home for a brief respite, and were out the door to Cinetopia to see Hancock.

Friday we walked over to my neighbornood coffee shop, because it's a place I frequently hang out. Then we went to a number of electronic stores to look for something Ché wanted to purchase. After that, we headed into Portland proper to see some houses (we have some great architecture in Portland), and ended up on Fremont. We had lunch/dinner at the Alameda Brewhouse and headed down Fremont where we went to Saavy, a fun and eclectic resale boutique, one of my favorite places.

After that, we found ourselves driving around again to see the houses; we had time to kill before our tour of the Portland underground, otherwise known as the Shanghai Tunnels.

Shanghaiing is one of Portland's dark and dirty secrets; a trade we created due to the demand for sailors. When the city proper (downtown) was built, it was built with a series of connecting basements to ease travel between buildings. Because Portland is built right on the Willamette river, these tunnels posed an interesting prospect for the ne'er-do-wells of the 19th century.

From The Portland Underground Faq's:

"The "Portland Underground" tunnels, more popularly known as the "Shanghai Tunnels", were basements of buildings that connected to other buildings through brick and stone archways that were intersected with tunnels that connected under the streets, linking block to block. These "catacombs" or "tombs", as they were sometimes called, created a unique network of passages and thoroughfares that were used by unscrupulous individuals called "shanghaiiers" or "crimps", in addition to "white slavers" who grabbed women and sold them into prostitution."

"[Shanghaiing] was an illegal maritime practice where able-bodied men --- sailors, loggers, cowboys, sheepherders, ranch hands, construction workers, and vagabonds, in addition to other hard workers who were either employed or who frequented the waterfront, were grabbed or kidnapped and sold to sea captains who forced them to work aboard their ships for no pay. Portland was unique because trap doors (known as "deadfalls") were used to drop the unsuspecting victims into the "Portland Underground", where they were forcibly held in cells until the ship was ready to set sail. From 1850 to 1941, the so-called Victorian-refined Portland was known as the "Unheavenly City" or the "Forbidden City", due to this shocking practice. And, during "Prohibition", the saloons literally went "Underground" and occupied a portion of this so-called "Underground City", creating an even greater opportunity for men to find themselves aboard a ship bound for the Orient."

Due to progress, earthquake-proofing and other changes, there isn't much left of the tunnels. However, the tours are run on a regular basis by the Cascade Geograpic Society. You may have seen these tunnels on a number of popular television shows on the Sci-Fi Channel, the History Channel, or History International Channel.

The tunnels are a focus for those interested in the paranormal, and our guide related several full-body apparition experiences, as well as numerous instances of doors closing, people feeling hands on their shoulder or clothing, and cold spots. Personally, I'm a skeptic...not that I'm completely closed minded about these sorts of happenings, but I felt strongly like they were being hyped during the tours. Still, it was sufficiently creepy.

We were, overall, not terribly thrilled by the tour, it was OK, but not what we expected. It was much shorter in distance (really only consisting of the basement of one building) than I imagined, I felt misled by the "tunnels" moniker because there really were no tunnels, just walled-off openings where tunnels used to be. Still, I would suspect that a person who is particularly interested in archaeological or paranormal investigations would have been fascinated, and the story behind the shanghaiing and the creation of the tunnel network was fairly interesting.

After the tour, we met Pam at Pix Patisserie for dessert, where Ché had the Queen of Sheba and I had the Ghetto cake. It was fabulous.

The entire week, we intended to get to Ben 'N Jerry's, but never did we make it, even though we were close to several locations at different times. Something to look forward to in the future. Also, in retrospect, I would have taken Ché to the Why Not Shop on Stark and April's Resale in Gresham. But hindsight is always 20/20, and she does say she plans to return, so I will have to keep notes on those places! There is only so much a person can do in 4 days.

In all, I think we had a great time, but most of all, it was wonderful to have my friend here in my hometown, getting to hang out, chat and spend time together. Oh, and she did make it home safely yesterday, I checked with her just to be sure.