The Portland Experience

The Road Chose Me Volume 2 OUT NOW!!
The Road Chose Me Volume 2: Three years and 54,000 miles around Africa

Years ago when I worked at Kirkwood in California my randomly assigned room mate was Jeff, who is now one of my closest friends. In the years since we’ve seen each other a couple of times in Portland and are long overdue another visit. My lack of cell phone made the rendezvous a little painful, but we both knew it was always going to happen.

Dan & Jeff too early in the morning...

I catch up to Jeff, Randy and Paul halfway through floating the Clackamas River on an amazing 90 degree day. I appear very briefly in the following video, taken by Paul while floating that afternoon. I think it gives a pretty clear picture of how much fun we are having – tons!

I stay with Jeff, his girlfriend Andee and cousin Mikey for about ten days, during which time we get into all sorts of trouble and have any number of adventures. I was very remiss with my camera and have photos of next to nothing. My memories are also slightly foggy just for fun.

I’ll do by best to recount the highlights:

• Mikey inviting us to party on a boat moored in the marina. Mikey passed out before we arrived, leaving us to endlessly sing the hilarious lines from “I’m on a boat” and generally cause trouble in downtown Portland.(If you haven’t seen the video for that song, go watch it now)

• Our traditional Bagby Hot Springs trip – Jeff ended up fighting the forest, I walked into camp long after the sun had come up minus one flip-flop, Jeff lost his cell phone and we all laugh hysterically and shake our heads whenever we mention the trip.

Bagby hot springs

• Many, many rounds of disc golf on practically every nearby course. We played multiple rounds at Pier Park, Lunchtime, Timber Park, Rooster Rock and the incredibly long McIver Park. One hole at McIver is a 1,186 feet par 5! I played a minimum of 18 holes every single day, which improved my game a lot.

• Games of pool with Spencer – at one time winning competitions was his full time job and I’ve never seen anyone that can play like him. In our first game he ran the table off the break, never once looking like he was even trying. Everything he does is very well thought out and he’s very happy to share and answer the ten thousand questions I throw at him.

• Driving everyone to work then having to find my own way home through downtown Portland. I got lost twice, but having nowhere else to be meant I enjoyed the drive all the more

• Going fishing in a stocked pond and paying for the fish we caught. Three extremely fresh fish for $11 is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

• Randy and I took a drive down to hike the Silver Falls loop trail – a trail that boasts ten waterfalls in only eight miles. The hike was fantastic and we decided the two dry falls should just be called cliffs.

Randy admiring a waterfall

Once again I had an awesome time in Portland and can’t wait to see the crew again sometime.

The afternoon sun was brilliant

-Dan