July 4th Weekend - Friday!!!

First, I'm sorry it's been a bit since I last posted. You know, I am just so busy. Okay, that's not so much the case as weekly activities are quite boring to write about. Anyhoo, White Cloud Brent strikes again - he was given a 3-day weekend! And, well, we took advantage of it. The hospital administration have put on a contest challenging Residents to visit a list of ~90 sites in and around Portland by May 2010 and we killed 7 of those this weekend. Go us! We are totally going to win the sweet prize awarded next summer. (On a side note, when I don't have much to do, my competitiveness increases to a level even more overwhelming to the average person than it already is. I seriously want to win this thing. Don't play Scrabble, Bocce, or other generally non-competitive events with me on vacation.)

(Above, Apollini Winery. Below, outside Tilamook Cheese Factor)



(Below Two Pictures - Fun Times at Blue Heron Cheese Factory, family friendly!)

Friday, we wake up late. Lazy on both parts. Since it stays warm and light out until about 9/9:30 we said, "Lets go to the coast!" Our destination: Cannon Beach! Did we make it?! No! But, only because we were sitting in practically stand still traffic for about an hour and decided to take instead to take a road leading to wineries and cheese factories! Wine and cheese are probably like my favorite things... rivaling Brent on some occassions, mostly in times of severe hunger and thirst for alcohol (just kidding, sugar pie, honey bunch, delicious mc-rib... wait, what was a I talking about?). We visited two wineries: Apollini and Purple Cow. These were OK. We ended up buying a bottle of Pinot Grigio from the first winery because we wanted some sort of momento. We chose the P.G. because Pinot Noirs were like $30+ and we can not tell the difference between $10, $20, $100 bottles of wine so why spend more than $10? Our palates are not that refined. Maybe you winos out there can come visit and give us some lessons.

After our visit to the wineries, we head into Tilamook to visit the famed Tilamook Cheese Factory. For those of you that don't know me, I will probably die of cheese intoxication. I LOVE cheese. I am deathly afraid after each yearly check-up that I will get back cholesterol readings that doctors will gossip about post-appointment. I have been lucky thus far. Anyways, we first visited the Blue Heron cheese factor. That place was pretty kick ass. Loads of tastings: brie cheese, dips, mustards, ice cream, wines, etc. Seeing how great this place was made me think that Tilamook C.F. was going to be the place I dream about, the place I will retire to, the place to send postcards to Ireland about. I don't believe in much, but I do believe in Cheese Heaven. I thought this might be it. Well, not so much the case. Not that this place was awful, I just expected way more. I expected endless amounts of cheese, Tilamook workers trolling around with serving trays of cheese, endless cheese. Ugh, dream crushed. We got a measly 5 samples of decent cheese. AND, we had to wait in line for it. What the hell. The one redeeming part was watching the cheese being manufactured. It was kind of mesmorizing. What do they do with the excess shaved cheese? Why does that block of cheese go into that reject line? Why why why? Although, for the workers themselves, I imagine this is absolutely and utterly boring. We finished the factory off with some ice cream which always makes things better. Brent had to figure out a way to stop me from crying.

Enough about cheese. Post-factory, we visited the coast, about 9 miles away. Despite it reaching boiling temperatures of 90+ in Portland, it was only like 50/60 on the coast. We went on a short walk where I had to wear a towel over my shoulders. We were not prepared for these temps. Although we had bathings suits, there was no way you could get me into that water. I like cold water, but you'd have to pay me obscene amounts of money to get in the Pacific on Friday.

After our trip out west to the coast, we came home, had dinner and went out for drinks with some of Brent's classmates in Multnomah village. One of Brent's classmates is on medicine wards at the university, which is notoriously one of the most difficult rotations. Try to guess which one he is in the picture below. Ha.

(1st: Brent reminds me why I married him. 2nd: Brent and classmates)

Friday was good. Saturday was great. See next post!