Tall Bikes

Keep Portland Weird Round 2: Tall Bikes
The first time I ever saw a tall bike was a few years back in Michigan. My friend Joel build his own double-decker bike that I thought was crazy. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want such a strange, funny looking bike. And then to see him ride it around, up so high... even weirder. Well, in Portland tall bikes are just as normal as anything else. We see them on a daily basis and I don't even turn to look twice any more. So keeping Portland weird, here is yesterday's sighting:

The Oregon Coast Never Gets Old

It's seems like every time we go to the coast we see something new. Because it is my favorite thing to do, on my birthday Justin and I drove out to our favorite tide pools and searched for new creatures. The water was pretty high so unfortunately I didn't find any starfish, but we did see millions of crabs. They are so fun to watch scurry around and wedge between rocks. As we continued up the 101, we found lots to see!

Garibaldi. Worth the crazy climb down.

This heron was eating so many little crabs.

A few anemones

Brown Pelicans

Purple Shore Crabs hanging out

"yo, leave me alone!"

Some kind of little eel

seals in the bay

do you see a pirate ship?

Bam and Rozy love to run on the beach!

Too bad I don't remember where this was. It is an awesome beach!

Black Oystercatcher

We ended at Cannon Beach, because I wanted to see a Puffin.
All I found were these strange guys resting on Haystack Rock... Bummer.

Seattle!

Ah, the metropolis capital of the pacific northwest! Home of Starbucks! Setting of a fantastic romantic comedy! A city with a gigantic tower structure! Home of the Seattle Sounders... ah, well, forget that last one. Our romp through the emerald city was a glorious, relentless, and otherwise twisted journey into Portland's big sis. There is only one way to describe the ramble... CARROTS AND STICKS!

Carrots to Seattle (and Washington) for:

70 mph
Excellent Skyline
HOV lanes
A vegan hot dog cafe
Pike Place Market (fish and produce)
Public Transportation
Snow-capped mountain views
Puget Sound
H&M
Jimmy Johns!
An octopus bike rack
Skate Boarders
A general love of boating
Starbucks!
Clean streets
Fresh flowers
$5 Ninja Assassinations!
Friendliness
Duck Rides!
Deschutes Beer! (Can't beat Oregon beer)
Pike's Brewing Co.
Electric Buses
Kerry Park and its night shots
A wall decorated with gum
Huge San Fransiscoesque hills

Sticks to Seattle for:
General hatred of the homeless/vagabonds
Lack of on-ramps for I-5 South
Poor vegan menus (besides hot dogs)
Sales tax!
Live lobsters slowly dying on ice
Having a weak bike scene
Being a concrete jungle
Complete lack of decent greenage/parks
Short prom dresses
Lack of recycling
Mostly uncreative homeless signs

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And here are some pictures. More on Tammy's facebook:

Kelly Park

Best Farmer's Market ever!

Where all the fun fish throwing takes place!

The very fist Starbucks Store:

The gum wall. Very disgusting. Kind of artsy.

Beautiful Puget Sound

Keep Portland Weird

Because there are so many quirky qualities to Portland we have decided to attempt a weekly, biweekly or monthly "Keep Portland Weird" post dedicated to some uniqueness in the city.

First up: Vegan Corn Dogs at the local dive bar.
You can't even buy vegan cheese in Grand Rapids, let alone have a vegan snack to go with your beer. For those of you who don't know, Justin has been a vegan for over a year now. Vegans don't eat any animal products (no meat, no eggs, no dairy). It is so nice to be surrounded by fellow animal lovers. And it's also nice to have PBR on tap wherever you go... that is if you forgo the 40 local breweries.

Clatsop Trail

We went on our first backpacking trip of the year last weekend. The Clatsop Loop Trail is a part of the Oregon Coast Trail, located in Ecola State Park. We parked at Indian Beach and hiked uphill into the forest about 1 1/4 miles where there is hikers camp. Let's be specific... the hike is actually a climb. Entire 1.25 miles is uphill, or climbing the hill is the entire hike. However, considering this was only 800 feet of elevation, we have our work cut out for us if we want to climb an actual mountain anytime soon.

Once we were at camp we immediately tried to start a fire... and we succeeded 90 minutes later. The temperature plummeted during the night and we woke up to three random hikers wandering into camp, dogs barking (Bam mostly), and owls making all sorts of noise. In the morning we hiked a tad farther to the coast and had excellent views of the lighthouse off of Canon Beach. There were also WWII bunkers along the way... very interesting and kind of creepy because they were locked up to keep rift raft out. Oh yeah, and Justin found black bear scat (poop)!

Twilight fans recognize this scene? Sadly, I do....
"La Push Baby. It's... La Push."

The Boys

The Girls

Nice Views

There are 3 cabins at the hikers camp.
We had a hard time deciding if they were cool or creepy.

Boys making shelters:

Justin spotted this 5 inch friend.

Making a fire in Oregon is not an easy task.
The entire forest was saturated.

What's backpacking without wine?

Aiden was ready for some vegan marshmellows.

"Terrible Tilly" = Tillamook Lighthouse

WWII Bunkers