The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Catching Up - Part Two

Coming in a 3AM, staying up late drinking, and being a lazy bastard in general meant that I slept pretty late the next morning. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing since I was going to have to stay up until 3AM to catch my train out of SLC and start heading home. The only downside was that once again I wasn't getting a start until close to 2PM, and with sunset coming around 5PM there weren't a whole lot of daylight hours to burn. But there was food to be had, and I wasn't going to let a little thing like the sun disappearing ruin my day. The first meal of the day was going to be an SLC institution, The Red Iguana. The Red Iguana is home to some pretty good Mexican food in general, but they are legendary for their mole sauces. I got a table after a short wait, ordered up a sampling of their various sauces and tested them all out. Except for their verde sauce, which really didn't have much flavor at all, they were all good. Although the pumkin seed based sauce, and the chocolatey negro sauce were good, I opted for their spicy and flavorful amarilla sauce and a bottomless glass of ice cold horchata (a sweet rice milk with cinnamon and vanilla). Although I could definitely pick up on the spice of the sample, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of fire the full dish had. What came to the table was a plate of stewed pork swimming in a pool of their amarilla mole that I scooped into steamed flour tortillas. By the time I was full and thoroughly satisfied I had a healthy brow of sweat forming and was glad for the cool glass of horchata.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Pictures Of The Rest Of It

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Catching Up - Part One

The last few days haven't left me much time to write up anything. Between catching up on sleep and trying to squeeze as much as I could in, and..well...having a little too much to drink, writing these posts were low on my priorities. Plenty has gone on in the last couple days so I'm going to break it up so they're easier to digest. On a side note I've lost track and lost count of the "Day #" so I'm just not going to bother.

I stepped off the train after being on the outskirts of SLC for what seemed like an hour. It never seemed to get any closer and then we were there. The reported snow hadn't materialized beyond a dusting earlier and a stray flake here and there. It also wasn't really a mile to the hotel. It was quite cold at 3am, but it had been more biting in Devils Lake so i figured I would be fine. Safely in my room I crashed until noon and then hit the town. Tradition has it that my first stop is a food stop so I headed for a small patisserie cafe called Les Madeline's that was rumored to have a front runner for the world's best kouing aman. The only problem was that I had no idea what that was. They were sold out when I arrived but she told me they were making more and they'd be ready in an hour. I wasn't sure if i would make it back by, and I still needed to do some Google Maps research to figure out where to go so i grabbed a couple spring rolls they offered and killed some time. Holy shit was it worth it. I'm not sure I can say it was the best thing I've ever had, it was most definitely the best baked good I've ever had. The kouing aman is a fist sized, buttery, cinnamony pastry that is folded in on itself to make a faceted bun that is crunchy and flaky on the outside and soft and bready on the inside. Fresh out of the oven it is a magical experience, but even the next day after its been rattling around town and sitting in a box on the table its phenomenal. Although Les Madeleine's does deliver, I could see the chance of having one oven fresh be worth a trip to SLC alone. I was going to have to try very hard to find something to do to top it.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Some More Pictures

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Portland Pictures

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Day 11/12 - I Killed A Night In Reno Just To Watch It Die...

Sacramento was nice, but I honestly wasn't upset that I was leaving. Although the house where the hostel is located was a great house their beds sucked. The room had a creaky metal bunk bed and flimsy mattress that looked like they bought them from the same place as the jail just down the road. I woke up early and only marginally rested, packed up, and checked out. I grabbed a decent breakfast of chorizo (the Mexican kind, not the high-end Portuguese stuff I had in Portland) and eggs at a taqueria a few blocks down the road and then made my way to the train station, not a Union Station this time, and was shortly on my way to Reno. This was one of the few legs of the trip where I would actually be passing through the scenic areas during the day, and it was only a short 5 hour trip. As an added bonus, two volunteers from the railroad museum traveled along the Sacramento to Reno leg and provided commentary about the history of the railroad quiches proved to be pretty interesting. It may be the holiday season, or maybe a coincidence, but people seemed far more talkative and pleasant on this train as opposed to the others. The scenery, commentary, and conversation made for a very short ride. Before I knew it I was standing outside the Reno train station, also not Union Station, trying to figure out where I was.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Day 9/10 - Caveat Amtrak

The last couple days have been a bit of a slow but hectic period. I woke up early Saturday to try and get out and see a few more things in Portland before I had to head back to the train station, which as you could probably guess is called Union Station, and head on to Sacramento. There were only two places I absolutely wanted to squeeze in: the Japanese Garden in the far western part of Portland, and a museum/store full of the kind of oddities that I made the focus of my Truth or Consequences roadtrip called the Peculiarium. Things didn't quite work out as planned, not only did the Peculiarium have later than anticipated winter hours, when those hours came around they flat out didn't open. Before I realized they were going to be a no show I decided to kill time in the general area of the museum until they opened. I wandered around several shops in the calm, peaceful neighborhood nearby. It was full of brunch restaurants, coffee shops, boutiques, and a couple brewpubs. I started off by getting some good coffee and a great crepe at a cozy place called Vivace. The crepe was drizzled with lemon juice, dusted with powdered sugar, and stuffed with fresh strawberries and ended up tasting like strawberry lemonade. I walked around some more and then hit a passable, though not great, brewpub called The Old Lompoc. The opening time for the museum came, but they weren't open. I killed another 15 or 20 minutes and they still weren't showing any signs of life. Between the Peculiarium just not opening and the fact that the time I had wasted meant I couldn't spend any reasonable time at the Japanese garden meant I accomplished neither of my goals. Disappointed, I headed back to the guesthouse, grabbed my stuff, and sadly left the fantastic city of Portland for Sacramento.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Day 8 - Portlandia

One of the things I was happy to find out about the timing of my trip was that I would be in Portland for their Saturday Market (it's also open on Sunday, and the entire week before Christmas and then closes for 2 months). It's not really a farmers market, or a flea market, or an art fair, or one of Portland's pods but a combination of all of those. It's a place where you can buy original paintings, exotic soaps, handmade musical instruments, gourmet popcorn, fresh produce, and a wide variety of ethnic foods. Knowing in advance that the market gets incredibly busy as the afternoon rolls on and long lines can form at some of the more popular food carts I decided to get an early start and hit the market as soon as it opened. Early is a bit relative as the market doesn't open until 10, so I was surprised when the place was pretty empty for the first half hour or so, especially since it was another sunny and mild day. It seems that Portland is a sleepy town on the weekends. The good thing was that it gave me a nice head start on the food. A few of the food carts that were at the market I had seen and tried the day before so I skipped them and looked for new culinary adventures. I tried some mostly mediocre food from a Polish and a BBQ cart that aren't really worth mentioning. In fact the food choices seemed a bit underwhelming until I hit Doña Lola's where I had a fantastic pork and cheese pupusa. A pupusa is a thick corn tortilla-like flatbread that in my case was stuffed with pork and cheese that is cooked into it. It came with fresh pico de gallo, cabbage salad, and some kind of "tomatoes sauce." It alone was worth the trip to the market, but there was much more left to see.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Day 6/7 - What Day Is It?

Thirty fucking hours. I'm sorry but there's no other way to accurately qualify the feeling of getting off a train after having been stuck on there for...wait for it...thirty fucking hours. The only thing that makes it easier is knowing that some people got on in Chicago and had been on there for over two days. And even that is only a marginal bit of consolation. However, after the explicitly said period of time I did step off the train and into Portland and things instantly got better. It was cool but not cold, clear and in the mid 40's. It felt like a cleaner city, compared to Chicago's somewhat dingy feel. The roads even seemed to make sense so that I didn't get lost on my way to the guesthouse where I'm staying - another find using my phone's internet connection while on the train. I even managed to pick a place that is not only clean, comfortable, and reasonably priced but is also convenient located to the downtown area and the free-zone of Portland's public transportation. That's right; Portland's network or trolleys and trams has an extensive free area in the heart of the downtown area...that I have yet to take advantage of. I knew about the free-zone before hand, I just didn't realize how close the guesthouse was to the stops.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Day 5 - Idle Hands

This is a case where the journey is far more interesting than the destination. There just isn't a whole lot going on in Devils Lake. There's even less to do since I don't have a vehicle. But I'm getting ahead of myself, that's the destination and there's not a whole lot to say about that. The train ride started out pretty mundane once we pulled out of the station, it wasn't until dinner that it got interesting. I hadn't had an actual meal on the train yet save for a ham sandwich between DC and Chicago, so I made a reservation in the dining car. The dining car has several 4-person booths where everyone is seated communally, so my table was me and 3 complete strangers. One of them was a guy that I had seen getting on the train and was behind him in the lounge car to get something to drink. He is the type who is perpetually unhappy. When the waitress tried to seat him with people he didn't know he got upset, insisting that he didn't know these people and that he wasn't gay so he wasn't having dinner with a bunch of strange guys. The waitress actually managed to calm him down and we all sat down and looked over the menu. Less than a minute of grumbling later the guy jumps up, says "Fuck this shit," and walks out of the dining car. This didn't seem like it was going to be a very good dinner, but it quickly got better. That's when Cedric Red Feather broke the tension by telling a joke about a bear sniping his ass with a constantly complaining rabbit.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Some Pictures

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Day 4 - Pancake Happiness

So another day is done, and I'm on another train to another town. I leave Chicago behind a bit disappointed because the few things I managed to get accomplished were mostly a let down. A fair amount of blame falls on me though; mostly due to poor time management. I didn't realize how little time I had for sightseeing today until I got ready to head out, which was only about 4 hours (not including the hour I allowed for getting back to the train station. Although there wasn't much chance of me doing things otherwise considering how tired I was, I do regret not taking advantage of my time yesterday. I'll actually have more time during my layover in Chicago on the way back, so I may be able to redeem myself. As it is, I only made it to two places before having to head out.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Day 3 - Delayed Laziness

It's amazing how doing absolutely nothing f
or 19 hours can absolutely wipe you out. When I finished writing up day 2's entry we had left on time, and later on in the night we were actually 30 minutes ahead of schedule and had to wait around at one station to give people a fair chance to make their train. The train was no where close to full so I had the row to myself and I tried to take advantage of the extra room. As a result of the bonus leg room I got pretty comfortable and managed to get several rather sporadic hours of sleep. When I finally gave up trying to sleep just before sunrise I was expecting to only have 2 or 3 more hours left only to find out we had somehow ended up a little over 2 hours behind, turning a 16-ish hour trip into a 19 hour one. When we finally pulled into Chicago I was stiff and tired from the ride, and still nursing sore feet from the previous 2 days. The result was me not really feeling up to my tourist best, so I didn't actually do too much today.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Day 2 - Half-Smokes and Secret Mirrors

Day 2 was a lot less walking intensive than yesterday was, which was a good thing because my feet still hurt from all the previous days' walking. Nothing feels quite as good as a blister in the crease of my big toe. Well, a blister underneath a callus, courtesy of my years of retail work standing on my feet, does come pretty close. Despite the aches and pains I was out and on my feet by 9. I decided to try and be a little smart and drop my bags and stuff off at the train station so I wasn't lugging it around with me all day. Despite the fact that it was ridiculously overpriced to store it, it was still ultimately money well spent. They didn't have lockers at Union Station, but instead had a cranky woman who was supposed to be guarding everyones valuables but was far too busy working on some kind of puzzle to stop a would be thief not to mention help me out. A few nasty looks and a helping of self-entitlement later my goods were "safely" stowed away and I headed out on another day's journey.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express: Day 1 - Capital S

I'm going to warn you now, I'm going to use the word shit a lot in this post. It's not that things have gone so bad already that i can only resort to cussing. It's just the only word that can accurately describe what i need to say. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The shit doesn't come until later. The short of it is that I'm in Washington DC tonight, but let's start at the beginning.

The Portland Not-Exactly-Express Trip

So it looks like it might be time for another trip. I haven't taken too many trips since I went to Iceland back in March, but I haven't been completely idle either. Aside from a short weekend trip to Myrtle Beach and another weekender up to the Cherokee, NC area the only real trip of note I've made was a whirlwind trip to visit the supposedly world renowned oddity that is the House on the Rock. The trip took me to the tiny town of Spring Green, WI by way of spending the night at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and St. Louis, and then driving 18 hours straight through to get home in time to go back to work.