TUESDAY - Arriving in Portland

Marc was about 40 minutes late picking me up. Fortunately, we made it to the parking lot and then the airport on time. Our flight from Phoenix to Portland was on time and peaceful and uneventful, my favorite kind of flight. We picked up the rental car quick and easy, then encountered heavy bumper to bumper traffic on I205 South. Fortunately, the traffic cleared up when we merged onto I84 West, followed by a quick drive to Jackie and Steve's house.

We unloaded the rental car as quickly as we could and made a direct drive to VERDE COCINA Mexican restaurant for lunch. I felt very hungry at that point, so I was ready to eat immediately. And I enjoyed my lunch thoroughly :-) John got his sausage fix, and everybody was happy :-) I noticed that the kids retained their Australian accents; I guess they are now Aussies for life :-)

After enjoying a great late lunch, we drove over to a chocolate shop called MOONSTRUCK, which Keri had told Marc about. The shop has some unusual chocolates, including some chocolates with absinthe in them. Marc bought some chocolate for Steve as a Christmas Gift and more for everybody for when we returned to the house. We drove back home, dropping Marc off at ZUPAN'S Grocery Store along the way.

The weather was cloudy and overcast and damp and cold, even for me. And the weather stayed that way for the whole trip :-( The whole trip I never saw the sun shine, although I did see the occasional pocket of blue sky 1 or 2 days. So December in Portland is not for sun lovers.

After returning home, Steve opened a bottle of red wine called GSM. Sadly, the cork was bad and broke off in the bottle. So Steve, Marc, and I drank some slightly corky GSM. Tasted fine to me… We caught up with Steve and Jackie and events in Portland since August. We also marveled at how different the house looked furnished :-)

Later I surfed the InterNet on my iPad for a while. Then I played pool with Steve. I lost, of course. Steve is a really good pool player. Then I played pool with James. I won at regular pool, but lost at Kelly(?). Then I lost to John at Kelly. At that point I decided to declare pool a victory and get out. I visited with Jackie and Steve and Marc for a while. Then we watched a couple of episodes of Jon Stewart's THE DAILY SHOW. After that I went to bed and crashed. During the night, I noticed that the heat was really cooking me, so I closed my vent. And then I slept quite well :-) And such was our 1st day back in Portland.