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We're back in Canada, the plan to spend the night in Seattle fell through. We couldn't find a hotel room, and instead of struggling to run around the city to find one. We just headed north to the border. It was a bit of a pain in the ass getting back into Canada, but more on that later.
We started the day in Portland, and after last nights delicious Reggie Deluxe, I (we) wanted another one. So Roland and I headed back to Pine State Biscuits and to our disappointment, the line up was huge! Right around the block, people were lining up, but then again, I can't blame them, the gravy alone is delicious enough to drink. So instead of a biscuit for breakfast, we opted for donuts.
We stumbled into a little shop, that we read about...Pip's Original Donuts, they're little bit sized morsels of heaven. They offered three flavours to choose from, Cinnamon and Sugar, Honey and Sea Salt, Nutella and Sea Salt. Being the connoisseurs that we are, we ordered one dozen of each flavour....each. Yes that's right, we each ordered 36 bite sized donuts and hot damn, were they ever delicious! I found the Cinnamon and Sugar to be the most balanced of the three, the others being just a little too sweet / salty.
I ordered an Americano to help get me through the day, and Roland wisely ordered a scoop of Caramelized Banana ice cream....I f'd up... I should have gotten a scoop as well. After leaving Pips, we drove to Voodoo Donuts, yes...I wanted more donuts. But after getting downtown Portland to the store and seeing the line up, we gave up and headed out of the city.
Our next stop was Mount St Helen's.
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I love driving through the Pacific North west, the hills, the mountains, the boreal rainforest, endless trees, rivers.....I'm getting off track a bit. One of the places that I had to see on this trip was Mount St Helens, my brother Jonathan saw it last year and he loved the view and the thought of standing on the side of a volcano. He basically said, that I had to visit.
We arrived at the Mount St Helens visitor centre and walked around a bit, learned of the history of the great eruption 30 years earlier, the damage, death, destruction that it caused and snapped a few photos from the observation deck. Thinking that if the eruption happened today, this area would have been wiped out completely. It's amazing how nature will repair / restore itself even after a cataclysmic event, like the eruption and mud slides of Mount St Helens.
After spending a few hours at National Park, it was back on the road north, we were hoping to spend the night in Seattle, it's a nice city (when the weather cooperates) and not having to rush back into Canada that night, I thought maybe we could do the ferry ride / plus spend a night on Vancouver Island the next day. After getting into Seattle and trying to find a hotel, that thought was dashed, the city was booked solid. Roland and I made the decision, we're heading back to Canuckistan that night.
We repacked the bags, organized our booze and made sure the papers were in order to get back into the country. After driving up to the border, I was beat and just wanted to get into Vancouver, find a hotel and get to sleep. However, Customs had different plans for us, mind you it was my fault for all the extra liquor I was trying to bring back...I got my facts wrong when it came to how much you can bring across the border. The limit of 1 bottle of spirits, or 24 bottles of beer per visit is bullshit! I should be able to bring back as much as I want, the provinces using the federal government to extract extra tax revenue from it's citizens is horse shit! I better stop ranting or I will never fall asleep.
Trying to wrap this up, we managed to find a hotel in a very shady part of the city, the hotel is nice, but all the 2 dollar hookers and crack heads are roaming about. Time for a couple of beers and sleep. Tomorrow it's Red Racers from the Tap and DS Tactical.....I thinks I'm going to spend some monies :D
Pics from the day
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