And this post isn’t about recipes, because I am currently in the process of inventing one, although maybe it’s already been invented but I’m not going to search online for it and then once I post it, if I Google search for it, then my post will come up first and it will validate me AND the creative process. Tomorrow: Recipe. Today: Portland Love Fest.

With the exception of a few racist billboards, America proved to be pretty awesome. And not to be totally unpatriotic, but I think Canada has something of an inferiority complex as far as the US is concerned. I think it’s because we don’t have Happy Hour here. Or Crunchberries. It’s like America is Canada’s cool older stepbrother – we don’t really get some of the things he does, and sometimes he’s an asshole, but mostly we wish we could be as cool as him. Unless he’s Republican that year.

In America, they have a special line of Doritos just for stoners.

It was a hot one, registering 103°F, or 40°C, so we were parched the whole time. We got some lemonade, which I was totally going to make fun of until @katarnett posted her discovery that blue dye is actually good for you now, so now I guess I’m jealous that in America, raspberries come in blue.

Although it’s only a five-hour trip to Portland from the Canadian border, it took us closer to nine hours to get there, because of all the stops. Theresa’s dad’s truck, which we borrowed, had air conditioning, but old cheapness habits die hard for Theresa, who couldn’t bring herself to turn it on because of the chance that using the air conditioning might eat up all the gas in the truck, which might mean we’d have to get more gas, which was expensive. So we drove fast with the windows down, and stopped a fair bit for cool drinks and swims in lakes.

When we got to Portland, we refreshed ourselves with some deliciously cold, enviably cheap pints of good microbrew.

We stayed in a hostel called McMenamins White Eagle Saloon, and even though it didn’t have air conditioning and we were sweltering, it was a pretty awesome place to sleep for $50 (total, not each). Except that sometime after we returned to the room from the bar downstairs, I remembered that I once heard that there have historically been more serial killers per capita in the Pacific Northwest than anywhere else in the world, so then I couldn’t sleep in case one lept out of the closet or climbed through the open window to serial kill one of us. I never think of these things at home, which is also Pacific Northwesterly. It could be time to get serious about medication.

At the bar, we ate and drank for cheaper than we may ever have done either before.

And we learned about this amazing beer called “Ruby,” which is the most perfect girl-beer ever invented. It tasted like raspberries (the red kind), and it was magical and cold and everything great about the world in a single pint glass.

And we drank and drank and laughed and laughed and The Exhasperated Ex-Ex-Patriot came from across town to join us, and a marvellous time was had until I dumped too much dijon onto my $3.00 burger and then I felt sad but then more beer came and life was good again.

The next morning, after several cold showers and night terrors over serial killers, we went for breakfast at Voodoo Doughnuts. Prior to the trip, my two goals for my time in Oregon were simple: eat a foie gras jelly doughnut, and also eat a maple bacon doughnut. Turns out, the foie gras doughnut is sold somewhere else, and the maple bacon doughnut sells out like crazy at Voodoo, so much so that when we got there around 9:00 am, they were completely out of stock. I settled for a PB&J doughnut, which was a delicious combination of peanuts, peanut butter, deep fried dough, and raspberry jam. Manna.

And so we took to the road again, sad to be leaving so quickly, but delighted at ourselves for all the gluttony. And I shall return to Portland very soon, as it turns out I am madly in love with it for the same reasons I am in love with Vancouver but somehow Portland managed to out-doughnut Canada and also the drinks are very cheap there.

Also, in America, they still have POG. No. Fair.
So, I guess what I mean to say is that you should come back tomorrow, because I mean to tell you all about brandied apricot cobbler with ginger, and it will be all kinds of delicious and completely new because I will have invented it. I think. It’s very warm out still and that could be why I’m finding it very hard to have coherent thoughts, never mind the struggle it’s been to try and write them out.