Portland, Oregon Day 7

Today we had to bid fairwell to Betsy and Rich as we were staying in a hotel downtown tonight. I went out during the day on a flower gathering mission. Downtown Lake Oswego seemed like a winner but after parking the car and waking around for 10 minutes I was still none the wiser as to where the florist acftually was. The GPS said it was in one spot, but my eyes were telling me Fire station.

I ended up getting some flowers at a ashop anyway, and I was actually treated to some warm apple cider. It looks pretty easy to make. You just get your apple juice, some cider mix which comes in a small carton, and then add some brown sugar to it. Pretty good stuff I must say.

After thanking Betsy and Rich and saying farewell we followed Leslie to her new house which was about 15 minutes away. Her and Brian have a massive house on a massive porperty. They have done really well and I can see why they can't wait to actually be living in it. When we were there the frame was up so Leslie gave us the tour of where everythign will be and what everything is. We could actually walk through the walls. Magic powers. The stairs were not done so we had to climb a ladder up to the second floor. Pretty intense stuff.

Their yard backs right onto a river. Well not right onto the river, but its all their property and its about maybe 100 yards from the back door. Apparantly a while ago it flooded to a spot about aq metre from the house. Amazing how varibale the water level is. The yard looks like a bit of work. Plenty of grass cutting and weed trimming maintenance near the river.

We then headed into the city, Sherry driving - on the wrong side of the road at times, got us to our hotel. We checked in and then met Brian a few blocks away at a brewery house for dinner. Maybe I should have got the veal penne but i settled on a pepperoni pizza.

After dinner we checked out Powell's Bookstore that is so big that it takes up an entire city block. The building has several rooms that split up the genres. It was just crazy how many books there were. I've decided on a philosphy: No new books until I finish the one I am currently reading. I could hav egone nuts. Star Trek, Star Wars, basketball books, comics, not to mention just general cheap fiction books. I walked past an aisle in the Yellow room at one stage and saw Brian looking at something with a big smile on his face. He knew what he was doing in the shop. I was just plain overwhelmed. Leslie and Brian came out with about 6 books each it seemed. Brian also had a travel sized version of his favourite game at the moment.

And then it was goodbye. Leslie, Brian as well as betsy and Rich had been tremendous hosts.