Today Kelly and I went to the Oregon Brewers Festival… well, Kelly was headed straight there, I had to meet my friend Tim at the Goose Hollow Inn for a reuben sandwich first, since he’s in town from Arizona through the weekend. Getting into downtown was easy, getting to the Goose was a mess.
Due to TriMet‘s work to add a new MAX line that will go north-south, the old east-west MAX service was disrupted, heavily. Coming from the east at around 12:30pm, Kelly got off at the Skidmore stop and met up with Ghost Dog and others at the brewfest, and I kept going. Well, I kept going for two more stops where everyone was forced off the train, herded into a packed bus that was to shuttle folks up and around the construction area to a waiting train on the other side that would continue west. When I got off the bus, the train wasn’t there yet, and rather than wait, I decided to walk to the Goose. As I started walking, a train backed down the line towards the waiting station, but I figured it would take a while to get everybody on and get moving so I kept walking. I ended up making it all the way to the Goose (from 10th and Morrison to 19th and Jefferson, about a mile) and had been sitting down for 10 minutes before the train came by the Goose Hollow stop. Glad I walked.
While at the Goose, my ‘friend’ Tim gave me gifts, and embarrassed me in the process (as usual)… tons of small items wrapped in pink Disney wrapping paper (featuring all the female characters of the animated Disney films). I tore into them as quickly as I could, trying to make the horrible wrapping paper go away, opening item after item of hot sauces, powdered pepper seasonings, salsa mixes, and even a bottle of German curry ketchup. After we ate and sat for a bit, I packed everything up, and walked back to the waterfront (both my backpack and myself weighing more than when I’d arrived).
Once I got to the brewfest (probably around 2:30pm) the line to get in was huge, and when I finally got inside it was packed full. It took Kelly and I texting back and forth for a bit until we found each other. Between the transit delays, the walking in the heat, and then the massive crowd of people I wasn’t exactly in the most festive of moods. The event was as packed as it had been last night, and just as annoying (long lines for beer, annoying people, every 30 seconds everybody in the tents would scream and yell in unison for no reason, like a much more obnoxious version of the wave). Kelly very sweetly went and got me a beer, and we found a couple spare chairs under the south tent to sit in. I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be there long, and when we briefly met up with Mr. and Mrs. Ghost Dog and discovered that they were on their way out the door, I knew I had to leave.
After one more beer Kelly and I ran away and did the MAX + bus thing to get back home. After getting in (around 5:30pm) and unloading my pack, Kelly and I decided to stay home and relax for the rest of the night, so I went to the store, picked up some beer and some things to grill, and am enjoying the peace and quiet of the back yard. Ahhhh. Much better.
