Just running, it's more funner : An overview of stuff TSD learned in the PDX, Part Uno.

This is my best attempt to explain Portland. I probably won't do a good job, because it's a place that's impossible to explain. But here I go.


Do not get out of the car and pump your own gas. The guy comes and does this for you. STAY IN THE CAR!


Everything on the show Portlandia is exactly true.


Portlandia is also a giant, evil statue of a lady with a weapon. She used to have a poem but it got vandalized.


Everybody needs a picture in front of Multnomah Falls. This is located at the Columbia River Gorge. Do not fall in and wear your rain coat. And don't worry about vampires. Those are in Washington.


Heather takes the best pictures. But no one takes pictures of Heather. So here's a picture with Heather in it. Any of the good pictures you are seeing here, she took. The crummy ones are mine. Heather is amazing at training dogs. At doing agility. At taking photos. Heather is just amazing.


She uses black and white to take out the chins and wrinkles.


Tammy is totally not a bitch. She is my new BFF and is an agility superstar. She is also an expert in all things Portland. And she knows where everything is in Powell's Books. I want to live in Powell's Books.


It is all about logs up there.


See that? It's the log train driving by Poodletopia.


One of the poodles is dressed like me, and the other one like Heidi. This is the type of thing that happens at a place called Poodletopia.


Heidi is the proprietess, neurologist, and lady farmer of Poodletopia. She also does a mean blind cross and is the bestest and most generous hostess ever.


Getting back to logs. Because Portland's nickname is Stumptown. These are hipster logs.


I would say if you like logs, you probably wish you were with me last week.


This isn't actually Portland but on the way there. So that still counts in my book.


Madame Gasquet is buried right up the hill from the secret mountain river hideaway. Many logs everywhere.


Jeremy said actually she is buried in an even more secret spot and that this is her decoy grave. When you find this secret grave, you won't look for her real secret grave.


Back to Stumptown, again. Note the stump. This place had only raw vegan juices and food made of leaves. And beer. You can get beer at all the raw vegan places. There is food everywhere in Portland and it all costs like $1 and someone probably hand crafted the shack where you eat the food. Everyone is gluten free in Portland, and they gather here for a beer and a raw vegan gluten free juice because they aren't at work.


And they gather at food trucks. Something you would like to eat? They will have it in Portland. And it will probably be in an airstream trailer.


Part of the time I stayed in a designer hotel for hipsters. The front desk guy confused me with his ironic, judgmental vernacular. And he had a beard and a black hoodie. And quoted Robert Heinlein. Hipster motels are different than Motel 6.


Part of the time I stayed on a farm.


They live on the farm, along with the lambies. And poodles.


We waked and walked and walked and walked. In the rain, in rain boots. To Voodoo Donuts. To the top of Mt. Tabor park. Across the Burnside Bridge. To the minimalist coffee place where the agressive, fruit forward coffee took 12 minutes to hand craft in a temperature modulated glass carafe. Up and down the stairs in Powell's. Into the "Bands Only" secret passage way at the Doug Fir Lounge. To Cacao for a shot of Drinking Chocolate. To Gravy for breakfast, along with all the rest of Portland because nobody works there and goes out to breakfast every single day, because they are all having the Dream of the '90's and everybody is out walking. Or riding their bike.


After we walked, we ran and ran and ran and ran. A whole lot of international drills and courses with Desiree that we had to do over and over again due to the hardness of doing them right. Ran and ran and ran until Gustavo ran out of gas and Otterpop was all, "What the HELL are you trying to get me to do?" That is Fred and he ran extremely fast.


Otterpop had to sit on a lot of things and then she tried to run away in Pioneer Square when she had enough of photoshoot sitting. Luckily I captured her. But I got back at her for that later during the running. I stepped on her doing a blended cross that blended right on to her foot and caused her to scream in pain. Oops. Agility can be very dangerous when executed incorrectly. Make sure to stay connected with your dog and show them that hand. Otterpop held it together pretty good on this trip. Mostly.


Gustavo was a perfect, good boy and tried his hardest at everything he did and was a perfect travel dog. Heather took about 4,000 photos of him that are all this good and she even caught some where he was bringing back his toy! Which was a piece of plastic he found in the pasture. But it still counts. He brought it back several times!


We sure did miss Ruby, even though it doesn't look like we are sad in this photo. We were sad on the inside, happy on the stick running side. She had to stay home on this trip. Too much walking and running and loud cities and lots of dogs and hotels and houses and Cuban food and rivers and bridges and so forth. But boy oh boy were we happy to see her when we got home.


Most of these photos, amazing Heather. Thanks Heather for the photos and videos. Thanks Tammy, for all things PDX! And thanks Heidi, for hostessing me and for having a Vision!

Part Two, to come...