This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Chicken puns? Too fowl for me.

Posted by ehren

Monday morning I spent an hour between 8 and 9 not sure if I was awake or not until Sean called to remind me to buy a climbing harness if we wanted to join him on any cliff faces. After we detached the bus umbilicals I said goodbye to the chickens and cats (blissfully unaware of eachother's existence). Brenna came with us for a morning errand run, and we ate Hawaiian fast food in the middle of a climbing gym (?). The specials were mostly a pile of meat on a bed of rice, with a side of macaroni salad...hard to go wrong. At REI I bought new bootlances, sock liners, socks, waterproofing, and a climbing harness, and solicited advice on what I could do to keep my 12 year old Asolo hiking boots alive for another season or two. And no, I didn't intend to put liquid nails to bind the toe leather, only where the edge of the sole is starting to pull away.

We dropped Brenna off at the library for a half day of work, gave a tour to her coworker, and were on our way.

We stopped for fuel at the Coburg exit, just outside of Eugene, and were (Miro especially) delighted to find it for $2.39/gallon, $0.20 cheaper of the best price in Eugene and far cheaper than anything in California. Diesel averaged around $2.00/gallon during the winter, but those days are gone. Miro handled the pumping and I eventually found the air hoses to fill up the two underpressurized rear tires. The right rear outside tire has a bolt in it, so it has trouble maintaining anything above 60 p.s.i, and at last inspection we also found a nail. Moreover, it's growing bald and is probably contributing to the bus' tendency to pull to starboard. Our spare has a bit more tread, and no punctures, so perhaps we'll swap them.

I helped Miro move the bus in position to dump the gray water tank as well, and he drove the 100 miles to Portland without incident. I rarely get to walk around in the main cabin of the bus, so the sensation is always strange and novel. Compared to the cockpit, it's peaceful and quiet, and I never expect to see the landscape moving outside the windows. We switched drivers at the 405 exit, and I drove through a set of frustrating one-way streets as we picked our way across downtown. For the evening we parked on what must be one of the wealthiest streets in Portland, midway up the western hills which separate downtown from the suburbs in that direction. We sought internet, looked at an poster for "Mondovino" (I decided I couldn't take another movie about wine this year), and went back to the bus early. I spent the evening making the threaded comments, Miro made another fine chilli. For the night we moved the bus to a fairly empty area underneath the freeway, which I found via maps.google.com's satellite feature. Try it: Go to 700 21st St. NW Portland Oregon, and zoom in as far as you can. The area around the freeway has larger, flat roofs, indicative of warehouses. Plus, you can even see which streets have trucks parked on them. The more residential areas have pitched roofs, identifiable with their line down the middle. Thanks, Google!

Tuesday I cruised back to "Coffee Time" for more web, which is a finely decorated place with great atmosphere, except for the 6'2" doorframe which is painted the same color as the dark ceiling. There's a reason why tall people don't live as long.

I took an hour or two to walk around 21st and 23rd streets NW, which are definitely the hip and urban rich area of Portland. They sit at the bottom of the picturesque hill with all the victorian mansions, no surprise. For some reason I really enjoy looking at well designed retro furniture, so I spent a while perusing a gallery and talking with the salesdude, who eventually figured out I wasn't going to buy anything (where would I put it?). I browsed the CD racks for a while, and nearly purchased Beck's "Guero" and the new Weezer album, but eventually decided I had an online image of extreme thrift to maintain.

I had lunch at a nondescript chinese restaurant and started to organize my thoughts for SPECTRE, as Jake will call today and we will delve deep into detail in the demo denouement.

Portland? It's a nice city, nice size, nice streets, nice people. We were told in Eugene that Oregon is a lily white state, and Portland is nearly homogenous. I've been looking, and in 24 hours I've seen one asian person. I suppose it's easy not to notice, but once you do, it's kind of creepy. It's still raining, off and on, which I'm coming to accept is par for the Pacific Northwest course.