Just got – okay, not just…took a couple of days to reintegrate the circuits – back from the Right Coast where lots of wedding and grandparental swoony goodness was happening. Wearing kilts. Eating chowder. And lobster (oh MY!). Seeing fortyish sisters glamorous in long tulle wedding gowns with lots of tiny fiddly little buttons down the back. Cambridge in the rain. And long, long, interminably long airplane trips without a diaper…
Ohmifuckinggod.
So, anyway, we’re back. An I’m trying to figure out where to go next with the GFT.
Y’all been on these “family vacations”, so baring my soul about staying at my in-laws’ microhouse or the experience of sharing a Motel 6 with a three-year-old wouldn’t be much of a revelation. Or much more fun than an impacted molar.
(And nobody seems to want to read my political rants. At least, nobody comments on them.)
So all that’s left is telling stories, and Life in North Portland.
Now first, let me explain that my friend Millicent over at Different Dirt has been loving her some globetrotting lately. My, my, that girl and her inamorata have been gettin’ around. Communing with the puffins in Scotland. Digging the social whirl along the Adriatic Coast. And ooh la la! La Belle France…! Makes me jealous so bad that I can’t even feel sorry for them and their Invasion of the Giant Spiders (go see for yourself, it’s a monster, I swear…)
Now Mojo and Peep and I are dug way deep into the home and family thing. Even more so now that Mojo has gone back to struggling for the legal tender and Peep has a new gang of playmates over at the Imagination Station. Plus we’re desperately trying to save money for Mei Mei (since unless you’re freaking Madonna you don’t just waltz in and pick you up a cute little baby from foreign parts. You pay and pay and pay…and wait and wait, too. But it’s all character building, right, CCAA?)
It's fun and builds character and all that, but it sure doesn't leave much time for traveling. So here I sit, down in my predawn basement office and wish like hell I had some cool, fun travel stories to tell you. And then I thought - well, yeah, you DO. They're just not from last week.
Back when the Chief was more like an indian he got to go lots of exotic, colorful places, meet fascinating, unusual people and kill them.
Okay, I never actually killed them. But that was the bumper sticker, anyway.
And then I thought...everyone complains that I tell those damn stories, like the Mad Shitter, the Burning Guard Shack and Otis' Meesh Monsters, why not tell 'em now? They've got to be more interesting than hearing about how the Peeper went for fourteen hours without taking a dump because he didn't have a bumwrapper and wouldn't hang out over the horrifying toilet bowl!
So - coming up; An Idiot Abroad and Tales from Under the Hat...
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But this morning's post is about another hidden North Portland treasure: Overlook House.
Tucked away on tiny N. Melrose Drive, I have a special fondness for this little beauty because Mojo and I had our wedding reception here. In a life that has had some wonderful moments, spending a sunny October (yes, we just celebrated our "leather anniversary" this past month) with my beautiful bride and our friends basking in newlywedded felicity in the sunny garden overlooking the Albina freight yard was one of the wonderfullest.
[BTW, I am NOT making that up. Leather is the "traditional" 3rd anniversary gift. Makes you wonder about those golden agers, really, it does.]
It's a bit of a hike. And you have to hunt to find it. But some cool November afternoon, you might think about taking the Interstate MAX up to Overlook Park and Kaiser Interstate. Walk down little Overlook Boulevard past the Palms (the "Monkey Motel - by the day, by the hour, by the orgasm") Motel and the quiet residences along Overlook. Stand in the quiet garden and savor the North Portland morning.
Overlook House. It's worth the trip.
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