Through an Okie's Eyes

In October Katie and I ventured to Portland, Oregon. For a steel train, of course. We flew out Thursday morning from DFW Airport in Dallas and arrived in Portland around 1ish. We were staying with one of Katie's friends, Kaylin, so we met her at her work, which was a hotel downtown and she held onto our luggage until she left. We changed and went to explore. We found this precious little cafe right off the water. There was tons of vegetarian options and it was delicious. I had a locally brewed beer and Katie got pear champaign. After eating we took the train around and just explored. We went to Powell's Books . It was huge, and pretty cool. We went to a couple of stores and just hung around. We then went and met up with Kaylin and got our stuff. We went to her place and just sort of chilled out, until we went and ate at this cute Italian restaurant, but they didn't have ANY vegetarian options so we both had to custom order and our sever was not thrilled about that. Oh well. Afterward we headed to what is known as the douchiest club in Portland. We were there for maybe 1 & 1/2 hours, then Jersey Shore knock offs came in. We headed back, watched Jesus Camp, then went to bed.

 The next day Katie and I went to Music Millennium, where Steel Train was doing an in-store performance. We took the bus, which wasn't as difficult as we thought. We found a Whole Foods, (like normal) and then this hot dog stand in the parking lot. They had veggie dogs AND veggie chili so we ate there. Shortly after we walked the rest of the way to the record store. Our friend Lauren was there as well. After a lot of awkward moments of literally running into the guys in the store and awkward conversations, and hugs they did their short performance and then we went with Lauren and her parents back to the hotel they were staying at. We ate dinner at the Baghdad which was super close to the venue. Walking towards the venue we ran into literally every single person on the tour... that also includes a super awkward conversation with Jarrod Gorbel at dinner. Ha.

Once we were in Katie and I headed for the bar and drank a little bit, we then maneuvered our way up to 2 1/2 row. Sometime during Jarrod's set I ended up the tiniest bit tipsy. Steel train put on one hell of a show. Seriously, it was probably the best show I have ever seen them play. They did a cover of American Girl and their song that they wrote for Yo Gabba Gabba. At the end of the set everyone, except Jon, their drummer crowd surfed. Fun. went on after them and they were good, but really Steel Train is the band that sealed the deal for me. After the show we walked in the pouring rain to a bus stop and found our selves at a karaoke bar. Several drinks in and lots of dancing and it was last call and time to go, we went to VooDoo Donuts and then met up with a few of Kaylin's friends before calling it a night.

The next morning we got up and went to the airport. As we were about to pay for the cab I realized that I had lost my debit card. Wonderful. We get out and checked in and checked our bags and nded up waiting literally the whole day. There had been a tornado in Dallas and it effected all the flights including a cancelled flight the day before. The last flight of the day left and we were stuck another night in Portland. We booked a hotel nearby and went over to sleep and eat. We ended up falling asleep sometime around 7, and woke up around 4 to get to the airport in hopes that we would get on a flight out. We got on the 2nd flight out and arrived in Dallas, got our bags, stopped for something to eat and headed back to Oklahoma.

Even though we were both pissed we had to call into work that Monday since we were stuck it was one of the best shows I've EVER been to.

Love, Lauren