I guess a quick schedule rundown is in order. We left Friday afternoon and spent the night in Vancouver. Saturday's programming was all in Vancouver, then in the evening we drove across the river to our hotel in Portland. We spent the night there and on Sunday ran literally all over town.
Did you know Portland is the only city to have more restaurants per capita than Seattle? Crazy.
So. On Friday I had arranged to get out of work early. Of course, then boss man went and got himself scheduled for two shifts at his parents' restaurant. I had texted about leaving before 4pm on Friday, March 6 two weeks prior. In any case, everything ended up working out OK. I left work at 4, went home, took care of Sam, got all my things together and left. Jonathan had been sick all week with a legitimate flu; fever, chills, horrible rattling cough, etc. So mid-week I had asked Jason, the program's executive director, if I could pay to have my own rooms this weekend so I wouldn't pass along the flu even though I didn't have it. I didn't get confirmation on our Friday hotel until that morning, so it was a good thing I hadn't booked myself a backup reservation. I did make one for our Saturday hotel, which I ended up needing. Everything worked out just right!
Everything except traffic. Somehow I managed to hit traffic at every turn; stuck by Kent. Stuck in a backup that started at Wild Waves and ended after Tacoma. Stuck again through Olympia. Three accidents on the stretch of I-5 that slims down to 2 lanes. I got to Vancouver and checked in to the hotel at 8:55pm. We had a brewery tour scheduled for 9, so I was in a bit of a hurry. The front desk gave me my keys and I headed straight for my room. I opened the door and was surprised to see a lamp on. Then I heard a voice say "hello....?" OMG the front desk person had given me keys to Jason's room! At least he was fully clothed.
So I went back down and she gave me correct keys after a lot of laughter and jokes and apologies. I dropped my stuff off and ran into one of my cohort in the hall. We jumped in my car and headed for the brewery, since by this time it was already 9:15. Reiny, the programming director, had pushed the tour back to 9:30 since there were several people running late. Thank goodness. But the brewery had hosted an unannounced large party (larger than ours - 40 people to our 30) and had run out of food and blown 2 kegs. This meant that even though they had a month's notice that we would be coming and drinking a lot and eating a lot, they barely had enough beer to go around, and only had pretzels left in the kitchen.
So I went back down and she gave me correct keys after a lot of laughter and jokes and apologies. I dropped my stuff off and ran into one of my cohort in the hall. We jumped in my car and headed for the brewery, since by this time it was already 9:15. Reiny, the programming director, had pushed the tour back to 9:30 since there were several people running late. Thank goodness. But the brewery had hosted an unannounced large party (larger than ours - 40 people to our 30) and had run out of food and blown 2 kegs. This meant that even though they had a month's notice that we would be coming and drinking a lot and eating a lot, they barely had enough beer to go around, and only had pretzels left in the kitchen.
One of the owners was working and gave us a tour of their brewing operation downstairs, which was cool. Hearing about the differences between macro and micro brewing (he used to work for Miller) was very interesting. I have new respect for the macro brewers; turns out they make a beer that usually takes 25-40 days of aging in a week or less, and they do it at a scale and with a consistency that is a feat. So even though I don't care for lager, I am impressed by their methods. He talked about the differences in types of hops and whether breeding your own brewer's yeast was a worthwhile endeavor for a small operation. Then the train came off the rails. He started expounding on the difficulties of paperwork and taxes for a small business owner. Then we encouraged him with some follow up questions on his political views and poof! Our nice brewery tour turned into a Libertarian rant.
After we scuttled out of there (it was closing time anyway), we went out to a local bar/eatery and finally got that beer and food!
No comments:
Post a Comment