Portland, OR — Tacoma, WA

On Tuesday we continued up the coast, cutting over to Portland, OR. There we parked near Powell’s Books and walked till we found a pub for some local brew and a burger (for Berck) and fish and chips (for me, but which even Berck admitted was tasty). Then it was on to explore the biggest bookstore in the world, both used and new books. We managed to escape with only two books latched onto us, primarily because we can’t afford to buy or carry anything, but mostly because our 90 min parking meter was up.

Next we drove straight to Tacoma, WA to stay with Spirit and Jenifer Meller (except Spirit is gone this week). They live on an Air Force base, so getting on is a little tricky these days. First you have to drive through an obstacle course of cement barriers to get to the front gate. Then we had to park in the visitor center parking lot and wait for Jenifer to arrive (she got off at 5 pm, and we arrived about then, so that worked out well). Then we had to go in and all show the soldier inside our ID’s and proof of insurance for the car. He gave us little printed-out vouchers to get us in the base on our own for the next three days. Every time we enter we have to hand our vouchers and driver’s licenses to the guy with the M-16 guarding the gate.

We went out to dinner with Jenifer that night at a great pizza place…chicken cashew pizza, mmmm. The next morning Berck did some research online to figure out what to do with the car, and we got some laundry done. Then we headed out to explore Seattle, but Berck said he would write about that.