The Real Road Trip Blog

So, a couple of months ago, probably around Thanksgiving (although I can't be sure exactly when), I found out that Christopher Moore (one of my favorite author guys) was going to be on tour for his new book, Fool. I love this man's books. They're brilliant and funny and subversive and profane and all that is good and right about fiction. I checked the schedule, and there were 2 possible places and dates to attend a signing. One was February 16 in Seattle (about 65 miles or so) and then one was February 17 in Portland (about 105 miles). Normally, I'd have gone for Seattle, but the Portland stop had a couple of things going for it.
1. It was at Powell's. An amazing store. http://www.powells.com/ Go check it out. Shnoodle and I had been talking about taking a trip down there last summer and fall but never got there.
2. Oregon has no sales tax (in Washington, it's 8.4% most places, a little higher in Seattle, a not inconsequential number).
3. Oregon plays Powerball (which I didn't bother with, but I could have).
4. Many many yarn and quilt shops in and around Portland and on the way down.

So I talked to Lindsay/Shnoodle, and we decided to make a day trip out of it. And yesterday was the day.

We started out from my house (or I did, Lindsay picked me up in Violet Beauregard, her car) and headed south. After firing up the TomTom, our first stop was a quilt shop in Centralia, Washington. I think Quilt Junction, but I could be wrong. Cute shop, really great antique furniture used to display quilts and fabrics, and a 30's-style pinup girl quilt that I loved but immediately looked at in terms of tattoo designs. I didn't buy anything there, but I enjoyed it.

Next we headed for Longview, Washington, and Evie's Yarn Emporium. Tragically we caught them on the day they were moving shop from one side of the street to the other. It was a little awkward and the stock was not fully unpacked. I didn't buy anything there because there was nothing that simply had to come home with me, but I'm willing to go back at a later date once the move is complete.

Then it was time to cross state lines, or in our case, the Columbia River. The TomTom did a good job of getting us to the Powell's on Burnside, but parking in downtown Portland, like parking in just about any other major city, is a pain in the ass. It took a while, but we found a not too scary garage, parked, and headed for mecca. We ate in the coffee shop and then looked about for a good little while. I could live in that store for a long time and not see everything that they have. It's amazing. Tragically, sort of, the signing was not at that Powell's but at the one in Beaverton. But we had plenty of time.

After we ate and shopped at Powell's, we headed for The Yarn Garden (Portland). Talk about a really lovely yarn shop. Cozy atmosphere, friendly staff, and lots of lovely yarn. I scored some sock yarn (which is pretty much the only thing I'll allow myself to buy without a specific project in mind). Soon, I'll be knitting alpaca socks, and that's a very good thing.

Our next stop was Fabric Depot (Portland). Holy shit! If I still quilted, I'd have been in heaven. The place is huge, has tons of fabric, and when we went in, everything was marked at 25% off. Plus, they had some yarn! Not a lot, but yarn nonetheless. I picked up a couple of skeins of cotton dishcloth yarn there (another acceptable stash in my mind, there's a project built in), and I found some really lovely buttons for the Sylvi sweater there. And at 25% off, it was a total score. We won't discuss how much fabric Lindsay bought, except to say that at 25% off and no sales tax, she did really well.

At this point, it was just about 5 p.m. The signing was at 7 and we needed dinner after all this shopping. We then headed over to Beaverton. We knew from our pre-trip scouting (mostly Lindsay, she's a planner in a very good way) that there would be places to eat, and since lunch was coffee shop style, we decided to find a place where we could sit and eat and maybe have an adult beverage. When we got to the shopping center in Beaverton, we saw McGraths Fish House, and our choice was made. And a choice well made, I might add. I had the crab cakes and a lovely Drifter ale microbrew, both of which were very good and under $20 before tip.

Then we walked across the parking lot into the mall where Powell's is located. We came in on the side a little, and when we turned the corner for the bookstore, we saw a very large crowd. There were chairs out, but they were all filled, and there were people standing about 3 deep surrounding the chairs. We purchased our books and then scouted out our place in the crowd. Author Guy (as he calls himself on his blog) is just as funny in person as he is on paper. He spoke for a bit, answered questions, gave out hats, and generally made us laugh a lot. The only downside was that we had no idea how big the signing would be, we didn't get tickets because we didn't know about them, and so the wait for the actual signing part was looking to be very long. A nice couple standing near me during the talk didn't want their books signed and gave us their tickets, but there were still 200 people in front of us, and they were calling up groups of 10 about every 10 minutes or so (there was no limit on how many books you could have signed). At that rate, we were probably looking at a couple of hours to wait for signed books. It was after 8 by this time, and we were looking at 2 hours to get back here for me and probably another 30 minutes for Lindsay to get back home. Sadly, we had to forego having our books autographed.

Traffic was light, so we got out of Portland pretty easily and quickly, crossed the river back into Washington, and came on home. I walked in the door here a little after 10, told Amanda about my day, showed off my purchases, and collapsed onto the bed.

It was a truly excellent day. We definitely have to do that again.

P.S. I took pictures of the sock yarn, but I'll post them as a separate entry.