Afternoon Tea in Longview, Washington

I had Afternoon Tea at The Brits in Longview, Washington.  It was the strangest Afternoon Tea that I have ever had.  The bottom plate had two long pieces of white cheese, large carrot stick, large celery stick, sliced hard-boiled egg, two tomato wedges, cucumber slice, two black olives, two apple slices and two orange slices.  The middle plate had a mini ham and white cheese pizza cut into four slices, a herbed puff, a mini cucumber and cream cheese sandwich and four sausage rolls.  The top plate had a large marionberry scone already cut in half, some soft butter, a mini chocolate cake, a mini cream puff and three mini almond roca bars.  I also had Earl Grey tea.

Donna and Glyn's Visit, October 16-17, 2012

My longtime friend, Donna, and her husband, Glyn, came to Portland for a day and 3/4 visit via Amtrak from Iowa   We rode MAX light rail from the train station to their hotel where they left their luggage.  We rode MAX to former-mayor Bud Clark's Goose Hollow Inn where we had the world famous reuben sandwiches for lunch.  We rode MAX through the tunnel to the Zoo station and saw the earth core samples along the walls.  We had planned to take the shuttle to the Japanese Garden but we found out that it was not running.  We rode the MAX train to the Chinese Garden.  After a guided tour of the garden plants, we had tea in the tearoom.  We rode MAX to the streetcar line.  We visited Tanner Springs garden.  Sometime during the day we visited Pioneer Courthouse Square with the statue "Allow Me" (see photo) and saw "Portlandia".  We returned to downtown on the streetcar where they caught the MAX train west to their hotel.  I caught the MAX to Delta Park and my car.

I arrived at their hotel at 8:00am.  We drove to Troutdale where we had a light breakfast at McDonalds and got gas in the car.  We drove the Old Columbia River Highway from Troutdale to the Womens Forum.  Low Clouds obscured the view unfortunately.  The highway was closed to Bridal View however I drove east anyway to the Viewpoint Inn that appeared in the prom scene in "Twilight".  It caught fire earlier this year.  The Inn was gutted.  The owners had no fire insurance.  We drove back to Corbett and down the hill to I -84. At Bridal View we stopped at the small post office.  Donna sent four postcards.  We stopped at Multnomah Falls.  We stopped briefly Horsetail Falls.  We saw the fish going through the fish ladder at Bonneville Dam and the enormous sturgeon at the Fish Hatchery.  We traveled west, crossing the I-205 bridge to Vancouver where we had late lunch at Burgerville.  We stopped by my house briefly.  We drove past the Aviation Museum, Fort Vancouver, Officers Row and the new Fort Vancouver Regional Library.  Donna and Glyn arrived back at Portland Train Station in plenty of time to catch their train back to Iowa.  They arrived home safely but their train was 2 1/2 hours late.

GPS Adventure at the The Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

I went to The Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, an aviation  museum in McMinneville, Oregon, which displays a number of military and civilian aircraft, most notably, the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose".   I went to the museum primarily to visit the GPS Adventure Maze.   My Treasure City was Yellowknife.  After doing the maze and looking at some of the military and civilian aircraft, I had lunch at the museum cafe, took the 1:30 guided tour, had a double scoop of ice cream and walked over the spacecraft museum.  I was the most impressed with the section of the Berlin Wall.  It was an interesting day.

"A Thousand Clowns", Tuesday, October 2, 2012

On Tuesday morning, October 2nd, I attended a 1962 American play, "A Thousand Clowns", by Herb Gardner.  The play was the October reading for the Portland Civic Theatre Guild's First Tuesday Readers Theatre.  A Thousand Clowns tells the story of a young boy who lives with his eccentric uncle Murray, who is forced to conform to society in order to keep custody of the boy.  The play was read at the Old Church at 1422 SW 11^th (at Clay) in downtown Portland. Tickets were $8.00 and included coffee and light refreshments at 10:00 am followed by the reading at 10:30.