Monday 16th March

We had quite a late start today after the previous night of merriment, and it was time for the fun job of doing some laundry. Our limited sightseeing involved Mills End Park which is in the middle of a busy road and 24 inches in diameter(!) We had a late lunch in Jake’s Famous Crawfish Restaurant, which is apparently used in My Own Private Idaho. It was happy hour so we tried lots of different seafood dishes at nicely reduced rates. We went for a drink in Kell’s Irish Bar which was a surprisingly bland place, then picked up a big box of doughnuts for the road from Voodoo Doughnuts. Lots of different novelty doughnuts, one of these was the largest one I had ever seen, a great photo opportunity but I could only eat about a third of it. God bless America.
The next bar was a place near our hostel called the Blue Moon, this was much more like it, not a brewery but plenty of local beers on tap. We met a guy called David who directed us to some other bars on the hip strips of 21st and 23rd Avenues. Went to another bar called North 45, more good beer and met an English teacher from Mississippi called Will who was visiting friends. Could really hear the difference with the local accents when I heard his deep south drawl. Went on to a place called Moo Moos which David had recommended but we couldn’t find earlier, and there he was to greet us at the bar! Chatted to him a bit more and he gushed about Crater Lake enough to REALLY make us want to go there. Had some pricey but damn fine sandwiches before heading back to Rock Bottom for more Stout cheesecake. There is a lot of eating to be done in this country. Took our first US cab to get to Rock Bottom, the cabbie was great, really friendly and streetwise (no pun intended), very different to most cabbies back home. Had the final beer in Kelly’s Olympia, put Smashing Pumpkins and Iron Maiden on the jukebox while supping more of the fine local stout and porter.