Sorry for the delay in posts (we are sure it will only get worse) but all is well, and no swine flu yet! Wooho! well, where do we start…hmm… Monday mornin’ we stopped by the natural college of natural medicine (NCNM) just to see what’s up. not much, it was pretty small. Actually, it was REALLY small. Like, three buildings small. So that was a little disappointing but whatever. We will see. Then we headed downtown Portland to check out Portland State University. It was awesome. Joe got a good “vibe” there. So did i. maybe I will just find something to study there. Downtown Portland has some cool bike things called green boxes. You should check’em out.

Then we went to the VITA CAFÉ!! Yum. It was in the Alberta neighborhood (our new favorite neighborhood, still in Portland). We wanted to go there because our favorite mac n’cheese recipe that we found in vegetarian times magazine was from there. And it was DELICIOUS. I, of course, got the mac and cheese, and joe got the sietan chili cheese steak sandwich. They were SO GOOD. We also got a hopworks red IPA and a roots organic red IPA. Overall, coolest place so far (I guess that’s hard to say because everywhere has been because they all have millions of crazy vegan options). This place seemed like vegan capital of the world.

yummmm sietan chili cheese steak!

mac n' cheese!

this is the premise of the green box. figure it out.

LOOK at the options in the vending machines at NCNM!

OH and we stopped at the Alberta coop to do a little comparing. See what these oregonian coops are all about (there aren’t that many, surprisingly, lame). It was pretty much the same size as Randolph…maybe a little smaller. BUT GUESS what they had in bulk? BULK tofu, BULK miso, BULK vegan cream cheese, BULK sea weed. It was crazy. Bulk matt c has some things to work on (ha!). the sucky part would have been their produce department—their prep area was out on the floor, with all the carts and customers, now I thought the window in the new produce room was bad. Think about that! Imagine ___________(insert fav coop customer here) stompin’ up behind you “where are the FIGSSS blah blah blah.” No way. they also had COCONUT MILK KEFIR, what the hell is that? Crazy, huh?

look at the prep area! alberta coop.

Now it was time to leave Portland and head to Eugene to find aunt betty! The minute we got in the door there were margaritas and tortilla soup—yum (well maybe it was more than a few minutes but, who’s timing anyway).

Tuesday was another exciting day…first off, betty picked us up some holy donuts (vegan, of course, amazing). it was nice out so we headed to the coast. Did a couple hikes (cape perpetua, devil’s churn…). It was amazing. The Oregon coast is badass. Everyone should move there (especially kevon and susan). they even have SAND DUNES!! With horse poop (it’s a horse trail, but screw horses). And of course I fell on them and got more bruises, joe laughed. Then we went to a movie at the bijou (we saw paper hearts, good) and had organic popcorn and nutritional yeast. YUM.

dune creeper/peeper peak'n around the dune

dune creeper running over the dunes to the sea

almost there!

this took way too much energy to get up, i almost died

what is better than this?

magical mushroom, we didn't eat it...yet

hike up to the giant spruce

spruce creeper--this wasn't the giant spruce, but it was cool

holy donuts! YUM.

Wednesday and Thursday updates will be coming soon…with food pictures for you liz (food porn or whatever they call it).

~ chelsea and joey