eugene.

hello everyone. where did we leave off...wednesday? that day we hiked up spencer's butte which typically has a glorious view of eugene, but due to wild fires it was all smokey and we couldn't see shit. our butts are sore from the hike. weaklings. there was a huge ass slug, nasty. kinda cute.

after the hike we went to the morning glory cafe and had the best breakfast ever.

i got the three sister's: zucchini, grilled tempeh (the best i've had, ever), herbed potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli and a dill roll. with a huge glob of herbed tofu sour cream. holy shit.

joe got the famous biscuits and gravy with homemade soysage patties. jesus h christ it was good.

betty got the tofu scramble with mexi-cali tofu, herbed potatoes and vegetables. there was a mysterious herb we could not identify but it was delicious.

for dinner, we went out to veneta where my cousins live! they have a sweet farm set-up there. we wandered around the green house and gardens. then we had an amazing peanut curry sauce. YUM. with vegetables from the garden. and coconut bliss for dessert! YUM.

finn and ezra playin' around

joe tomato creeper creepin' between the tomato vines

on the way home we rescued leroy (my uncle, betty's husband) from his job truckin' across america. went home, had some beers.

thursday we lounged around and then headed to corvallis to check out gathering together farm. technically i guess it's in philomath but that's a stupid name for a town anyway. just kidding, in case anyone cares. we had lunch there and wandered around eating blackberries.

then we drove to oregon state university in corvallis with tasha and corey. talked with a professor there about beetle banks. exactly. when we got home, betty and leroy were waiting for us with the pho soup almost ready. yum. we sauteed up the best mushrooms we have ever had in our lives. seriously. maitakes. they were SO GOOD i never want another mushroom again (they are like a million dollars so i think we will be forced to eat others, damn)

joe and leroy discuss home brewing

maitake mushroom!!!!!!

friday we went to the wandering goat coffee company, to do this blog thingy. in the afternoon, we went for a walk by the river and then once again went back to the wandering goat cafe. then ate delicious burritos at the laughing planet. they were so good. chipotle blows. we got the che guevara which had sweet potatoes, black beans, plantains, pico de gallo...etc. they were amazing. we ate them before we got a picture. oops. we also went to the sweet life and got a raspberry chocolate silk pie (just a piece, not the whole thing, this time) and ate that before we took a picture too. oops again.

then we went to check out the chimney swifts! they are these crazy birds that stop by eugene (and portland i guess) and sleep in chimneys on their way down to mexico? or somewhere south. they funnel in and somehow all fit in that little chimney. ridiculous. poop was raining everywhere. joe got some on his knee. it was worth it. after the show, stacy and josh picked up some wine and we went to tasha's coolass apartment. it's the best apartment in eugene. she has the awesomest decor it would take me 500 years to make my apartment that cool. she got me a sweet robe that you will all be jealous of once i get a picture of it. in hawaii. thanks tasha!

a swift vortex

observers. way more exciting than fireworks.

today we biked to the saturday market with betty! no pictures, but we can assure you it was fun. crazy hippies everywhere. tons of cool stuff to buy. we restrained ourselves and didn't buy anything! just bread. seeded sourdough.

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

the oregon coast!.jpg

We made it to the coast! Only a short swim to maui right? Easy
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Those were the days...
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the adventure begins...

after some breakfast potatoes at perkins (woohoo!), some frisking from the airport security, and a shitload of sweet tarts, we finally made it here, to portland (yesterday). waylon and kaycie found us on a bench, and we headed to a microbrewery, hopworks, for its first annual biketoberfest! crap loads of bikes, lots of hops, no jalapeno beer (which was advertised in our inflight magazine, LIARS!), and crazily dressed dancing bike girls with ribbon dancers.

don't you wish you had one of these??

All hopped up, we met my other cousin Tasha and made our way to an equinox party. the party consisted of the coolest treehouse ever made, two bonfires, outrageous plants/landscaping and fire dancers. what more could you ask for?

fire dancers at the equinox party

today was a portland exploration day. we hit up the belmont neighborhood and ate at the paradox cafe. joe got paradox benedict (vegan of course, with awesome hollandaise sauce) and i got the special--scramble with tofu, asparagus, kale, potatoes, onions, artichoke hearts..etc. it was delicious. YUM. then we headed to the top of mt tabor to see an awesome view of portland. the alberta neighborhood was next where we went to townshend's tea house. there were millions of teas to choose from, even a wall of samples to smell. (crystal, you would have passed out, there were so many damn teas) crazy. joe got the traditional kava tea with soymilk and agave and i got the matejuana. a mixture of yerba mate and kava. this was the real stuff, not the crap ground up and thrown in a bag (sorry yogi, we are so over you). this is the instant tongue-numbing shit. we felt the effects immediately. whoa. we are trying to prepare ourselves for the real thing in maui. there were a lot of cool art coops in the neighborhood and we took a gander. we stopped by the rhododendron gardens and reed college before stopping to eat at the queen of sheba. ethiopian feast!

look at all those teas, yum

matejuana

what the hell is going on here?

we need more of this in the twin cities

and this...

krista and erick

our feast of ethiopian food

sweet

sausages!

last time you'll see these babies thanks to tori, liz and patrick THANKS!

that's about it for the last couple days. we also learned our new favorite word. asinine. it means extremely stupid or foolish. what better word could there be. it can also be asininity or asininely. is that one in your GRE words karen?

chelsea (typing) and joe (observing)