Hood River, Walking Man Brewery and Bumbershoot

Quick and dirty, the weekend was a lot of fun. I rode down to Portland late Thursday night, arriving in Portland to Andrew on the porch at 2am drinking a bedtime beer. He informed me that we would be leaving at 7am to pick up his buddy and make our 8:36am tee time. I passed out.

Woke up early the next morning and cracked open my first beer at 8:45am on the course. Andrew's friend, Tim, shot a 49 on the front, while Andrew and I shot 53's. I had a really good back nine and won with a 99 to Andrew's 103 and Tim's 107. Sixteen of the eighteen holes had water on them, and we lost a ball on nearly every hole between the three of us, good times!



We drove the Samurai Suzuki out to BAM's family farm north of Hood River, and just so happened to pass through Stevenson on the way, which is home to my favorite brewery in the world, Walking Man Brewery. Andrew and I each had a sampler, chatted with the cute bartender, and got free home-brew Belgian White from on of the brew masters at the pub who just so happened to be sitting at the bar with us. It was goooood. I also found a Falstaff beer in their collection of beer cans, and I also found a Schaefer Beer emblem at a different pub later in the weekend, glad to see that guy blogging again:



We met up with the rest of the crew at the farm and I passed out on the living room floor for a few hours until we gathered up our stuff and headed down to BAM's shack on the river (not sure which river). I think I rode on top of the Samurai, but that seems improbable.

We played some Munchkin Quest, Citadels, Cribbage and Asshole all weekend long, including another round of golf in the pouring rain of the Columbia River Gorge. Did not play well. We also made another trip to the Walking Man Brewery on Sunday, which included another sampler and another few hours passed out on the living room floor with the dogs. Then another late night trip up to Seattle and an arrival at 2am in time to get some sleep and make it to Bumbershoot on Monday.



I left my phone in Ryan's car after getting back to Seattle, so I woke him up at 3pm on Monday, grabbed the phone and made for Bumbershoot. The first band I saw was Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. They were amazing, and I just purchased their CD on iTunes. Probably my second-favorite show at the festival. I met up with Josh there, and we walked around a lot trying to find the best show at the time. Not a ton of great music between Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears (3pm) and Metric (9:30pm). My favorite was the Portland Cello Project, ten cellists playing their own songs and covers of other songs, including "Hey Ya!" by Outkast. They were fun.

We caught a few songs of the Franz Ferdinan show on the main stage at Memorial Stadium, but neither of us were really into it, and wanted to save ourselves for the Metric show, so we headed to a pub and each had two Old Seattle Lagers, which were yummy. Raced to Metric, and were about 20-25ft from the stage. I jumped around like a baby on crack the whole show, and was in full motorcycle regalia. Four songs in the girls behind me finally asked me to take off my helmet, because they couldn't see. Josh donned the helmet and they didn't complain about it (maybe because he is a tad bit shorter?). Metric's show at the Showbox in June was a lot more electric and had a better crowd than last night's show, but the band still put on a great show and there were quite a few people dancing, it just didn't feel as intimate or dance-inducing being outside with no lights hitting me in the face (light in the face means jump!).