One of my main motivators for building the catio is that Antares likes the occasional dirt bath. Before he had access to the dirt on the concrete on the catio, he used to roll in his litter box, which just made me feel like a bad cat owner. Now we’re both happy.
Thank goodness we finished at the Kennedy School because they ring the old school bell when you do! (Sorry about the blurry pictures. They were due to low light and the general excitement of the moment.)
Filling out or certificates. We each get three nights for two (a total of six nights!) at any McMenamins property! Plus we each get a pair (a total of four) of concert tickets!
Posing with our t-shirts, completed passports (which give us happy hour drink prices Sunday through Thursday for a year) and our certificates.
There were also pint glasses, pins and key chains.
We’re back on the highway for our final page of stamps on the quest. It seems our last page will mostly be a strip mall McMenamins experience. In our haste to finish, I neglected to take pictures of most of our stops.
Matt’s final stamp came at the Highland Pub. He claimed his pint glass prize.
Mine came from the not-at-all-romantically named Mall 205 Pub. I show off my pint glass. 
It is ironic that our final prize said “On the quest to be a Cosmic Tripster.” Because, you know, we’re done with that quest. If we were the type of people to drop mics, the mic would be dropped right here.
I can’t remember when I planted the hardy kiwi, but perhaps fall of 2009 or spring of 2010. As I mentioned in this post, I was hoping for some kiwi, but mostly wanted green growth on the pergola. I’ve gotten what I mostly wanted, for sure. The kiwi looks great on the pergola and I love the way the front porch looks in general.
This is the first year I’ve seen it flower! Both female plants put out a few flowers. The male plant (the one in the middle) produced nothing. So I’m guessing pollination is a no-go until that happens, if ever.
In looking at the photos from 2009, I’m surprised at how much the flowering plum tree has grown. The porch was always shaded for most of the day, but now it’s shaded for much more of the day, which doesn’t bode well for kiwi production, even hardy kiwi production that doesn’t need as much sun. Oh well. The greenery is great!
Chicken, lamb, rice pilaf, potatoes, Greek salad, steamed vegetables, the traditional red-dyed eggs and the star of the Greek Easter show: spanokipita!
We also had an egg hunt. I came home with $3.00. Matt was happy that the new limit on collecting eggs (20) was caused by his previous egg-hunting prowess.
We had a lot of places to visit so we started early. Our first stop:
Roseburg!
We arrived just as the restaurant was opening. That purple ball had the cephalopod on it we needed to find to get our shirts.
On to Eugene. Laurie and Matt pose outside our first location.
Visiting our second Eugene location (which was my favorite in this town)
Stopping at North Bank for two more stamps and our prize.
Our prize was a basket of fries or tots. We also ordered lunch, which turned out to be a mistake.
You know you’re in Eugene when the McMenamins has bike parking.
Onto Corvallis. Our first location had this amazing sink sculpture:
The second location had an English Pub feel. Here we collected our prize of one free appetizer each.
Next came Salem and this amazing historic house-turned-restaurant.
Our last stop in Salem. Time to claim our prize: sandwich or wrap of our choice.
Wisely, we took them to go. While we were waiting, we sang happy birthday to Phoenix, an eight year old who covered his ears while everyone on the patio serenaded him.
Two pages in one day!
Needing something that takes up a lot of space in the garden, I settled on squash. I planted my last five Oregon Sweet Meat seeds (the variety was selected and developed by Carol Deppe, my favorite gardening writer) and also started a few delicata seeds I’d saved from a few years ago. They sprouted! I moved them to the back porch and have been covering them at night with Nancy’s Yogurt containers to keep them warm. Fingers crossed!
Time for more stamps. Here we are waiting for our tour of the Crystal Ballroom. And here is yet another stunning light fixture in Ringler’s Pub.
The brewery at the Crystal Ballroom. This totally counted as a brewery tour. Score!
Our guide leans against a pole in Lola’s Room, the smaller concert venue. He apologized for being under the weather, but still managed to tell us many interesting facts. 
The Crystal Ballroom is not impressive to Matt at all.
These fabulous chandeliers, of which they are two, were in storage at a bank. McMenamins bought them and installed them. That bank missed out, because that’s hand-blown Italian glass by some important dude. Because not too many examples of his work exist these chandeliers are worth more than a million dollars. (Note to self. Make quick notes of tour facts so you can be more precise when writing the blog post.)
Self portrait with Matt on stage at the Crystal Ballroom. This is where I saw .fun –or use this link if you want to actually see the pictures–and Matt and I saw Cake.
Girls pose on stage.
A view from the balcony. 
After getting our stamps for the Crystal Ballroom, Lola’s Room and the Brewery Tour we headed over to the Crystal Hotel. Here was the answer to the photo quiz.
Then we had to skulk about waiting for Al’s Den to open. I loved reading about Club Portland which was the gay bathhouse that was the previous tenant of the Crystal Hotel. It was still Club Portland when I moved here.
And I adore this clever advertising for the four club baths. See how the picture changes for each location?
Crystal Ballroom and Hotel completed, we popped over to the Barley Mill Pub to get our last stamp on that page. We stayed for dinner and our free fries or tots. Here, Matt reads the “One Day” column from the Mercury to me.
There is a lot of Grateful Dead stuff at the Barley Mill Pub.
Including this great collage of Grateful Dead tickets. I was pleased to find that the show I saw (Eugene ’94 with Cracker) was in the lower left corner.
We are getting closer and closer to completing our passports.
It’s time for another Spartan Race. (You can also read about a prior race. I think there have been others, but I was not athletic supporting, so do not have photos.) Matt has been training for this race with a trainer named Candice. That’s her in the photo below. Candice is great at making varied workouts that Matt really enjoys, plus, she is incredibly strong and fit. 
At the start of the race. Matt and Candice ended up racing with the heat of people who had been volunteering. Here they are answering a question posed by the announcer. (I think it was something like “As a Spartan my job is to” and he instructed them to say “a-hoo, a-hoo, a-hoo”. This answer makes no sense, but so much about this race makes no sense to me.) The three shirtless boys on the left were fun to watch and also served as an anchor point later on. It’s because of them I knew I hadn’t yet missed seeing Matt at one of the viewpoints. 
After the start (my start line photo was not very good and is not included) I sat on a picnic table and ate my lunch. I was delighted to find myself sitting behind this white guy with a black hoodie quoting Malcolm X about capitalism and racism. This is not typical Spartan Race fare. Other things I like about this photo: the two people looking for their racer while the little brother entertains himself with a tablet. Watching out for your athlete is a big part of being an athletic supporter.
Sandwich eaten and port-a-potty visited, I settled in to wait for my athlete. It was a very long wait. Matt and Candice were in one of the last heats. After the 2:00 group went, the race people started packing up the start line.
After more than two hours the athletes appeared. I passed the time by reading a few sentences/scanning the racers/reading a few sentences/scanning the racers. Also by watching other athletic supporters. Two people near me chatted for quite some time and then the woman said, “I wonder if we missed him?” which is a common thought among athletic supporters in these races. After more than two hours, I was having that thought myself.
But I hadn’t missed them! Here is Candice:
And here is Matt. This is one of those obstacles where long legs make things more difficult. But he did it! As you can see by the mud, the two of them had already completed many obstacles by the time they got to me.
Climbing the rope. The super saturated color is because I accidentally had my camera set to “poster” so the colors are very bright.
Matt doing 30 burpees because he did not successfully complete the obstacle. Candice entertains herself while she waits. She very quickly climbed the rope. I barely had time to take a picture.
Matt climbing up.
Candice coming down. This is one of my favorite photos.
And so the two of them continued on their way. I wandered around planning out my next series of photos and picking my vantage point. On the way I caught these kids wallowing in the mud. I was greatly amused by them.
At my vantage point I could see these athletic supporters. The man was smoking a cigarette and the woman passed the time by dancing. Their athlete turned out to be a teenager, possibly their son. 
It was only another 45 minutes or an hour before Matt and Candice appeared again. Here’s Matt sliding down a mud embankment.
Candice already made it under the wood wall.
Then it was up the incline and back down.
And under some barbed wire. Matt crawled the entire way. Again, not one of those obstacles where the long legs are an advantage. I think women have an easier time with this anyway. More power in the legs, lower center of gravity. I saw quite a few men log roll through this.
Two more obstacles happened. I did not get them on film. But we’re nearing the end. You can see the state of our participants by looking at the photo below.
The boulder carry involved picking up a big round “boulder”, walking it to the end, dropping it, doing five burpees, picking it back up and walking back. For Matt, it also involved a shoe tying. He swears he wasn’t tying it for the reason I retie my shoes (I need a rest).
Walking back with the boulder. See his raw power!
Over the fire!
And done.
This photo sums up how the two participants completed the race.
Showing off the medals.
Post-race mud and curl in the middle of the forehead.
Then it was back into the car for the drive back to Portland.
I’m keeping up with it this year. Here’s today’s harvest. Every two to three days I get a handful like this. It’s pretty awesome and has been a long time in coming.
