On my way...

I left town around 1:00 on Wednesday for the trip to Denver. I listened to some music and didn't worry about the lyrics. I listened to 3 episodes of This American Life and some CraftSanity.

Denver was gripped with excitement over the playoffs, so we enjoyed an extremely noisy dinner as the Nuggets lost.

To bed, too late, and up EARLY the next morning to get to the airport.

We got to the airport, got checked in, got to the gate, got on the plane! It went quickly, but took two hours. Whenever I fly out of Denver I'm reminded why it seems worth the extra money to fly out of Garden City. It's so nice and small and friendly! Katrina and I didn't get to sit next to each other, and we had to wait on the runway for a long time while they checked some sort of computer system, and the man sitting next to me never said even one word. I read all of my magazines before the flight was over. 6 magazines. Then I looked out the window and listened to my music and nibbled on the pretzels I brought. Pretzels seem like plane food, and I was afraid (correctly!) that pretzels had been cut, so I brought some to be safe. Sipping soda and nibbling pretzels on a plane makes me feel like a big shot. I'm flying!

Then we landed and got our bags and asked for directions to the train station. We rode the light rail for a while and then walked about 10 blocks to get there. Both of these things also made me heady with freedom and fun. I'm walking in a city! With a rolly bag! As though I am a world traveler and know what I am doing and do this all of the time!

Then we checked in at the train station, which was beautiful, and checked our bags, and had lunch at Wilf's, right next to Union Station. We sat in giant red comfy chairs and had a delicious lunch and enjoyed the funny waiter and had apples for dessert.

Then we got on the train. We stayed in our seats because we were tired and had all of our stuff. I looked at the funny sprinklers and all of the flowers. We texted back and forth with Chelsea to let her know when we'd be there.

We got to Portland and got our bags and waited out front for Chelsea. It was hot and sunny and fun to sit in front of the train station waiting for our girl.

We went to Chelsea's apartment and sat for a minute and had a soda and decided on dinner. We ate at Cafe Yumm! which was very tasty. Their rice bowls are pretty simple, rice and beans and tomato and avocado and olive and cheese and the special yumm sauce. Here's a recipe for the sauce I found online, if you'd like to try it out.

Then we went to Jim's house (that's Chelsea's boyfriend-here's a picture of the two of them I stole from his camera)(also-we like him).

And had some wine.