A Week in Oregon

Since IGC is coming up fast, I figured I would give you guys and gals a glimpse into the very cool town and surrounding area that GarageGames calls home =)

Conveniently, my cousin visited Eugene for the first time since I moved here 3 years ago and we tried to pack as much sightseeing and fun into his too short week. And, we took pictures! Lots and lots of pictures!

As soon as Kory landed at the enourmous Eugene Airport ("we kept circling over cow pastures so long I was wondering if the pilot was lost and looking for the airport") he was quick to let us know that he was starving so I bustled him off to the very uniquely Eugenian experience that is
.

This is an odd little fast food joint that only exists in Eugene that caters to health nuts and vegeterians with its main dish of rice, beans, and a special sauce (very rich). Very tasty! I was sad when they had to close the one near the office although, ironically, their main corporate office is just the other side of the wall of our "garage".

We let him rest up that evening (we did introduce him to the concept of a mongolian grill) so that we could get up early on Saturday and head up to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum which is the home of the famous "Spruce Goose" (largest plane ever built).

The museum is about an hour and half north of Eugene and, while I had driven by it a few times, I had never taken the time to actually go visit it. Let me tell you, I really wish I had before! It was amazing! Imagine a huge building with tons of windows (the whole front is glass) built around an eight story airplane with tons of cool aircraft tucked comfortable under its 319 ft wingspan. They had everything from early planes and dogfighters to WW2 craft (including a B51 bomber you could go inside) to modern jets like an SR-71 Blackbird and an A-4 Skyhawk. They even had a P-38 Lightning which is one of my favorite designs of all time =)









Meet my cousin Kory...he's the goofy guy in the last picture =P

On Sunday we headed up to Portland to see Spamalot which is a musical based on the Monty Python movie "The Quest for the Holy Grail".



On the way up we introduced him to Frys (think Sam's Club or CostCo for electronics). We then took him around the city a bit, back and forth across the numerous bridges in the middle of Portland. From there we wandered around downtown and ended up at Powell's Bookstore (the world's largest used bookstore...literally a full city block). Unfortunately, we forgot the camera that day so you will have to imagine it all =(

On Monday, Kory ended up coming with me to the office and I gave him a quick walking tour of downtown Eugene. At some point he grabbed my camera and wandered around taking pictures of various things in downtown that caught his interest like the 5th Street Market just down the road from GG, a cool looking tattoo place a couple blocks away, and a lot of the flowers lining the streets in the heart of downtown.








Tuesday was also a pretty low key day for us. Kory bounced between our office and the Eugene library (which is an amazing library). Later that night we took him to see the "Simpsons Movie" in the real Springfield.





I ended up taking a half day on Wednesday so that we could take Kory out to the Oregon coast. It was the prettiest I have ever seen the coast: 77 degrees, sunny, light breeze. My wife immediately ran up and stuck her toes into the 50 degree water just to verify that we were on the right side of the country =P Normally going to the coast involves jeans, shoes, and a sweatshirt. We decided to take him just north of Florence (an hour west of Eugene) to the Heceta Head Lighthouse (most photographed lighthouse in the world) since it gives you a good glimpse of the sandy beaches, cliffs, sea caves, mountains, and forests all in the same place that is the standard on our state's coast (baffling to me who grew up where the mountains are 4-5 hours from the beach).










Thursday night was board game night at GG for the group of people I am currently working with. We ended up having a lot of fun with Carcassonne, Apples to Apples, and Once Upon A Time.

Sadly, Kory had to leave on Friday so he ended up missing out on going to the Oregon Ducks game on Saturday with me and my wife (who is a rabid fan of the Ducks =).




He also missed out on getting to see one of the weirder Eugenian tradions...rock stacking in the Willamette River:



Not a comprehensive coverage of all of the things you can see in our wacky little city. I didn't get into the rock climbing, camping, rafting, Saturday Market (hippie fest), volcanoes, lava fields, and hot springs for example. There is a ton you can see and do and I am often surprised at the things I don't even know about yet after being here for 3 years.

Hopefully I will be seeing some of you at IGC and I can point you in the direction of something fun to do!