The trip started with a good omen and some frustration. The good omen was that while channel surfing my way to the Weather Channel to check the weekend forecast, I caught an excerpt of the movie "The Bear". The frustration was that soda was down and I was hoping to hear from someone at Oregon State's development office about a suggested place to watch the 49ers-Rams game on Sunday.
After our experience in Phoenix with the lousy cars from Avis, we reserved two cars with Hertz. When we reached the counter, they asked if we wanted a minivan instead. We asked if it was cheaper and if it wasn't red or white. It was cheaper and it was silver (and it had a cassete deck and cig lighter, so we could use our portable CD players with car kits) so we took it. At the same time, we asked if someone knew a good place to eat food and drink beer in Portland (*yes* we had a designated driver). Someone suggested The Rock Bottom Brewery at the corner of 3rd and Alder.
We were seated and soon greeted by Molly, our perky waitress. Each of us (except for Kathy, our designated driver) ordered some beer. Rock Bottom brews a standard Pale, a "southwestern" Pale, a Red, a Nut Brown, a Porter, and other special ales. Two people tried the southwestern pale, one tried the red, one tried the Nut Brown, and I tried the special ale, a cask conditioned nut brown (the others were good, but I liked my choice the best ;)
We then ordered food. The menu included a mixture of southwestern, pasta, and american items. Dan and Veronica opted to split an order of buffalo fajitas and beer onion soup between them. Jim and I salivated over the chicken fried steak with garlic smashed potatos and beer onion soup. Kathy had a southwestern style pasta with prawns. Keith ordered some special enchilladas (I can't remember what type) and the beer onion soup. We also ordered some Onion Strings. Of course, we also had some fun with our waitress.
When the onion strings arrived our eyes turned wide open. While we expected a small plate with some strings of onions on it (like you get at the Peninsula Creamery), we instead got a big plate piled high with onion strings. They strings were tasty. The beer onion soup arrived next, and it was a large bowl of soup think with onions covered with a layer of cheese (basically, French Onion soup). It was delicious. Next, our entrees arrived, and again, the portions were large. The chicken fried steak was the size of two breakfast steaks and was also good. The garlic smashed potatos were heavenly. By the time every one finished, we were stuffed, and though the deserts looked inviting, we wouldn't have thought of ordering any. However, the point again was made moot, as Molly brought us this huge chocolate brownied covered with a mountain of vanilla ice cream and dripping with raspberry fudge. We asked "who ordered this?" Molly replied "I did! It's for you!" It was oh soooo good that we really wanted to finish it, but we had eaten too much.
One last thing...this was quite inexpensive. Even though we included a very generous tip, it came out to $20 per person, including drinks. (It's nice being in a state with no sales tax!) Anyway, the next time I come to Portland, I'm going to visit the Rock Bottom Brewery again.
The next morning we slowly woke up and eventually made our way to campus. One memory about my last trip to Corvallis was that it had deciduous trees, and thus Fall color. This time there was much more color than the last time (which was later in the Fall). Seeing other colors besides brown and green along the hillsides made a nice change.
The OSU campus is also a nice small campus with some beautiful old buildings and other newer brick buildings. Some of the buildings were decorated for Homecoming too. We made our way to Memorial Union and decided to have some coffee at the cafe. While there, I grabbed a copy of the "Daily Barometer", the student newspaper. Dan was having fun reading the "Police Beat" My favorite entry was
Car Prowl -- A white male was observed using a slim jim, attempting to gain access to an OSU motor pool vehicle. Upon arrival, an employee was discovered practicing his skills for his job at the motor pool. While we enjoyed our coffee, we also saw something we hadn't seen in a few months...RAIN! It came down pretty good too; Fortunately the access to the student store was within the Union. At the store, I searched out an item that had made Andy and myself laugh out loud the last time we there...an OSU doormat (how appropriate). Andy couldn't make the trip this time, so he asked me to buy him a doormat. [This, by the way, is why I didn't want to get the $100 doormats from 1-800-REAL-GRASS. I don't like to associate Cal and doormats.] Anyway, I was able to find a doormat and I bought it for Andy.
We then left the store, and went on to see what the student rec center looked like since it was still raining. Unfortunately, this jaunt came at a price. Kathy ended up twisting her knee while walking down some stairs. Fortunately, the people at the rec center gave her a cold pack. At this point we decided to make our way back to the hotel and the pre-game party.
The pre-game party was surprisingly well attended. We watched bits of the U$c-Notre Dame and UCla-Stanfurd games while chatting with some alums. Still, the band, cheerleaders, oski, and yell leaders didn't make it...after all, we were 2 miles from the stadium. (I hope next year's tailgates at Pullman, Tempe, and Eugene can be closer.) After some words from John Kassar and a few others. We did a C-A-L spellout (of course we spelled it correctly) and sang a few Cal songs.
We then made our way back to the OSU campus. Another nice thing about OSU is the parking for football is *free* (the Rose Bowl now charges for parking). We parked the van and walked to the stadium. As we walked we could hear a train whistle...this and some other comments about the stadium made me think of UC Davis.
The four color animation screen gets used for the following things:
I too was impressed that their cheerladers didn't wear sweatpants... Heck, I was impressed that OUR cheerleaders weren't wearing their sweatpants while I was in my rugby, scarf, ski cap, and gloves. The straw hat band also did a great job (as usual).
I sat with Terence, Steve, and Erik. In front of us were people from the Cal Alumni Association...Rick Russel, Jim Burk, their wives and Tracy Bagley. I'm glad that they didn't mind having some excited fans sitting right behind them. Erik already described the two obnoxious OSU fans that security escorted away.
I really can't say much about the game, but, somehow the Bears managed to pull a win out of their butt. For once, the defense adjusted to OSU's unimaginative game plan. The 6 points in the second quarter was less than half the average number of points that the Bears had given up in 6 previous 2nd quarters (12.5 points). Similarly, the Bears had given up an average of almost 7 points in the 6 previous 3rd quarters and an average of 8 points in the 6 previous 4th quarters. So what if we lost our scoreless streak. I'd rather limit a team to 6 points in the last 3 quarters (compared to the average of 27 points in previous games). Besides, we still have never trailed in the 1st quarter. ;)
After the game we stayed to watch the straw hat band play Palms of Victory, All Hail, and two songs with the OSU Band. The straw hat band then did something I hadn't seen since 1991...They marched a victory wedge, playing the first verse of Big C followed by Lights Out. After that, the six of us gave a rousing "Cal Band Great" and decided to see what downtown Corvallis had to offer.
In fact, while some of the other members of my party looked in back for a table, this woman mentioned that she had gone to UC Davis (go Aggies!). We started chatting with her, and she had mentioned that her boyfriend once was Benny the Beaver back in 1992. She told us that he was working as event staff at a Women's Gymnastics meet and saw the costume lying around. Because he had nothing better to do, he got into the costume, and started doing stuff in the stands. Later that week, his boss called him in and asked "Say, you wouldn't happen to know anything about Benny the Beaver showing up at a women's gymnastics meet would you?" He said "err--uhh No." The boss then said, "Well, see, they liked who was in the costume, and wondered if he might be willing to be a mascot during football season." The woman telling this story then mentioned that her boyfriend got to go to all the games that year, and that she went to the 1992 Cal-OSU game. I then mentioned Terence's story about Benny the Beaver turning to him and saying "You guys are kicking our (butt)". She laughed.
The rest of the party found a table in the back, so we ordered some beer. I wasn't feeling bitter, so I ordered a Red Hook Double Black Stout instead. The Double Black is so named because ground Starbucks coffee is included in the mash. It tasted interesting. We ordered some sandwiches, which were cheap, but took two more rounds to arrive (during which I tried a local bock beer, and then some Seven Sisters Cider...both were good). While waiting for our food, I noticed a mural in the pub; On the mural were all the Pac 10 teams represented by their animals/beings. For Stanfurd, they used a cardinal (a bird, not a Roman Catholic priest that's like the Pope). The only problem was that the wildcat looked more like a raccoon. Eventually we got our food...It was standard pub fare, but at least it was cheap.
Following our meal, we decided to check out the Peacock to see what the live music was like. From a block away we saw a line, which said to us "Hey! Maybe this is a good place"; Then we heard the live music which unfortunately was a style that none of us enjoyed. Oh well, we were feeling a little tired, and we did want to see the highlights of the game on the local news, so we went back to the hotel. We managed to catch highlights on 4 or 5 stations.
When Kathy's friend arrived, we decided to drivee back to Portland and to see what Portland was like in the daytime. Since we were not in a hurry, I decided to take 99w, the scenic route back to Portland, instead of I5. We ended up driving a picturesque 2 lane road that passed through farmland, vinyards, dairies, and some small towns. At the same time, we listened to Joe Starkey call a great 49er rout.
There are actually two open markets next to one another. The actual Saturday market is under a bridge, the other market occupies a plaza that contains a fountain. The plaza market included a food court consisting of a lot of little stands surrounding a tent that covered tables. I opted for some Hawaiian style Yakisoba, while others tried Pad Thai, Gyros, and other stuff. We also noticed that a few stands sold something called "Elephant Ears", which turned out to be large flat pieces of fried dough dipped in sugar.
While looking around the markets, I saw one thing I just had to buy-- a Bear XING sign (just like on the Bear Territory shirts). Others bought Bear XING kitchen magnets. My question...why doesn't the ASUC store sell these items?
When I got home, I was very happy I went on this trip, though I did find myself going "DAMN!" a few days later when I found out what my contact in Corvallis had mailed to soda...
: Sean-
:
: I'm a partner in a winery...Eola Hills Wine cellars on Hwy 99,
: 6 miles north of Monmouth. We are in the middle of crush, so
: you could go out back and watch some of the foot stomping too.
: The winery has what was chosen by the Salem newspaper readers
: as the best Sunday brunch in the Willamette valley in 1994.
: The manager is a Fraternity brother and they have a big screen
: TV set to that game. The price is $17.95 includes a souvenir
: glass and filled with wine or Champagne. The food is omlettes,
: waffles, pasta and pan fried specials. If you come hungry for
: food and football this is the best bet because you'll be able to
: sit the entire 3 1/2 hours (930-100) at the same table and watch
: the game eat great food and consume the best wine around. Our
: winery has won more medals in the Oregon State Fair competition
: than any other winery. At 130 or 200, you can take a leisurely 1
: 1/2 hour drive to the PDX airport. If you're interested let me
: know or call Tom Huggins at Eola Hills so he can reserve the best
: table in front of the TV.
Oh well, it would have been nice; maybe when I go to Eugene next year.