Passport Masters

We continued our last day of Portland hijinx at Burgerville, a chain that sounds like it sticks the Portland area.

They had fun seasonal items. I think this sundae had Oregon strawberries in it, for example.

Fun fact from their Wikipedia page: "On major highways leaving Burgerville's reach, there is usually a billboard resembling an overhead highway warning sign alerting drivers that there will not be another Burgerville location for approximately another 24,700 miles, which is the distance to the next Burgerville should one continue around the globe in that direction. The distance reported on each sign varies depending on the actual location of the billboard."

I friggin love neon.

I am genuinely jealous of the Lego options that kids today have. Back in my time if we wanted to have fun we had to use our "imagination" like losers.

Yesterday I mentioned we hit an event at theater that helped us not have to actually see a show there. Well today we struck again. There was some sort of a historical presentation happening at the McMenamins Mission Theater. There were lots of other passport stamp addicts lined up before the event, to the extent that I was worried if we were going to be able to enter.

I felt a little bit guilty that we pretty much snatched our stamps and bolted, but we have a baby so pretty much every rude thing we do is excused.

We stopped at 10 Barrel Brewing Portland. 10 Barrel is one of those really fun brands that Anheuser-Busch ate that I was always excited to see in the office beer case.

Ern had a lot of fun stomping around and flirting with the other patrons.

I am proud to announce that after doing our stamp scavenger hunt mission thing at McMenamins Kennedy School we officially completed our passport! It's been like 75% fun and 25% terrible curse that only completing the passport could release my soul from.

There was a "yay we did it gong" that Ernie got to dong.

We have officially been conferred the rank of Cosmic Tripster and one of our privileges is that some of the locations have secret menus that only we get to order from.

Surely the stamp I've worked the hardest for in my entire life.

We got all kinds of prizes like free hotel stays and show tickets. As of April 2026 when I belatedly write this we have not used a single one of them. With a bit of time passed I wonder if that is a testament to how much our imaginations were captured by this mission and how it drew us to go on numerous road trips. We explored a ton of Oregon as a result and I think that was a win that I will treasure more than a bunch of tshirts and free orders of tater tots. I do wear the hell out of those tshirts though. They have fun designs and I think it gives them more value since I "earned" them.

It wasn't really meal time but I was thinking something along the lines of "I about killed myself finishing this passport so we're not leaving here until we order something off of the secret menu!" Luckily it doesn't usually take too much arm twisting to get Lydia to eat some ice cream. We got the:

HALA KAHIKI SUNDAE

vanilla bean ice cream, rum-glazed grilled pineapple,

North Shore peanuts, toasted coconut

& Amarena cherries

We made it back to Kirkland and were celebrated by all as the heroes who conquered Portland.

Today Ernie said what I think counts as his first full sentence. I was playing with him in the bathtub and Lydia was in another room. Lydia said something and he replied “no mama”.

Smashing Pumpkins and Eating Biscuits

We did a bit of shopping in downtown Portland. It was an experience.

We went to more than one store where the entire place was under lock and key. That process was quite a pain so I can imagine they must have a big problem with crime/shoplifting. From my point of view Portland is a more liberal version of Seattle and serves as a warning I think of what Seattle might become if they don't get the downslide under control.

I am tempted by the Pendleton store. Now that I'm a western man I feel like I need more wild western printed clothing. This stuff is wildly expensive though so that helps keep my cowboy aspirations at bay.

We had lunch at Pine State Biscuits which unsurprisingly has a lot of biscuit foods going on. I love biscuits and gravy and that sort of diner scene doesn't really exist in Seattle like it does in St. Louis so I've been biscuit starved lately. 

It goes without question that we had to hit some McMenamins on the way out of town. This time was McMenamins Kennedy School which as a defunct catholic school would have been creepy anyway, but with my own catholic school experience it was downright terrifying. They still had some of those weird multiheaded drinking fountains in the halls even. Some of the classrooms had been converted into hotel rooms which is a big nope from me.

Luckily they don't require you to actually stay at the hotel to get the stamp in your passport, but they do send you on a hunt with a riddle to find a particular artwork somewhere in the building. Sometimes these searches are quite involved. It's fun and it forces you to pay attention to all of the cool stuff they have on the walls.

This is objectively scary.

Just about every single McMenamins is in some cool converted historic building, a school or an amazing dance hall with a ton of fun stories and cool architecture. Then there is the turd that is McMenamins East Vancouver sitting on the end of a strip mall in Vancouver on the Washington side of the Columbia River.

I will give them credit for doing a great job on the interior of the pub. The lighting for example was amazing.

So I will admit that it was a little intense of us to then return to Seattle and see yet another live show after the amazing time we just had with Lizzo. BUT this was justifiable because it was just such a good deal. I spotted tickets to Smashing Pumpkins + Jane's Addiction: Spirits On Fire Tour on Groupon for $30 a person including fees! We got both of these tickets for less than the crap fees on ONE of the Lizzo tickets. It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

They did a pretty good job filling Climate Pledge Arena considering they haven't had a hit since the Clinton administration.

We were definitely punished for our thriftiness. Our backs were literally against the wall of the place. We had achieved the worst seat in the house!

The Smashing Pumpkins have some bangers.

Lydia's Ernie belly is getting more and more noticeable. Our Thanksgiving baby reveal can't come soon enough.