FTF Day 201-203 - Portland, OR - Sept 10th-12th, 2011

Reconnecting with a dear friend in my favourite city in the USA!

After leaving Merced, CA I wanted to get back up to Portland, OR.  I made the drive up I-5 stopping in Medford, OR for the night and then continuing on my journey the next day.  You see when I was there the first time, I did not manage to get together we my very close friend Melissa.  I felt it would just not be right for me to do this trip and not make any trip for her.  She has always been a big supporter of FTF and it had been some time since we spent any real amount of time together.  Even this trip I knew it would be limited as she has just started her 2^nd year of Law School.  So I arrived Friday afternoon and we headed out for happy hour and Gruner for some drinks and wonderful food.  Afterwards we walked the city for a while until we found Cacao, where you could sample small little cups of liquid chocolat.  We eventually headed back to her place to relax and watch a movie.  It was nice just to chill out with someone that knows me and I don’t have to tell my life story to. 

Saturday we made plans to go hiking, and Rose joined us.  She happened to be in Portland and wanted to come along for the afternoon.  We headed for eagle creek about 40 miles up I 84 from Portland in the hood river gorge.  When we arrived I noticed steam coming from the engine.  I quickly determined that the problem was a split return hose on the radiator.  I decided to let things cool down while we were hiking and then deal with it when we returned.  The hike was great, we covered close to 8 miles and saw a bunch of great waterfalls. When we returned to the car, I managed to choke the hose up and temporarily repair the split in the hose, then we refilled the radiator and were on our way.  Everything seemed normal but I made one fatal mistake, I did not runt he engine for a minute and then fill the radiator some more.  I assumed since the fill bottle was good that it would not be an issue.  Unfortunately the engine overheated again while driving down the interstate, after climbing down to the good river with every water bottle we had I managed to fill the radiator again.  We headed down the interstate again, but the engine overheated again and started knocking.  I called AAA at this point realizing I was doing more damage than good.  I had the car towed to a garage near Melissa’s place.  I was hoping a new head gasket would the most that the car needed, since 5 years ago I had a similar problem and managed to change the gasket out myself.

I went out in Portland Saturday night and met up with Rose and her friend Chris.  Melissa stayed in so she could get some reading done, after dropping me off at the bus station so I could get downtown.  I had a great night, and we hit a couple bar’s including the Mary’s club, Portland’s oldest strip club, which is a very social place that has as many girls as guys in the audience.  I’m normally not a strip club guy.  In fact I’ve only been twice in the last 10 years and both have been with Rose with friends in Portland.  Mary’s is so small that there is tiny stage for 1 girl at a time, no DJ (the dancer actually puts her own music on too).  It’s a fun place, I ended up talking to a group of people, guys and girls sitting next to us and when Rose and Chris wanted to leave I ended up hanging with them at an Kell’s Irish pub afterwards, and eventually the food carts for a late night Vietnamese Sandwich.  I taxied back to Melissa’s having had a great night and did not worry about my Jeep that whole night.

The next day I tried to get the car started but no luck, it was definitely losing compression.  I spent the day getting a bunch of odd jobs done around Melissa’s place and did a bit of work on her car.  Monday I was informed that it would there was no way to realiably repair the engine and that I would be better off replacing the engine.  This news came as a real shock, luckily the manager at the garage managed to find a used engine so they would install and make a few other repairs as well.  The repair costs would be as much as a new vehicle but considering all the money I had just sunk into the car and the fact that I would have essentially a new vehicle, I decided it was better than going out and trying to find a reliable used vehicle.  So while I waited for the engine to be repaired, I decided to rent a car and head to Eugene, OR for a few days.

FTF Day 201-203