Laurenclaus is coming to town!

On our second full day in Portland one of my best friends, Lauren, came to town.  She flew in and we picked her up then headed to find Zacman the "best pizza in Portland."  We were fortunate in St. Louis to have Sauce Magazine which rated all the restaurants based on type and categorized them and there were always a thousand reviews written, but not in Portland.  We finally decided on a place called Escape from New York, mainly because they sold by the slice.  It was quite delicious.  Zac was happy

as were Lauren and Chris (see....they make a cute, and quite likeable, couple)

We wandered around after that, stopped in a couple kitschy little shops and eventually decided it was time to finally visit the wilderness.  (Lauren and I decided on our trip that we should hike, visit voodoo doughnuts, and see the coast, that was the list)  We headed back to Chris' house as there was a park like literally 3 blocks away.  I asked him if there was anywhere we could hike that was mostly flat (I know, I'm ridiculous) and he came up with Lacamas Park.  We were excited, and rightly so.

Into the wild....kinda wild....

Balancing act

Lauren and I laugh so much around each other that we are often doubled over, this was the best we could pull it together to get a picture of the two of us....I had to hide my face.

The three of us.  (Notice Chris in the glasses and how he looks like a young Keanu.  This is important for later in my story. )

I just had to touch the water....just had to

Somehow we got to talking about GPS and that brought up the fact that Zac loved the GPS he used to have.  It would tell you your elevation and your speed, which was awesome cause I talked Zac into sprinting through the parking lot at our old apartment to see how fast he was.  Turns out he was 17mph fast... SUPER FAST even.  Lauren is also super fast and somehow I talked them into a race.  This was them running as fast as possible.      

The two of us in the beautiful woods. 

So you see the river, well, creek, behind us in the background, Zac just had to get in it.  He climbed across a bunch of little stones to get to a big rock in the center to take pictures since he told me "you don't even know what you're looking at!" (which made Lauren double over laughing)  The whole 15 minutes Zac was taking pictures in the creek Lauren and I stood on the bridge watching and Chris stood on the trail, about 30 yards away with his arms folded across his chest staring.  Just staring at who knows what.  We laughed and when Zac came back up from the creek, we all joked about Chris being stuck in the Matrix.  The best part is that when Chris joined us on bridge, he leaned up against the railing and watched the water as Zac says, "hard to believe this is all just 1's and 0's" to which Chris, unaware of the Matrix comments simply replied "yeah."  Lauren and I laughed until I almost cried.  It was priceless.  

After about two hours Zac got a call from Ernie about the aforementioned "guys night."   We went back to Chris' and started a good deal of snacking while we waited for Ernie to come get Zac, then those two galavanted off.  

Chris, Lauren and I ate and ate and ate more.  Then we watched a move and I fell asleep between Chris and Lauren on his bed at like 10:30.  I'm a real party animal I tell ya.  Anyway, here is a picture.  This is Chris, prefoodfest, with his customary cup of tea.  I swear, this is what he looks like 95% of the time, tea in hand. (and a Keanu face)

The next day was my birthday so get excited!