Mile 2727 - Clean Cut, Haircut for Men, Coeur d’Alene, ID

Aaron has had an unconventional history of haircutting experiences.  It all stems from the fact that he was born with 4 cowlicks: one pair in the front, one pair in the back, parting his hair with perfect symmetry.  Now this was excused as an acceptable haircut as an 8^th grader in 1995.  Unfortunately, this style quickly acquired a not so nice nickname that won’t be mentioned here, but it was one’s hair with ones derrière.  8^th grade was also when Aaron once demanded that he be taken to a barbershop instead of the salon because salons are for girls.  That was when he received his first crew cut, and for the most part, has been disappointed in paying for haircuts ever since.   From the beginning of college until he was 27, he managed to not pay for a single haircut.

His current tradition of when to get a haircut first began on a mission trip to Russia.  He thought that  great way to learn about the culture was to get a haircut with a local barber.  You sit, you talk, you shed some hairs, and you experience that place’s everyday.  Thus far, besides Russia, he’s had his haircut in Skagway, Alaska, Italy, Costa Rica (from a one-eye barber with a straight razor!).  And now, add Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to the list!

It was about time that Aaron had a trim.  While on our route, we saw Clean Cuts: Haircuts for Men, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.  Now, this place was for men.  It had a pool table to burn some time while you wait.  A manly sitting area centered around an ESPN dedicated flat screen, above a manly stone fireplace.  A popcorn machine.   The hair-washing sink area sported manly Nike shoes and beer brewing paraphernalia on the walls.  There was not a single curling iron to be found in this manly place.  And to top it off, after your manly cut is done, you get a chance to shoot a basket to win $1 off your haircut!  Plus they do a pretty good job cutting hair don’t you think?

P.S.  Before the haircut, we ate at Franklins down the street and enjoyed some pretty quality cheesesteaks.  Two thumbs up for all Franklins, Andrew included!

Mile 1897 - Seattle, WA

Let the games begin!  An intense match of Settler’s of Catan was long overdue.  As was a visit to Seattle to see Kimberly (aka Kimbo) and Josh.  They were married 2 years ago, 1 week after Saaron, and their wedding gift was this addictive game.  We both knew what this visit was about, so we hunkered down at The Pub at Third Place for the long awaited match. The basement level of “the Hobbit hole” is filled with long, wooden tables, which seemed like an appropriate location to do battle.  It was a grueling and close match, many resources were exchanged, roads became longer and longer, but in the end, Josh was the winner with a last minute bonus point from a resource card!  Besides the game, much time was spent enjoying catching up between Kimbo and Sarah, who have been friends since the awkward 7^th grade era.  As well as each getting to know each other’s spouses as the one and only time they’ve met was at each other’s weddings.  If you're familiar with the Seattle area, you may know Josh and Kimbo as the people who live in the famous "Giraffe House".

For those of you concerned about the nerdy level of the group because our love for Settlers, you’re probably not too far off.  But the next day we balanced it out by playing a very high-class game called Hampton Horseshoes.  It’s an east coast lawn game for the highly distinguished.  The point is to knock the opposing team’s bottle off the stick with a Frisbee, as well as prevent them from getting points by catching your own bottle before it hits the ground.  The classy part is that every player must hold a bottle of beer in one hand at all times (or lemonade if your Kimbo and Sarah…beer is gross).  The boys taught their girls how to throw Frisbees straight as they both pretty much sucked and fun times were had by all!  In fact, we can’t even remember who won.

We didn’t just spend our whole time sitting around playing games, Josh and Kimbo also took us out to see some of Seattle’s best treasures.  Any trip to Seattle requires a mandatory visit to the Fremont Troll.  It’s always fun to see, but this time, Aaron searched high and low and found some special treasures.  As the sun was going down, we went up to Queen Ann, which had an amazing view of downtown.  All of Seattle’s photographers came out of the woodwork to get a sunset shot of the Space Needle with Rainer as the backdrop.  We were told that clear days are a rarity in this region, but we’ve yet to see a single rainy day in the Pacific Northwest.

Thanks Epperson’s for an amazing visit!  We look forward to a re-match in the near future.

Josh's pre-game warm-up

Mile 1501 - Battle Ground, WA

So while they don’t actually live in Portland, or Oregon for that matter, a trip to P-town usually involves a visit to Battle Ground, Washington to see the Tedders.  They are related to Sarah as second-cousins-once-removed, or some other non-personal sounding title, but she just calls them her cousins.  

They brought us to the best Thai food that Battle Ground has to offer at Keo Thai and tried thier different dishes in the spice range from 3 to 5.  Props to Cindy even for surviving the number 5! And Danny, if you've forgotten, you really loved the Pad-Kee-Mau.

To cool off, we enjoyed a nice backyard evening over a delicious, homemade blackberry cobbler and icecream with fresh-picked blackberries from their yard!  What a treat! Did you know that the thorns of a blackberry bush are actually called "prickles"? The Tedder's get their berries from a Prickle-less bush, and they're delicious. Thanks for the wonderful evening!  But we missed you, Andrew, Amy and David, Luke and Emily!

Mile 1446 - Portland Food, OR

You can’t be in Portland long without wanting to swear yourself in to the life of a foodie.  No matter what section of Portland you’re in, there’s some overwhelmingly good food within 5 blocks.  At least it seemed that way to us. 

Here are our recommendations for a day full of dining.

Let’s start with Breakfast: You’ll want to start at the Byways Café, because everybody loves starting their day with a food coma.  This place is like a breakfast joint you’d find on some forgotten highway, transported into downtown Portland.  The walls are covered with vintage road trip collectables, as if the owner had a monopoly on estate sales over the last 10 years. 

Then there's the portions!  Aaron just had to try the Amaretto French Toast after he read the enticing description "Four slices of amaretto-infused brioche served lightly dusted with powdered sugar, honey pecan butter and maple syrup." It was the equivalent of half a loaf of bread but seriously, who could pass that up?  Well, Sarah had an omelet...it was good too. We recommend coming here with three or four people and ordering two of their specialties. You won't go away hungry.

Lunch:  You might as well have breakfast again because not only is it the most important meal of the day, it’s just that good.  Head over to Pine Street Biscuits and prepare to be amazed at how many delicious calories they can pack into one little bite.  Yep, that’s a homemade biscuit, egg, sausage and a TON of gravy.  It tastes as good as it sounds.  It could have been worse, we could have ordered the Reggie.  Aaron also got a front row seat and learned a thing or two about how to cook an egg.  We both are anxiously awaiting a time to try it out ourselves!

Now it’s time for dinner:  Why not make it 3 for 3 and have breakfast again at the Waffle Window?  Here you can experience the sweet or the savory depending on your mood, piled high on a delicious waffle.  Or if you share, you can experience them all!  One really isn't going to fill you up, so we recommend ordering at least three!  We were so excited and hungry that we ate it all before remembering to take pictures.  So you’ll just have to take our word for it.

Though we do love to eat, you may have guessed that we didn’t really go to all of these places in one day…we’re not THAT crazy.  But now it is time for dessert and we may have been crazy enough to go to BOTH locations of Salt and Straw in one night.  But how can you resist the newest, hippest ice cream joint in town, where they take artisan flavors to a whole new level.  Our palates experienced ice cream that was 2 parts amazing and 1 part confusing.  Chevre with jalapeño jelly. Creamed corn. Honey balsamic strawberry with cracked pepper.  Sea salt ice cream with caramel ribbon.  Coffee and bourbon.  Sound unreal; disgusting perhaps?  You’ll just have to check it out yourself!

Roadside Recipes: Gnarly Browns

Roadside Recipes

Gnarly Browns

Hashbrowns is a real favorite at roadside restaurants, but they’re difficult to prepare at your campsite kitchen. Our secret is to just get your potatoes prepared at a roadside restaurant.

The potatoes featured in this recipe were initially prepared at the Samoa Cookhouse.

     Prep Time: 3 min

     Cook Time: 5 min.

Ingredients:

     1 Tbs. Butter

     1 Tbs. Cooking Oil

     2 Leftover Baked Potatoes

                 

Instructions:

     Step one is to acquire your potatoes. While the potatoes are still hot, ask the waiter for some water. As soon as he leaves, place each potato in the center of a paper napkin and wrap like a burrito; hide in pocket for 8 to 12 hours.

     Coarsely grate both potatoes into a bowl and melt butter in a medium pan. Fry potatoes over medium-high heat for two minutes, tossing every 20 seconds for a light crisp. Add cooking oil and lower temperature to gradually heat potatoes until cooked through.

Mile 618 - Samoa, CA

Samoa Cookhouse: One of the many places that both of us experienced long ago as kids before we met…and who knows?  Maybe our families shared a long checkered-table clothed table many years ago!  The Samoa Cookhouse is a low-calorie treat for the hungry woodsman after a long hard day at work, but also accepts travelers who have been sitting in their cars all day to partake in a traditional cookhouse meal.  The menu includes soup, salad, bread, a vegetable, dessert, and whichever large slab of meat they are serving that night.  In our case, it was roast beef and fried pork steaks...mmmm.  And because you may still be hungry after all that, we’ve heard you can say “I would like Sa-mo-a” and more delicious food will appear.  But we’ll have to take their word for it as we couldn’t even finish what was brought to us and somehow our potatoes ended up in Aaron’s pocket...Stay tuned to find out what happened to our sneaky potatoes.

Rad Trip Map

Here it is! The Radtrip has begun!
The one thing everyone wants to know is "WHERE ARE YOU GUYS GOING?"

We really want to plan as we go, so we still don't have a good answer. Instead of choosing a route, we have saved every location that we have heard of on a google map and we'll plan our weeks from there. Check out what we have thus far, and let us know if we're missing a must-see. Thanks for following our trip!

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