Vegan Day

Today is the official start of "Try Vegan Week-- Portland". It runs through next Saturday and concludes with a Vegan Prom, 1920's theme. (Ugh, I am leaving a week too early. I keep threatening to make Bill come back up with me and take me to the V.P.) It seems apropos that today was the day we FINALLY made it to the Vegan Strip Mall. This is much less exciting than it could be given the name. Vegans stripping in a mall sounds much more risque than the grocery store, tattoo (though, I am still ignorant to why it would matter that it was "vegan") parlor, clothing store and bakery all in a row for your shopping convenience. First stop, Food Fight! grocery store. I was interested in what kinds of things they might carry I had not seen elsewhere before. For example: Soy Jerky, many flavors, who knew? I bought water and B12 infused gum (Again, who knew?) The boys bought the pins pictured. (Minus the banned books one, I just love that one and threw it in the photo.)

After our Vegan shopping trip, we did some thrift store hunting. Goodwill has a much better selection than the D.I. The boys were very sad I would not let them buy the GameCube for $10, or the giant water guns for $8, but I did offer to buy them drinking glasses in 70's colors adorned with mushrooms and frogs. They carried them around for a while, before deciding they didn't want to have to get them home to SLC. We drove home, picked up Bill and headed downtown for a walking tour of several city fountains. I keep stumbling across things to do and just when I think I am fresh out of ideas of new things to see, someone will give me a tip or I will read something on the internet and discover another gem in this town. I wasn't that excited about this "fountain tour", but it ended up being very, very cool.

First stop, the Ira Keller Fountain between 2nd and 3rd and Market Street. It is like a giant urban system of waterfalls. Occupied by people in everything from bikinis, to fully dressed, from Gerber babies to AARP members, it was like another party in the middle of the city. 20 somethings with dreadlocks (male and female) delighted in shooting water from the top of the "falls" onto the people at the bottom of the "falls" causing an impromptu water fight among strangers.

Further down our Urban trail, we came across 4 other fountains of differing size and appeal. They all were fun to climb and make wishes in making for a fun family evening walk before dinner. Romney, being our monkey, accidentally fell into the smallest of the fountains and had one squeaky, leaky shoe for the walk back.

Once you have one wet shoe, why not jump in with both to make two wet shoes. And then since your shoes and socks are wet, you might as well get into the water up to your thighs. And then since your shorts are wet. . . I saw where this was going and made him take off his shirt and just get in to play already! I wanted him to have at least one dry piece of clothing for our dinner out. He ran, jumped, skipped and kicked water all over that fountain with a giant grin. In the spirit of Vegan Week, we hit up a delicious all vegan restaurant for dinner. I am going to miss the food options I have here. I feel like I have eaten my way through this city. While I might miss the food, I am sure my butt will not! Only one more day to adventure here, before moving on down the road.