After a long day of driving, a little hiking, and the eating of a maddeningly thin yet expensive pizza that left us hungrier after eating than before, we made our way to Portland to avail ourselves of some doughnuts infused with the power of voodoo. I’d heard over and over how amazing Voodoo Doughnuts’ doughnuts were, but as a person with a car that occasionally threatens to overheat while sitting too long at a stoplight a block away from home, it didn’t seem wise to undertake the trip. Now, however, since we were in a rental and not exceptionally far from downtown Portland, it seemed foolish not to go, so we drove there with the help of a GPS system that only occasionally told us to turn the wrong way down one-way streets or sent us on a pointless loop a few miles out of our way. It only occasionally gave us wrong directions because most of the time, it struggled finding any signal whatsoever. Every time it was threatened with replacement or someone said “oh, just turn it off”, it would chime in with a direction–but at that point, we didn’t know whether it was telling the truth or if we’d be better off trying to find the place with our noses and a dowsing rod. That we eventually found the place and weren’t directed by the unit to drive off an unfinished bridge is somewhat of a lesser miracle. Portland’s streets were full of “colorful” types, by which I mean shirtless dickbags. One such shirtless dickbag, sprawled on the sidewalk like he owned it, screamed at Jason and I as we passed. “HEY GREEN SHIRT! GREEN SHIRT! IF YOU FUCK HER, I’LL KILL YOU. KILL YOU!” What the hell, Portland? First of all, that shirt was more of an olive color. Second, I feel like I should have a say in these matters. Third, lists should have three things.

I’d already checked out their list of offerings on their website, as I didn’t want to hold up the line of people behind me waiting for their own doughnuts overly long. For my selections, I picked a maple bacon bar, an old dirty bastard, and a mango tango. Jason chose a maple bacon bar, an old dirty bastard, and a voodoo doughnut. You may have noted that there was some overlap between our choices, and further thought: “Gee, why couldn’t they have shared?” and the answer is because we don’t swing that way. Frankly, after I’d had a bite of my maple bacon bar, a bear couldn’t have wrestled it out of my hands. I would have calmly choked the bear to death with my bare hands, dusted them off, and then finished my doughnut.

I am firmly convinced that the maple bacon bar is the world’s most perfect doughnut. It’s salty and sweet, fluffy with some crunch, the flavors complementing one another instead of battling for dominance. I should have gotten three of them. Don’t get me wrong, the mango tango was delicious, and the old dirty bastard was at least tasty, but neither could compete with the glory of the maple bacon. Jason and my dad also preferred the maple bacon over their other selections, so we all had a bit of doughnut regret the next day. After our doughnut dalliances, we went to Powell’s City of Books and spent the better part of two hours there, never even bumping into another member of our group by chance. The store is truly enormous, and they do indeed carry something for everyone. I left with a book on wigmaking and another on prosthetic makeup that is supposed to be the final authority on prosthetics but has been discontinued forever. As much as I love my Kindle, I will always love printed reference material, and I can’t wait to dig in and make fake body parts!