MT, WY, and OR, oh my.

A couple weeks ago I flew into Billings, MT for work. I had to drive down a couple hours to Nowheresville, WY to visit with the sponsor that will be hosting the team. The team will be living on a working ranch. It's amazing. I'm jealous. I'm pretty much in love with Montana and Wyoming. However, it's so conservative - a comparable religious vibe to the south. I walked into a cafe to get some lunch and there was three women with bowed heads praying before lunch. Not my thing, but it sure is purty.








Billings is actually pretty cool. They also have awesome antique shops that I may have wondered into during my search for lunch. I'll post my finds later maybe.

Now, on to Oregon...

We went to Portland for my birthday. I liked it a lot. I mean, I could probably live there. But, there's this weird vibe going on (yep, that's twice I used that word, but I can't think of an y other way to describe it. Plus, I live in California now, so you know... I actually don't think I even used that word while living in Chicago except to make fun on Californians.) There were a lot of sorta grungy peeps playing guitars randomly all over the place. It also seemed like people just sorta hang out and work a little at places like Voodoo Doughnuts and coffee shops so they can afford more tattoos. People didn't seem especially happy and there were quite a few disgruntled drivers that likes their horns. I donno... I'll need to go again to double check. Great food, though!

We stayed at an awesome hotel, Hotel Modera. They upgraded us to a suite and left us a bottle of wine on our room. It was so awesome! We also went to the farmer's market, ate at Andina, walked around the Alberta Arts District, drank Stumptown Coffee, ate Voodoo Doughnuts and cupcakes, went to the Chinese Garden, drank Rouge beer, and walked a lot (we didn't rent a car).














Good times!

Davis + Farmers Market = Great

One thing Tim and I love about living in Davis is the farmers market we attend every Saturday. Typically, our day starts at "Coffee Guy's," stand, then to the Aisu stand for a sandwich, then produce picking (including the required stop at "Apple Guy"). Coffee guy is a little crazy and has a hippie sidekick. Aisu is this amazing stand/bicycle-powered cart pictured here:

The woman that owns Aisu makes homemade popsicles with produce from the Davis Farmers Market vendors. She makes 2-3 types of sandwiches each week with all local, in season items, as well. The one I usually get is the Classic: cooked greens, fried eggs, goat cheese. It's damn good. We were excited to hear she is opening a storefront. This is big news, heard here first possibly!!!







It's pretty great, they have this permanent structure and the market runs all year, usually on both Wed. and Sat. It's at Central Park, pictured above (notice the bikes Davis is famous for). Typically, the Market involves not only food, but also music, and quintessential Davis: a whole row of political-type stuff. You should have seen this place during elections.


I'll try to get photos of our local favorites (Apple Guy, Coffee Guy, etc.). It's nice to feel like we're becoming locals; Apple Guy usually throws in an extra apple for free and we saw Coffee Guy at the store the other day and we chatted it up with him. Makes us sad to move to Sacramento, but we know we can come back every Saturday and we will.