The Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Summer 2006 Tour kicked off in Portland yesterday. And a magnificent kick off at that, it was. Flew in under very cloudy skies and collected our bargain rent car and made our way to Voodoo Doughnuts & Wedding Chapel. The magic is in the hole. Their doughtnut menu is extensive. Just a few of their specialities include: Tangfastics, Red Bull doughnuts, Dirty Snowballs, Bacon Maple Bars, Old Dirty Bastards, Vegan Doughnuts and Cock & Balls. The wedding menu, while not as extensive, does offer some variety: Intentional Commitment Ceremony $20; Legal Commitment Ceremony $175.00; The Whole Shebang $5000; one can only imagine.


Giddy with blood sugar and caffeine, we walked around the Pearl and marveled in the exquisite, thoughtful development that has turned this area into a premier residential area on the west coast. Beautiful, beautiful urban living spaces with parks, services, retail and wonderful restaurants, exquisitely cityscaped. The Pearl District just gets better and better and is a hallmark of responsible urban reclamation and redevelopment. Late morning, we pit stopped at Widmer's for bratwurst, saurkraut, and grilled onions with dark, creamy beer, then went downtown where we completed due diligence at The Rack, and then proceeded, with great determination, deep into the suburbs for the main event: The Nike Employee Store. It was a heady time: Air Max 360s for $55, Cole Hahn's for $30, Tiger! TIGER's shirts for $20; commemorative vintage Tour de France shirts, Nike Frees, 7.0, the best shoe in the history of civilization, bike pants, training shirts and shoes, shoes, shoes. All told 13 pair of them. For me. All told, 25 or so pairs of shoes. Remember, this wasn't the kick off of the summer reading program.


We met the splendid and mysterious Francoise Joyelle for dinner at the Portland City Grill; she brought along her companion, himself quite awed to be included in the Summer Tour. He can't wait for the press, anticipating the papparazzi in his driveway tomorrow. The menu at the Portland City Grill is a wise and all-encompassing resource to which we availed ourselves immediately. We had shrimp, we had rib eyes, we had wasabi mashed potatoes with vanilla Stoli and 7 and raspberry Panna Cotta for dessert. It was a perfect dinner under the Oregon dusk, served by a gorgeous woman from somewhere in Eastern Europe. We were quite intriqued that even the exquisite Francoise was eluded by the origin of this tantalizing accent.

But our return to reality loomed. We had two seats on the last plane out and at the final possible moment, said very quick and impersonal goodbyes, raced to the airport, sweet talked an airport employee into returning our car, checked the body bag with about 20 pairs of shoes and sprinted for the gate with our Chinese Laundry bags full of shopping goodness. We made it just as they boarded our section. It's all in the planning.


Next stop on the tour: Lake Como. Don't miss it.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA