Visitors!

Two college buddies, five kids later.

Jill's Journal: Probably more years ago than they’d like to admit, Rob and Gary lived across the hall from each other during their freshman years in the dorms at Cal Poly Pomona. I don’t even want to know the trouble they got into together because I have a sneaking suspicion it was substantial. They’ve remained in touch these two+ decades since. We’ve visited Gary in Northern California, he and his wife have visited us in Kentucky, and Gary and Rob met up in Las Vegas a few years back. Gary and his family are in Idaho these days and it just so happened Gary’s kids went on a summer trip with their grandparents that ended in Portland, of all places. Gary took a weekend road trip to pick them up and we got the treat of spending a little time with this fun family.

(College/Idaho Gary is not to be confused with Poker/Kentucky Gary, whom Rob just went to Vegas with last week…two years ago, Rob went to Vegas with both of these Garys at the same time. Talk about driving me nuts trying to decipher which one he was talking about with each story he brought back!) Both Garys have my undying devotion, by the way, for very different reasons. Kentucky Gary gives me a Christmas gift of chocolate every year (I think as a poker-blessing bribe) and Idaho Gary is one of the most loyal readers and faithful commenters on our little blog. Thanks Gary(s)!)

We shared dinner in downtown Portland at a place that’s rumored to be haunted and was visited by both Rachael Ray on the Food Network and Jay Leno on The Tonight Show for its quirky ambiance. Portland actually has a fascinating and shady history. There’s a series of tunnels underneath Old Town, which connects the oldest buildings with the Willamette River waterfront. The tunnels were originally built to connect businesses via trapdoors in their basements to the docks, but were supposedly also used to kidnap or “shanghai” unsuspecting folks and whisk them away on waiting ships to be sold as slaves. Portland was at one time the nation’s leading city for shanghaiing, due in no small part to the effectiveness of the “Shanghai Tunnels.”

Old Town Pizza, where we ate, is in the lobby of the old 1880 Merchant Hotel (in fact, the window where one orders pizza, shown at the right, is the hotel’s old reception desk). Tours of the tunnels are conducted from their trapdoor. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let us see the trapdoor or a tunnel without a tour, which we were told is probably too spooky for little kids, so we opted to skip it. Apparently the former Merchant Hotel, although considered upstanding, also had a thriving white slavery business. One of their young prostitutes who went by the name of Nina tried to escape the life by exchanging information for freedom. Her body was later found, tossed down the elevator shaft (which now houses a table in the restaurant). She supposedly has never left and joins guests throughout the evening, although we saw no evidence of her walking around the creaky floorboards.

What we did see was Erika so incredibly thrilled to have a sweet girl to talk to and one older than her to boot! Elizabeth and David are ages 9 and 12. Gary will venture into the deep waters of the teenage years long before we do. He’ll have to give us pointers, especially since he and Rob got into plenty of mischief together as teenagers (albeit as much older ones). Happily, they’ve both managed to turn into respectable adults, so I’m not too worried. :)