Year four of our 4th of July trip was fun as usual. We packed it all into fewer days this year than last year, and missed a few people like the shamefully, disgracefully MIA Ryan Coulter. Other than that, it was the usual lack of sleep, lots of booze, and unplanned chaos. Here’s where it starts, and here are the Best-of photos :

1. We started the trip off by hitting no traffic on the way to the airport, getting the best parking spot near the airport, and not a single person in line for security. After that I mentioned it was too good to be true, and sure enough the rest of the flight was a nightmare. We sat on the runway forever waititng to take off, Tara had a kid that kept kicking her seat the whole time, and I had a creepy woman next to me that kept rubbing up against me. As if she wasn’t irritating me enough, I fell alseep and then woke up to her drink on my tray. And the topper, the plane had its own lightshow that "should go away after we take off." It didn’t. US Air sucks ass.
2. We got to Faz’s house pretty late and decided to postpone the planned cocktails.
3. We got up the next morning and hit Extracto for coffee with Goobkin and Kara, and of course Bruce .
4. With Faz at work, we decided to make the shopping rounds and get as much knocked out as possible. Everything from downtown to Hawethorne and the Pearl District. We always hit my favorite store, The Office.
5. At the end of day 1, we went to Holden to get Faz and ended up crashing a wedding of people we didn’t know. It was pretty informal and at the Rose Garden.
6. We left the wedding and met up with Vin and Meghan at Toro Bravo. Sandra Rossi and her boyfriend were at the wedding and hooked up with us too. Kickass tapas, and Meghan and I pounded large amounts of sangria. I also got to meet Vin’s new truck.
7. We left dinner to go check out Instrument. Vin’s obviously doing something right, kickass space and those 30-inchers get him feeling frisky.
8. We then rejoined the wedding party that was taking place at Greg Keeling’s house. By 1:00am the cops showed up. I was half passed out in a chair by the door and cracked the door open never getting up because I thought it was just a pissed off neighbor, but no big deal.
9. It’s now the 4th, the main reason we’re here. We head up to Vancouver, WA to stockpile explosives. Since this turned into a solo mission, we’re already realizing it’s going to be a little bit mellower this year. Supposedly the cops were cracking down, but what was going down later this night showed anything but. One of my favorite parts of the 4th is the product development that goes into fireworks. The two standouts were the New Hotness (the term that stuck for the whole trip and then some) and the Big Block.
10. We stopped by Vin’s to see his house and his dog with some special issues. As you can see here, he threw himself on his back, peed, and then licked it right up. Ummm ummm.
11. We made the rounds to several BBQ’s working up to darkness. The first one was at Louis Carlton’s great house with a huge back yard complete with a mini ramp. We then moved on to Tara’s friends from school Oliver and Sarah who had the most amazing house, guest house, and view. Jess Gibson was setting off bottle rockets and this was the only one I filmed , only because I was drunk. Check it hitting the car… Capozzi and Leigh are their neighbors, more VT notches on Portland’s belt.
12. We then headed over to Faz’s for some fireworks. LG fired up a four-pack of Roman candles. The 4th isn’t complete without Brandon sending something flaming into a crowd, this time it was the lady bug that chased a crowd of people towards the garage when it fired in the wrong direction. That was after a few shots to the houses next door.
13. We got up the next morning for mandatory Lorn and Dotties potato pancakes.
14. Then we headed over to Weiden and Kennedy for the tour. Holy shit that place is amazing – I never had any idea the size of it and the building it was in. They have a wall of employee photos in the lobby, and without question Meghan has the best photo.
15. We did some more shopping, and then headed over to Yoko’s sushi to meet up with Erika Clark who was also in town with her kids. The gameplan was sushi and roller skating. I wasn’t all that stoked to spend time at a roller rink, but once we showed up it was well worth it . This place is stuck in a time warp, and Tara showed she was the freight train from hell on her skates. There was a roller derby team practicing next door.
16. We headed back into town to a good bar with all vintage furniture (I forgot the name) and then the Alibi, another mandatory stop. One of my favorite bars anywhere.
17. The next day we hooked up with Jenna and Meghan to drive to the beach. We started at Pacific City where it was cold and windy and too blown out to surf so we sat out and drank some beers. She hooked us up with a house to stay in, and then Everett and Faz showed up.
18. The day after that we went up to Short Sands to surf. Perfect weather. I was regretting bringing out a 6/4 wetsuit, but for no reason. The water was 50 titty-freezing degrees. It was fun to be back there and in the water.
19. We shot back into town for an art opening at Cal’s (which we missed) that was also followed up with a bachelor party for Jon Humphries. I knew of him, but didn’t know him, so we crashed that too. We finally caught up with Ehren and Erik Railton, but we only made it 15 minutes before Faz wounded himself trying to open a beer. This was the amazing part of this party – 50 or 60 people skating, and they left Pharmacy to head dowtown to go out. Once they took off it was time to head to the ER…
20. While in the waiting room, we decided to go to Pix Patisserie to pick up some desserts. Faz scored big time with a really cool hand surgeon to stitch him back up. He told us all the fireworks accident stories for Portland this year.
21. We got out of the ER at 1:00am and headed downtown to meet up. At this point everyone’s drunk and beating up road cones, and they move on to Sassy’s. They skate there in about the same amount of time it takes us to drive there.
22. I’m not big into strip clubs, but Sassy’s is the perfect bar: Dirty bar with no cover, $3 beers, and butt-naked chicks. Fuck yeah. This was the pile of skate decks at the door.
23. Now it’s 3:00am and we start moving to the next spot. In a funny-but-not-so-funny way, as we’re getting into the car Tara disappears on the other side of it. She stepped into a pothole and jacked her ankle. We now head to Taco Bell to get Ehren and Faz some food before dropping them off at Devil’s Point for a private strip club party. They somewhat resume last year’s debates , but are too drunk to really say anything meaningful. Tara and I decided to head home, but apparently we missed out on some heavy-duty chaos that lasted until 6am.
24. We got up the next morning to go to Cal’s and see the opening we missed the night before. Almost everything had sold that night. From last year to this year, Pharmacy remodeled the whole retail space and is one of the nicest shops anywhere.
25. We hit Extracto one last time for breakfast.
26. We shot over to Ehren and Daniele’s house to say hi.
27. We shopped a little more, and headed to the PruVecchia’s for our last cookout before heading to the airport.
28. That’s the best I can remember – last year I kept track each day, this year I’m relying on my shitty memory supported by a sequence of photos.