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You know those electrical boxes found at intersections that control the traffic lights? In Eugene, we found a bunch of them decorate in cool ways. I really enjoyed that. Here are a few of them.
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If you know me, you know I love beer. There is no way I could spend time in Eugene, Oregon and not go to Ninkasi Brewing Company. There was a lot of beer to be had in Oregon, and this is really the only brewery that stood out as truly amazing compared to what I can get home in Louisville. Named for the Sumerian goddess of beer (that was a Gus Bus Trivia question one time) they really live up to the calling of their craft.
One of the AirBNBs we stayed at was only a few blocks from Ninkasi, so we delayed our trip until then. It just so happened that night was also their first tapping of Maiden the Shade, a summer seasonal IPA. So it was a packed house. I snapped a few pictures, but mostly there was a lot of people and waiting in lines.
Maiden the Shade was very good. But my absolute favorite was the Tricerahops Double IPA. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a beer I liked better. I also tried the Quantum Pale Ale. For dinner we had the Sporkasbord platter (pictured above), Pad Thai, and a rice bowl with Pot Stickers from the Sporks A La Carte food cart. My favorites were the “mooinks,” bacon-wrapped meatballs, part of the sporkasbord.
Ber and I also got into a tiny Ingress battle over the tasting room’s portal while we were there. We held our turf well. As of this writing, we actually still own it!
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It’s been awhile since my last pinball session. That’s probably a good thing for my budget, but apparently it’s been wearing on my soul. Amber needed a nap one afternoon and I got antsy pretty quickly.
https://twitter.com/alexjgustafson/status/593896678731558912
Thankfully, I was only a few blocks away from Level Up Arcade in Eugene, Oregon. This place was awesome. The closest thing we have to it in Louisville is the Zanzabar, but they mostly have retro machines and the majority of their clientele annoy me. Level Up was clean, had good music, an awesome beer selection (I got Ninkasi Total Domination IPA) and some really great machines.
I started off with Star Trek and Simpsons Pinball Party, since I never played either of these and they’re my best fandoms. Both were really good machines but I played poorly. I started to get the hang of Star Trek on the last ball of my second play, but with so many machines there I felt like I needed to move along.
Lord of the Rings pinball is probably my favorite machine of all time. I love all things Tolkien, but I think the pinball game is very well assembled too. The missions are well put together, lots of fun mechanisms (I like Bashing the Balrog especially) and the light layouts do a great job of keeping things clear. Amber doesn’t even like pinball, but she played this machine a while back and said she knew what to aim for (like a boss.)
Perhaps even better though is that I hit a nice groove playing this machine. My first game was a dud, but I got lucky with a match at the end for a free game. On that second game, I played several multiballs, but not the Two Towers, and got enough to earn a free game. (Love that knocking sound.) On my third game, another dud – but got another match! On game four I played all the movie multiballs and just barely failed the Destroy the Ring mission. And got a knock for another free game. 🙂 My fifth game was another dud, but at this point I had been playing LotR for 45 minutes or so and I’m sure someone else was ready for the machine. So I walked around a bit and snapped photos.
I wanted to play that Star Trek:Voyager game really badly, but Amber was up and I like her better than Voyager. I highly recommend Level Up for anyone in Eugene though.
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We were finally over the jet lag so Amber and I were ready for adventure Thursday morning. To kick off the day, we found a pretty great Ingress mission to tour University of Oregon. Throughout the campus, many trees have been planted to honor or memorialize people and events. The “Tree Fiddy” mission takes you to several of these trees and their plaques.
You can also see the mission on the Intel map itself if you’re Ingress player. Since we knew there’d be lots of prettiness and less hanging out inside, we made sure to take the camera with us.
We also visited the Museum of Natural and Cultural History which is on campus.
After the museum (and lunch) we found ourselves close to Prince Puckler’s ice cream. More than one person had recommended it so we decided to treat ourselves.
I’m pretty sure Laura likes corgis and is not herself a corgi that often eats praline and cream ice cream. Though I like the imagery.
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For my beer flight, I had:
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Fisherman’s Market was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives for its delicious seafood. When you first walk in, it can be a little intimidating if you don’t know what to expect. After cautiously looking around and glancing at a menu, Ber and I walked up to the counter and asked what’s the best thing for a couple out-of-towners to get for lunch. What was the response?
Definitely the burger.
That Christopher is a kidder.
We got the Snapper Sandwich and a Philly Fish Sandwich both with waffles fries. Super cool place and I recommend it.
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Being partially colorblind, whenever I see a skein of yarn that I’m pretty sure I actually see all its colors, I get excited. Wasn’t planning on buying yarn this trip, but this beautiful ‘madtosh’ at Soft Horizons in Eugene changed my mind.
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Gouda is one of my go-to cheeses. I told a group of Automatticians that Gouda was probably my ‘desert island’ cheese because it’s good in almost every context. I normally can’t get Edam back at home, but I knew it was similar to Gouda. When I saw some in the cheese counter at Kiva grocery in Eugene, I asked for a sample. So tasty! Very much the same texture of Gouda but with more culture to the taste, less butterfat to it.
We wanted cheese to go with eggs at breakfast and for snacking on too — so I bought 4 oz.
This particular bit of Edam is from Uniekaas, a big cheese producer from the Netherlands best known for Parrano.
Normally Edam is coated in paraffin wax, but I didn’t see any thick, red wax when this was being cut for me. Perhaps they removed all the wax at one time earlier. But there was some sort of casing left which maybe was just the wax that was left. I only noticed the casing after I ate every last bit of the cheese first and almost ate the casing along with it in my excitement.
Ber enjoyed it too:
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Alex "Gus" Gustafson 