Sorry I haven't updated in a couple days... I've been too busy cursing at Oregon and Washington for their inability to paint a road line that shows up in the dark AND the rain.  With the amount of rain they get, you'd think they'd have figured that one out.  But they haven't.

I'm writing to you from Portland again.  Since the last update, we've gone from Spokane to Seattle to Portland.  Most of our driving for this trip is finished!  It's nice to be in one place for more than one night!  Let me give you the recap of what's been going on.

Monday, after Keli's interview, we hit the road for Seattle.  There were concerns that "the pass" (we didn't know what this really was, but it sounded daunting..." could make travel difficult, but other than some on again, off again fog, our drive went fine!  We got to our hotel after some random turns through downtown Seattle, and decided we were too tired to get up, so we ordered room service (BLT on wheat w/ a side of fruit x2) and watched The Sing Off, and then went to bed.  Yes, we are that exciting.  On Tuesday, we woke up with BIG plans for heading downtown, but were a little scared it was going to rain (it is Seattle, after all).  It was cloudy, but didn't rain all day!  Sweet.  I headed to the gym while Keli talked to her parents in Hungary, and then we headed out to look for breakfast (and coffee).  We stumbled upon a Top Pot doughnut store!  These are the doughnuts that Starbucks sells, but they are fresh and not frozen.  Hands down, best doughnut (or two...) ever.  Then we stopped at Tully's for some coffee.  Yum again.  We spent the rest of the morning walking through Pike Place Market, and oogling at stuff in the Patagonia, Mountain Hardwear, Columbia, and North Face stores.  Those places really need a clearance section.  Then we went BACK to Pike Place Market for fish and chips.  They were fresh.  And by fresh, I mean the dude across the counter from us was pulling the fish out of an ice bucket brought up from the water and chopping them up.  We also talked to a nice guy who was originally from Indianapolis about where we should go to residency.  His description of west coast vs. midwest: A beer after work vs. a kayak after work...

After lunch, we meandered back to the hotel and headed out for Portland.  Good timing, as it started to rain just after we left.  This was not as great a drive as the others... it rained the whole time, visibility was crappy, and my windshield wipers streaked.  But we made it alive! 

Did you know that OHSU (the place we are interviewing) is on the top of a hill?  Us neither, until we drove up it last night!  There is a cable car, yes the kind that's like a ski lift, that goes from the city up the hill and into the hospital.  It's pretty cool.  But anyway, we drove to the top of the hill BECAUSE we met a girl on the interview trail who offered to let us stay in her condo for FREE for three nights!  How excellent.  And it's within walking distance of OHSU.  Double excellence.  So that's where we are now.  We got in last night, ordered pizza, and fell asleep.  I don't think we've fully adjusted to the time difference...

Today... ohhh, today.  What a day.  We really wanted to get some good outdoor adventuring in during this trip.  Neither Keli nor I have ever been snowshoeing before, so we thought that would be a good thing to try.  Turns out, we were right.  Today we headed out of town towards Mount Hood with plans to rent snowshoes and ask the guy where we should go.  The rain stopped by the time we got into Government Camp (at the base of the mountain), we rented out snow shoes for $10 a pop, and the guy told us where we could go for a nice "alpine hike".  I can't wait to get pictures up here!  First of all, snowshoeing isn't as hard as I imagined it might be.  It's because they know how to make good snowshoes these days.  I imagine back in the day, when they were made out of bent sticks and woven animal fur, people fell over a lot.  But technology's a beautiful thing!  We walked along a river, up a STEEP hill, through the woods, down another hill,  back up that hill (it led to a cliff...), through the woods, down the STEEP hill, and along the river again.  I think it was probably about 6 miles total... but that's just a guesstimate.  It started snowing about 1/3 in, and was soooo beautiful.  There was a little concern that maybe out tracks would get covered and we'd be lost in the woods on a mountain in the cold in the snow with nothing but trailmix and water.  But that didn't happen.  Phew.

Anyway, we made it out warm but wet, got in the car, scarfed some trailmix, stopped at Tully's and got coffee, and drove back to Portland, to "our" condo, and heated up some pizza. 

Now we're trying to see if we can get The Sing Off on our computers...

The day was a huge success.

I am in love with snowshoeing.  And really just being on mountains where there is 4 feet of snow.  At the beginning of December.  Ohh, that was the other good thing!  It's still too early in the season for it to be busy, so we only passed about 3 other people the whole time. 

Tomorrow, we are going to the biggest bookstore in the country, and other cool things that we haven't decided on yet.  You'll find out tomorrow.  Don't let the suspense kill you!

Now, I'm going to go to sleep.  Wait, it's only 7pm... Maybe I'll hold out for another hour.......