fun with flu in portland (day 8)

Portland is Food Truck City

On Monday, while we were driving to Portland, Allan was already sick, and by the time we were settled in our room, I was sick, too. We both slept an insane number of hours, double the sleep I normally get, and felt like crap when we woke up. 

It seems like textbook flu -- body aches, dry cough, low-grade fever. I was also nauseated and vomiting, which I thought was the result of In-N-Out, but... no.

Allan went out to get us breakfast, which seemed like a heroic feat to me. I would have eaten some of our healthy snacks that I always have for the road, but he was hungry and wanted real food. And he didn't trust himself to drive, so he walked. Yikes! It's about 10 minutes each way: a diner we discovered the last time we were hear, The Daily Feast. I don't know how he did it, but I was grateful he did!

We ate a toasted bagel and smoked salmon plate, then collapsed again. After more sleep, and Tylenol, and a lot of water, we felt better, although still sick. I suggested we go out at least for a little while -- a brief time in Powell's, then pick up dinner at a food truck, and back to the room, no more than an hour total. 

Once in Powell's, we agreed on a meeting time, and split up with our lists. I have my complete "book universe" (formerly "master list") on the cloud, so I looked up titles on their customer search computers, and scribbled titles, rooms (colours), and aisles in my notebook, and went off to search. This is why I love Powell's, as opposed to almost any other used bookstores (besides that most used bookstores are loaded with dust, and will trigger a coughing fit and possible asthma attack): it is so well organized. 

This is our third pilgrimage to Powell's, and I always use it for the same thing: older nonfiction titles that have been on my list for many years. They are mostly out of print and not available in libraries -- titles I want to read one day, but not in the brief time I'd get with an interlibrary loan. 

My list is ridiculously long; it's not a reading list, it's a list of books that interest me. I also read books that are not on this list, and I don't track those titles, and that bothers me. And even though it bothers me, I still don't track the off-list titles, because I haven't been doing it forever, so the list would be too incomplete, so I can't start now. Welcome to my brand of OCD. My compulsivity is getting worse as I get older. And although I resist it and fight it, this one is old and seemingly permanent.

I found a few books, then waited for Allan. I was apparently in the wrong place, but we found each other eventually, bought our books, put them in the car, then walked down to the food truck pod (the Portland word for a group of food trucks). For months, I have been saying that good Chinese food is a priority on this trip. There actually is a Chinese restaurant in Port Hardy, but the menu is very limited. Worse, it recently changed hands, and the quality went sharply downhill. We already know that the pod near Powell's has good Chinese food, so... no-brainer. 

We ordered from two different trucks, then saw a new option: Cookie McCakeFace. Dessert! Check out their website. We chose one item -- pretty sure Allan would have chosen three -- while we waited for our Chinese food. Then back to the car, back to the hotel, nom nom nom.

The food was fantastic, and there was so much of it. The standard food-truck portion here is enormous. I'm eating leftovers for breakfast as I write this. (Yes, I eat cold Chinese food for breakfast. Any leftover dinner is the perfect breakfast for me.) 

While we ate dinner, we sketched out the rest of our trip, assuming we're up to it. Right now, Wednesday morning, I'm feeling much better, but it would be wise to take it easy.