Old Time Rock 'n Roll...

For Riff's birthday I had given him concert tickets to Bob Seger's North American Tour. He just released a new album and hasn't toured in 10 years. Last night was the night, so we headed to Portland about mid-day and what a beautiful sunny ride it was!

This shot is from a state park along Highway 30 were we stopped to get rid of a little coffee. This is Puget Island in the middle of the great Columbia River. My aunt Kathleen lives on Puget Island and I can almost see her house in this picture. To get to the island from the Oregon side, you must ride a ferry from Westport to the island, but there is a bridge on the other side that takes you into the pretty little town of Cathlamet, Washington.


Down the road just a tad, I looked up to see MT. St. Helens shining so bright with snow. So many days you can't even see her shrouded behind the clouds. Wow, what a sight. So majestic and powerful.


And then there stands MT. Hood keeping watch over the city of Portland. Incredible! Again, you only get to witness this site on the clearest of days. Looking back over our shoulders, you could actually see Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams also. To be able to see all three at the same time was awesome.


We drove into downtown Portland and straight to Knit/Purl , which was my destination of choice. I walked out with some beautiful sea green yarn to make a felted diaper bag with and a skein of beautiful wool called New England Fall that just tells you how wonderul the colors in this one are. I couldn't stay in this shop very long or they would have had to completely re-stock once I left.
From here, we walked down the street to Ringlers, a McMenamis Brothers brew pub, for a bite to eat. I had their shrimp gumbo and Riff tried the pastrami reuban. To die for...The reuban was served on the best looking marbled rye that I have ever seen, the pastrami piled a mile high. The gumbo was just right ~ shrimp, sausage and veggies over rice. MMMM.....
After our snack it was off to the Rose Garden, excited like two little kids. We found our seats, grabbed a couple of beers ($8.00 a piece! Can you believe that?!) and settled in to be entertained. We had left our cell phones and my camera in the truck like good boys and girls, just as the tickets had said, but looking around the stadium showed that 90% of the other concert goers had not heeded the rules, so I was a little miffed at myself. No pictures of Bob for my blog. Dang it!
Before the lights went down, we were looking around at the crowd and noticing the age demographic. OLD! We were in level 2, so looking down on MANY bald heads. The younger crowd was non-existant unless accompanied by a parent or grandparent. The young crowd was us ~ fortysomething old hippies. We (oh, wait. NO, just Riff!) fit right in. Boy, what a concert! Bob Seger has gray hair now and has to be about 65 (his first hit was in 1968), but man ~ he can still rock! Awesome!

May you all be blessed with good old fashioned rock 'n roll...