Airstream,
RV Camping
& Travel Tips

How do you tell the quality of a diner? By its chicken fried steak, of course.

Maybe it was just the mid 80’s, when everything was better, but the finest I ever tasted was at Boz Scaggs’ Blue Light Cafe on Union Street in San Francisco. I’ve been chasing that high for three decades. (The Blue Light today, minimized and lost to new management, serves greasy, monotonous bar food paired with Jello shots.)

The award for Second Best Chicken Fried Steak went to a diner outside Grand Coulee Dam. Actual steak, with a bone, real and delicious. The coating, crispycrunchy. The gravy, oh god, the gravy: not too salty, and lumpy with pork sausage.

This month we started the bassackward process of relocating our belongings to Bend, Oregon, a three-plus hour drive from Portland.

Why Bend? It’s a fishin’ hikin’ skiin’ bikin’ town, all activities Ralph enjoys and I will, too when the right loaded firearm is pointed at my head. Compared to hipster Portland (“a city where young people go to retire,” as observed in Portlandia), Bend culture can best be described as “emerging”. But I love the pine smells, the clean high desert ambience and relative lack of traffic #inBend. The new house, set back from the street and far from the neighbors, is surrounded instead by wildlife and easterly views, and came with a pull through driveway and civilized gravel pad upon which to park the DWR.

When I first moved to Portland lo these many years ago, there was nothing to eat. A damning indictment, as I was fresh from San Diego where fish tacos and mud pie were as haute as one could go.

Now, you can’t open Sunset or the now-defunct Gourmet without reading an article breathlessly praising a Portland chef, or a gushy review of the culinary craze that’s been sweeping the area in recent years: the city food cart.

Until last Friday, I worked a stone’s throw from one of the main lunchwagon pods downtown but rarely visited, preferring instead to eat a piteous salad at my desk.

I rarely use the ATM in the garage entrance to the Portland Main Office of U.S. Bank downtown, preferring instead to step inside the lobby and waste the teller’s time—depositing a check I’m sure they’d prefer I used the machine for—just for the opportunity to absorb the atmosphere in the cavernous old branch.

One weekday morning I took a break from work and walked next door (from the old Wells Fargo Building, built 102 years ago; Portland’s first “skyscraper” and host to the downtown Raptor Cam) to use the teller line at the old U.S. Bank. Afterwards, I approached the guard who stands attentively every day in the lobby and asked if I could take a few pictures; were there any restrictions?