August 9 was the day we'd been waiting for. See, our original vacation was supposed to be the first 2 weeks of September so we could celebrate our anniversary but our favorite band, Showbread, had announced they would be doing a reunion show on August 9 with the original line up that was on their first big record. Of course, we had to be there. Not only are they our favorite band but in the past ten years we've become friends with most of them and so seeing all of those guys again that we hadn't seen in years was pretty exciting. Fletcher and I had gone to a Showbread show in the first couple of months we had been dating. It was one of the first shows we went to together and as you probably already know we even got engaged on stage with them. We'd been looking forward to this show since the day it was announced. It seemed like it was meant to be that we go because we had the exact same trip already planned we just had to move it up a month. So, fast forward back to the day of the show and we were in Portland! It was a little surreal because we have never been that far away from home before and we'd never been on a real road trip together. On top of that, we were a little amazed that we had saved enough money to afford it! But we did and we were there. It was crazy! So, we spent the morning walking around with our friends we were staying with, Ronald and Hannah and their adorable son, Shane. We went to the Saturday market and had lunch which was sadly not very good. Then they headed back home and we explored the city some more on our own.
We got to experience Stumptown for the first time. We have ordered their coffee a few times before and had it shipped but being that we'd never been to Portland we'd never been in a shop. I got the cold brew coffee and milk and Fletcher got a nitro cold brew. Basically, it's a cold brew that comes out of a tap like beer. It makes it really thick and creamy and delicious. More on that later.
This pretty much sums up Fletcher & Ronald's friendship. Goofy.
We happened to pass by a Whole Foods while we were walking around and it just so happened to be sample day. Score! It was local sample day at that. So, all of the samples were from local (PNW) places. We tried most of them. We had mini quesadillas (adorable!) and tried kombucha for the first time. It was pretty exciting. Not to mention it was a huge store!
After our sample extravaganza we went to meet another friend for coffee and then head to the concert. We had met her at numerous shows before since she worked at one of the venues we frequented (and got engaged at ;) ) and she was in town for the show too.
If you don't know who Showbread is then let me tell you a little about them. They are crazy! The first time we saw them play was at a really small venue in Joplin, MO. At the time they had 7 members...7! There are 8 people in the photos above because they brought back all the original members from the album they were celebrating, No Sir, Nihilism is Not Practical, and they currently have 3 permanent members. One of which is not from the original line up but everyone got to participate. But yeah, back to the crazy. Imagine 7 people on a small stage just going nuts. That's Showbread. During this 10 year anniversary show I sat in the balcony with one of their wives and I could feel the floor moving. They had to ask everyone to calm down in the audience and stop jumping because the floor almost caved in. Just FYI we were in a church, not a concert venue. Ha! It was an awesome show. Fletcher stayed on the floor while I was safe in the balcony from the ridiculously excited crowd. It was so great seeing an audience for Showbread that was so excited and were genuine fans. In the past few years I've been to some Showbread shows where there is hardly anyone there. I literally watched one show where there were like 5 people in the audience and 2 of them were my friends. This was the whole reason for moving our trip up a month and it was very much worth it. I'm so glad we made it and got to see that line up again.
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