You never expect to get into an accident. We were pulling off the highway, making a pit stop in Eugene, OR (perhaps our first mistake?) when from the rear seat Benji yelled out, “LUCAS!”

Lucas slammed on the brakes just as we collided with the station wagon in front of us. We pulled over and exchanged information with the station wagon’s owner, and thankfully no one seriously hurt— just strained nerves. The station wagon’s owner was affable as we made our respective calls to insurance providers. Neither car suffered any serious damage aside from crunched bumpers but we stopped at a dealership to double check and re-bend a bent fan blade back into place.

Despite our near disaster, we’re in good spirits. Last night’s show in Portland couldn’t have gone better. It was a beautiful evening in SE Portland and the sun was just starting to go down as Bow+Arrow started their set outside of Food Fight Vegan Grocery. We spent some time fixing random equipment problems as Benji is on his sixth kick-drum pedal and somehow Jay lost the nuts that held the input jacks in his 4x12 cabinet from falling into the cabinet itself. A couple nails here, some nuts stolen from an unused guitar pedal there, and things are mostly all right (jokes about missing nuts notwithstanding). We’ve spotted a number of Seattle ex-pats in Portland and have generally enjoyed the various amenities of our southern neighbor. Our hosts at Food Fight hooked us up with cupcakes, food, and a better pay-out than we could expect at any club we could’ve hoped to play.

After the show I split off from the rest of the boys to meet up with my sister and errant Stranger freelancer Scott Goodwin at the Alibi, a garish tiki-styled bar infamous for its midnight buffet and karaoke seven days a week. The KJ at the Alibi was the pithiest and warmest host I’ve ever had the pleasure of singing for and all the drunks that followed my heartfelt rendition of “Born to Run” were flat out amazing. Big kudos to the blonde who sang “Xanadu” with all the clarity of Olivia Newton-John and the young lady whose fierce rendition of “Mother” made my night.

*A correction to my earlier post regarding the irate naked roommate in Olympia. Apparently the $170 million (hundred) she was referring to wasn’t about rent, but about a male escort named Roman she hired that charged $170/hour to keep her company. My apologies to Roman and the drunken young lady who hired him.