retiredguys2022

[retiredguys2022]

Retired Guys join ANTIFA

Remember back in 2020, after the George Floyd murder, when there were large protests in downtown Portland. Fox News, NY Post and other right news outlets exaggerated the protests. Trump wanted to send help. The retired guys wanted to see what the fuss was about so we booked a hotel right in the heart of the action. There was not much going on two years later but outside of the downtown core there were quite a few people being housed in tents.

We got to Portland early in the afternoon and decided to go to the Pittock Mansion. This is a cool mansion built in 1912 on a mountain that overlooks the city. Pittock ran the local newspaper and obviously had loads of money. He was a mountain climber, an adventurer and he and his wife had a house full of people beyond his children.

The mansion and the grounds are now a park. We went to the mansion and tour but just as many people were taking picnics and whatnot to enjoy in the park.

Portland is definitely a city I wanted to get to know better on this trip, but that is difficult when you’re only there half a day.

[retiredguys2022]

Retired guys go to Salt Lake and Boise.

Neither of us has been to Salt Lake City before and we were both looking forward to it. We came through the mountains and the plain opened up where the city was. We went straight to the Temple and got out to walk around.

Like our previous episode all the people in Salt Lake City were white but the big difference was that you could spot the Mormons. I would characterize mens dress as business casual and ALL the women wore skirts. They were all very friendly and said hi.

The Temple campus is big and there are loads of buildings- the temple, the tabernacle choir building, admin office, the bank of Mormon, etc. The entire campus was under construction so it was clear the Mormons have infinite money. We walked around a bit and ended up across the street in a very posh mall. Everything seemed so orderly for the families that were eating in the food court - definitely not your typical food court. We later learned that Mormons wear special underwear. I guess lots of religions have their uniforms.

Moving on we stayed in Boise Idaho. Really nothing special - it looked like anywhere. One thing we noticed was the amount of irrigation that was happening everywhere. Everything was so dry but where there was water everything was green. Boise dinner was at Big Al’s bowling alley and sports bar as recommended by the guy who checked us into the hotel.

[retiredguys2022]

Retired guys - Things get White.

Really, once you go west of Chicago the population is not very diverse at all. Chicago has a huge black population, 1 million Latinos, and all kinds of other ethnicities. Everything west, not so much. We had dinner at Bucks last night and all the customers were white, as were all the staff. It’s like a time machine back to the 50’s. The US is like two worlds - one of them is the white world from the 50s.

So we popped into Cheyenne late in the day and it was the last day of Frontier Days. We ended up getting a room 30 miles down the road. It’s worth mentioning that our method for getting a hotel is fairly simple: when we’re tired of driving we go to Priceline website and find ourselves a deal. In all the times we’ve done this we were only burned once - where we got only 1 bed. It’s ok, we took turns sleeping.

One final thought on last night’s hotel. We went for the dodgy $54/ nt special. It was the last room, the was no cold water in the sink, the people upstairs were noisy, and the promised breakfast did not happen (that was the worst).