Vamos a comer tacos autentico

Taco Combo

On the second longest day of the year, we gather again at BCI (Beaverton Culinary Institute), except that day we changed the name for one day to BIC (Beaverton Instituto de Culinario) in Spanish. As for Yongkie, he makes his first vegan taco called Chicken Run Taco, get it…Chicken Run! On this special occasion, we celebrated Cory graduation; he becomes Dr. “C”. He is an N.D. now, it stands for Natural Doctor. All of the BCI members get one free advice every time we meet.

Here are our tacos that we made last Sunday:

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/bci/taco

Festival of Flowers

Festival of Flowers

When my co-worker offered me to test his new lens, I obliged. What a better way than to take images of the flowers – The Festival of Flowers at the Pioneer Courthouse Square. I do not get used to with a fix lens, but I have to do what was given to me. The colors are stunning to say the least. Enjoy

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/2014/pioneer

The story of Bruce Morton

Bruce and CC, July 2003



Portland, June 3^rd, 2014

We first met Bruce eleven years ago in 2003 aboard the MV Lady Rose (she has been retired since 2009). This vessel served as a cargo as well as a whole day excursion ship, it serves the community along the Barkley Sound all the way to Bamfiled and the Broken Group Island. I witnessed the ship was carrying lumbers, lawn mower etc and the best cargo of all was booze! Yes, this ship hauls the precious alcohol, the consumption of this fine spirit increases during the winter months.

I noticed that Bruce sits with a fine woman, so we introduced ourselves to him and his “wife” as I first thought. I did ask him as how long they have been married. Bruce smiled and he told me that Cece (the name of the woman, later I found out) was just his girlfriend.  The story was just started to get interesting.

“How so?” I asked him pressing for more details. So he slowly explained to me. Before World War II, Bruce and Cece went out together and fell in love as a boyfriend and a girlfriend. As you know, war is a terrible thing. During the war, Bruce enlisted and managed to lose contact with his love. Years gone by, Bruce got married and Cece got married to different persons.

Years have gone by, their respective spouses passed away, in short they managed to find each other again and they became boyfriend and girlfriend again. This was in the year of 2003; Bruce was 86 years young at that time.

Eleven years later in 2014.

After watching the Sunday morning show segment where this guy was phoning his friends wishing them “happy Birthday”, we got an inspiration and motivation to call Bruce again, we have to say that we were afraid that he is no longer with us, a short search in the old rolodex, I found his phone number.

I called and ask when the other party answered if this is the residence of Bruce Morton, to my delight he said, “Speaking!” He is 97 years young now and he still drives the car and best of all, his entire mind is still very sharp. I told Pokie we should visit him again and divert our planned vacation from Olympic Peninsula to Vancouver Island. We are making plan to see him in a month and I am so excited.

He also told me to see him before he turns 100.

Eat, Sleep and Go

The Palmer House

This concludes our tour of Chicago, I hope you enjoy the sights as I enjoy making the website and share it with you. In this website, you will find the hotel that we stayed in, the culinary that we encountered and some of the public transportation that we took during our stay.

It is solely my opinion that if you have not taken the “eL” train, you have not been to Chicago. We had a nice time in this windy city and we will go back in a heart beat given the chance.

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/chicago/cta

Chicago - North Bridge

Chicago from the south side of Navy Pier

I will take you to the north side of Chicago (still downtown area) namely North Bridge, but do not ask the younger folks about the name. It is simply known as Magnificent Mile – Shop till you drop these days. To reach this area from the Union station, we walked a few blocks east then take the Red Line Subway then walk eat a few blocks more, it is really convenient within downtown. I just have to study the subway line.

It is time to relax as we are winding down our trip, only three things we have to see and do as tourists, Magnificent Mile, John Hancock Tower and the Navy Pier.

The Magnificent Mile is a busy place indeed, one funny thing I noted is the homeless, and they make their voices heard. Arm with an 8 ½ X 11 card, a word “HOMELESS” is printed neatly, feels like an association and shouts “ HOMELESS HERE, can you help please, HOMELESS here, can you help please” this is done in the decibels where I can close my ear, it is that loud.

Pokie did the 30 degrees TILT at the John Hancock Tower, I stay behind. The next day we strolled along the Navy Pier. We could not ask for a better weather than this, crisp morning and not much humidity in this part of the country.

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/chicago/nb