Idol Knitting Day 1

"Idle hands are the devils work." That's what my gram would say. Last weekend I had Idol hands. As in American Idol hands. Our son Bryce's lovely, talented girlfriend Courtney auditioned for American Idol in Portland, Oregon on Saturday. (The result show is later in the blog, wait for it.)

'Road Trip' for a knitter has a whole other meaning than most people. For a knitter, it means deciding on what you are going to knit. So I selected a the Lace Ribbon pattern from Knitty.com. I was hoping for an easy to remember pattern so I wouldn't have to concentrate too hard during all the action. It turned out to be a pretty good choice.

Courtney gets her wristband!

We left the house at O'Dark 30. Which translates to 3:30am to begin our drive to Portland, Oregon about 3 1/2 hours away. We arrived at the Rose Garden in Portland to find...no line! So we get to walk right in and get our wristbands and tickets for Saturday's audition. And yippee! I get a wristband and ticket too. On the American Idol rules it state one person can accompany the singer. Sweet!

So with no waiting to register we are left to wait till we can check in to our hotel. Love the folks at the Doubletree at Loyd's Center. They let us check in where we promptly all took naps.

After trying to sleep for awhile Courtney and I hit the mall for sushi (not bad) and a little accessory shopping. We found the cutest necklace and earrings to go with her audition outfit.
When we got back to the hotel we decided we needed to go do something fun or we would worry ourselves to death. After cruising the web for something to do, Brad found out that The Waterfront Blues Festival was going starting that afternoon.

So we jumped onto the The Max (with free train rides within the city) and we were off to check out one of the largest blues festivals in the region. It was a beautiful hot day in Portland and boy are there a lot of pale people!
Admittedly I was one.

It was a great time and got us all in the mood for more music tomorrow. The place had four bands playing on stages located throughout the park. We started out with a glass of Washington Wine from St. Michelle which was awesome since you can roam the festival and are not confined to a "drinker's coral". It s great they projected the music onto large screens. There were boats lined up along the shore and the screen would rotate so they could see the performers too.

Courtney and myself enjoying a little brew.

We all had a great time checking out the vendors, very eclectic cuz we are in Portland. Didn't buy anything but some ice cold beer because it was in the 80's. We then sent photos of our beers to Bryce just so he knew what he was missing. (We drank one of his favorite beers.)

We had a great couple hours listening to some amazing musicians and watching people. As you can see, it was packed. It was a really good time. We ate some great food at Paddy's a few blocks away and went back to the hotel to crash. We had to be in line the next day at 5:00am.

Check out this performer who was amazing. It is just a real short video but it gives you a taste of what he could do. He stood perfectly still until someone put a tip in his jar. Then he went into a great routine.

PS. I didn't knit on Day One.