NW Tiki Crawl 2005 Photos

Hello Everyone:

We both wanted to say that we really enjoyed meeting all of the Tiki Central people at this event. We are really looking forward to the next big luau!

Sailor Curt & Violet Ray

Edited by Sailor Curt to remove non-working link.

[ Edited by: Sailor Curt 2008-05-18 13:07 ]

Sailor Curt & Violet Ray,

Thank you for posting the beautiful pictures. It was super to meet you two! We hope that you can come down for the Happy Hour at the Alabi!

-When is the Happy Hour the Alabi??

Gem and Mark

Thanks for posting those! It was great to meet you, thanks for coming out to make the Crawl so much fun.

TikiKatin has also started a photo gallery here:

http://nwtiki.sylvanfells.net/viewtopic.php?t=56

I'll have some "official" pics to post as soon as I recover.

We'll soon have a gallery available for all to post their choice photos. Stay tuned, by the end of the day we'll have a URL for you!

Wake up everybody!!!! :)

This reminds me of the last Santacon I went on. Our post was wild and crazy and we'd look over at the other Santa Buses and regular tour buses and the people in them all looked asleep!!

Have a nice Tiki Day!
If you like it,it is ZAZZ! If you don't, give it a RAZZ.

[ Edited by: mrsmiley on 2005-06-20 11:45 ]

no wonder you guys looks asleep-you were in the "Raz(z)" bus!!! :)

Kidding folks! The pic's look great!

I don't have pictures yet but here's my recap:

I arrived late Thursday night at the Jupiter to find Hanford, Humuhumu, tikiwahine, and drunkenmunky in the bar waiting for me. I was very impressed by the Doug Fir lounge and coffee shop. They did a great job on the decor! It's a blend of mid-century modern design and hunting lodge with lots of well-placed rock, wood, and mirrors. If you like the Bigfoot and Club Mallard you'll like the Doug Fir. The staff at the jupiter are all super nice and so good looking too. One warning: if you want lots of rest you might want to stay elsewhere in Portland. It's a real party place with a live music venue in the basement with bands every night, a coffee shop that stays open until 4AM, and a lenient policy about people who party in their rooms after hours. There are plenty of patio areas with chairs and tables around the grounds and even an outdoor fireplace (but no pool), all the rooms are sleekly furnished, and the doors have a chalkboard surface on them so you can write messages with chalk they provide like "party here at 2AM tonight".

After spending Friday shopping I met Humuhumu and Hanford and we headed over to Dan and Louis' Oyster House for a delicious dinner. We sat in the c. 1939 original dining room that was like being inside of a wooden ship complete with mast and porthole style "windows" that had old photos of ships and oyster harvesting which were back-lighted.

Friday night's party at Tikimaxton and Maggie's was a great way to start the weekend and I met so many people I can't remember all of their TC names. I had been there once before but they've added so much since then. It was a huge turnout - around 90-100 people came during the night! And we lucked out because it rained that day but stopped for the party.

After the party I met my neighbors in the hotel from Bend, OR, and we had a few drinks together. He's Tiki Mota here on TC and he's a brewer for Deschutes Brewing Co. so I got to sample their excellent product.

On Saturday I managed to drive out to the Jen-Jen Safari Club with a major hangover, but I was pretty disappointed because I drove all the way out there and they wouldn't turn on the lights in the displays so you couldn't see the taxidermy dioramas very well.

Saturday's festivities started with a pleasant visit to the Alibi early enough so that we practically had the place to ourselves, so we got to enjoy the back room without the usual karaoke crowds. They even had a complimentary buffet for us! And I finally got to meet woofmutt!

The party at the Jasmine Tree was a blast! I never had the chance to see Lushy before even though I've been hearing about them since the mid-90s. They're easily my favorite lounge act playing today. Annabelle has a wonderful voice. They were great! I was excited that Lynval Golding, founding member, guitarist, and singer of the Specials since 1977, was playing percussion with them! The band Susan and the Surftones got many of us dancing to their well-executed surf tunes. And Selector Lopaka kept us entertained with his superb DJ sets. I can't remember how many Singapore Slings I drank that night.

They say luck comes in threes and they were right as yours truly won 3 raffle prizes including the beautiful grand prize framed tiki wall hanging carved by Seamus! I was flabbergasted because I rarely win contests. I'll be proud to hang such a gorgeous artwork on my wall. Thank you Seamus!

And thank you also to the Home Ec shop in Portland for the huge ceramic bowl filled with tiki mugs, coffee cups, bamboo flatware, and an old menu from the Lali Room at the Travelodge in Suva, Fiji, which is now a Holiday Inn and was "renovated" in 2004. According to their web site the Lali Room is now the "Vikatoria's Restaurant, a modern brasserie style dining venue". Ugh.

The Jupiter Hotel provided tikimaxton with a room which our crawl hosts stocked with rum and mixers so it became party-central at the Jupiter, at least until the rum ran out at 4AM.

Every day of the weekend was lots of fun but my favorite was the home bar crawl. Huge mahalos to the home bar hosts! I think many of us were still sleepy when the bus left the Jupiter at noon on Sunday as we were up until 4AM on Sunday morning (mrsmiley's comment on the picture of us on the bus wasn't far off), but after a few pick-me-ups we had a great time. By the 3rd. bar on the tour at Sparklegem and Mark's we were all pretty well lubricated (thanks to Mark's excellent punch) and not acting like zombies anymore.

After the home-bar crawl I had the pleasure of the company of Humhumu, Hanford, Tikiwahine, and Drunkenmunky for a cocktail at the Driftwood and a steak at the Ringside. It was the perfect way to end a great weekend.

I was glad to have met many folks on TC for the first time and I wish I could remember all of them. Some of the people I especially enjoyed hanging out with: Selector Lopaka and Puamana, mrtikibar, dogbytes and Todd, Monkeyskull, Sailor Curt and Melissa, Sparklegem and Mark, Terence and Russell from Seattle, Seamus and Jauna, Mr. and Mrs. Tiki Mota, Hanford and Humuhumu, and last but definitely not least Tikiwahine and Drunkenmunkey.

Best drinks: Melintur's Mai Tai

Worst drink: Jasmine Tree's Mai Tai - luckily I didn't order one but I tasted the bubble-gum flavored concoction

Favorite foods: meatballs, oysters, Voodoo donuts, and my 24 oz. Porterhouse at the Ringside

Favorite bartender: mrtikibar's father-in-law Ed - he made a good mai tai and he told great stories

Best dressed ladies: Mrs. Tikimaxton and Frenchy Polynesia (seeing Miss Polynesia walk out of the second house on the tour in her Sunday best complete with white gloves was a treat for those of us on the bus. It was a momentary trip back in time!)

Best dressed gentlemen: Terence and Russell from Seattle (and their friend whose name escapes me)

Favorite drunk: Seamus at the Jupiter on Saturday night

Most missed: Sweetpea, Mig, and Mrsmiley

Mahalos to all the sponsors but especially thanks to Cruzan Rum who generously provided rum to the home bar hosts and organizers.

Mahalo to the organizers Tikimaxton and Maggie, Maori Man, Melintur, TikiMama, and Tikitronic!

And a big mahalo to the city of Portland! I love Portland!

Jab,

Great review! I wanted to thank you, too, for making it to our event. I'd forgotten how long it had been since you'd seen Castaway Cove - I think you were our very first Tiki Central guest, what, like three years ago? Four? Seems like longer. Circumstances didn't allow me to spend as much time with you (or anyone else in particular) as I'd like, but your presence was felt and appreciated!

Ahhhh, Jab, you really really need to write for a travel magazine!

Excellent re-cap as always! Whenever I start to read one of your posts about an event, I can't wait to get to 'the red meat that Jab ate!'

Thanks, it sounds like a blast!
mrs. pineaple

One thing I'd like to add to Jab's review; Those of us organizers that he mentioned were easy to spot because we were big or bald or loud or blonde, but one person to whom we owe a lot of the events success is Mrs. Tikitronic, Kim. She was the one who took care of our incorporation paperwork and our banking, and she was consistently the voice of reason when we wanted to build Disneyland on an Enchanted Forest budget. Her quiet advice, guidance and patience were the grounding we needed to actually pull off our grandiose plans. I can't say it enough, but here's one more, "thank you Kim!"

Sounds like a great time!

I'm definitely going to have to catch the next one - Father's Day be damned!

I've posted some pictures at the official NW Tiki Crawl photo gallery
My favorites are these three...

Frenchy Polynesia and Maori Man.

Craig/Melintur working the bar at the Monkey Hut.

My lovely wife (and the above mentioned) Kim.
Who somehow manages to be that beautiful, and still get missed :)

I also learned a valuable photography lesson this weekend :
take your photos - then start drinking.
Somehow, despite several years of photography training,
I ended up with about 12 usable pictures (out of 117!) Eesh!

[ Edited by: Tikitronic on 2005-06-21 19:03 ]

We should also throw out an additional thank you to 3-D Spirits (makers of Voodoo, Red Rum, and Jolly Roger Rum) who also sponsored our home bar tour, and were most generous with their products!

Wow, I had a fantastic time.

I really enjoyed meeting and chatting with so many great people. Great to put more faces to names.

The local & home bars were such a treat, this Canadian is one happy camper.

Mucho, mucho mahaloz to Dancin' Lizard & hubby(Deb & Mark), Jab, Humu & Hanford for providing much entertainment and enjoyable conversations.

Another heartfelt thank you to all the organizers, hosts and sponsors that made this event possible. Great job guys!

I'm really looking forward to my next event, be it the NW Crawl, Hukilau or a night on the town with any of our fine TC members.

Why do I get the feeling that Frenchy is thinking of a dirty joke while she is looking at me - Oh yeah that's right, you all do (right Tronic?).

I just wanted to say thanks for all of you who showed up and allowed us to get you all drunk as skunks! I am glad a fun time was had by all and I look forward to next years event!

Noel, Can anybody upload pictures to that gallery? How. pray tell?

If you go here:
http://nwtiki.com/gallery/register.php
You can register for gallery/posting priveleges.

I think the plan is to have people make individual albums, and
then build a big gallery,
(probably chronological)
(individual photos credited of course).

Maggie (Mrs. Tikimaxton) and Frenchy Polynesia win best dressed of crawl! (with Tikimaxton in center). Pic by monkeyskull.

[ Edited by: thejab on 2005-06-23 10:20 ]

My lovely wife (and the above mentioned) Kim.
Who somehow manages to be that beautiful, and still get missed

Good lord! She is absolutely vintage-style Hollywood gorgeous! What a stunning photograph.

Tikimaxton, do you hang out with Fred Eckhardt often?

We definitely need more Handlebar Moustaches around here!

And I wasn't even "waxed" in that photo! Good to see you sportin' the bars, Dr. Freelance! With that healthy hairline I don't suppose you'll be going chrome any time soon, though...

I'm in

We had a great time at the crawl this year, a HUGE thanks to the organizers, home bar owners, sponsors and other supporters! The Jupiter was a blast, especially the Doug Fir. It's always so wonderful to get some time with the NW tiki folks, who are always incredibly warm and friendly.

Here are my pictures, there are very few of the actual crawl, most are of the Doug Fir and from our non-Crawl Portland exploring, especially a very cool old Chinese restaurant, an old movie theater, the oyster bar, and the Driftwood Room. Lots of pictures of thejab, which is appropriate since we our weekend was chock full of fruitful jab guidance. There was much meat involved.

http://photo.humuhumu.com/v/nwtikicrawl2005/

Critiki - Ooga-Mooga - Humu Kon Tiki

[ Edited by: Humuhumu 2005-09-23 14:54 ]