Cannabis Season Week 6 was a good one!
This week includes my appointment at Hanger Clinic regarding my custom molded orthotics and the Cannabis Industry meet up at Prism House. I also continue with my Dispensary Tour, this week around the Beaverton area. Here is how I walked 25.3 miles from Sunday May 14 through Saturday, May 20.
Sunday, 5/14/17, 1.0 miles. It was a quiet day at home, writing up my thoughts on last week’s wandering when Pedro texted me. Flo accompanied me to the NW Cannabis Club where she became their newest member. As she sat and read, Kevin Jodrey and I spent hours wrapped in a far-reaching conversation regarding his history, businesses, and thoughts of the future relative to cannabis. Over many dabs of Jack Herer I learned much from one of the most experienced cannabis entrepreneurs in our time. I look forward to our next conversation. And now Flo knows what the NW Cannabis Club looks like and will be able to accompany me there in the future.
Monday, 5/15/17, 7.5 miles. Today I get to have the prosthetic in my shoe evaluated by the tech at Hanger Clinic, and wow did he do a great job. Now I get to walk on it for a few days and see if it will work long term. From Beaverton I take public transportation to arrive at Canna-Daddy’s on SE Division, almost 20 miles away. I am going there to take advantage of another one of the REL vape pen $5 sales. I arrive at the dispensary just after noon, two hours after they open, and they inform me that the sale items are not yet in their inventory, so they cannot sell one to me. After contacting Steve Gold (The Daily Leaf) about the issue, I wander westward, finally stopping in at The Green Remedy where I pick up a gram of Yerba Buena’s Silver Hawk flower.
Tuesday, 5/16/17, 0.8 miles. One of the first things I do in the morning is to put on my eyeglasses. It is all part of a morning ritual that has evolved over a lifetime. This morning was a bit different because the left arm of my rimless titanium frames broke a centimeter from the left lens. It is rather difficult to properly focus when your spectacles no longer provide the correct distances for the angles to work in your favor. It took a short while, but I finally found a wonderful and competent technician to correctly weld the arm and provide an affordable short term solution. For a long term solution, I am turning to my brother Clarke who has owned his own optical shop in Apopka (FL) for a few decades now and has graciously supplied eyeglass services to his family.
Wednesday, 5/17/17, 0.2 miles. A cool and rainy day, which I will spend catching up on stuff around the house.
Thursday, 5/18/17, 9.6 miles. Today I hit the road again on my 2017 Dispensary Tour.
Oregon Bud Company – Since the budtenders at Oregon Bud Company indicated last week that they would be receiving some new flower this week, I decide to begin with them. First, this is one of the few dispensaries which do not have an ID check-in before heading into the retail part of the store. I am so glad that I wandered back in just to check out their Pineapple Trainwreck, testing at 32.1% THC. And then there is their GG#5 at 27.7% THC. I would also like to try out the Crème Royal, based solely on the wonderful odor of the terpenes. Oh yes, that wafting aroma!
Growing Releaf – along with checking out flower, I like to check on the prices of OMMP edibles, since they are becoming harder to find on dispensary shelves, and the prices are all over the place. Here I found the Squib 100 edibles are $14, one of the lowest prices I have found anywhere. They also have the OLCC approved 50mg+/- Grön chocolate bars at $15 for medical card patients, which is one of the lowest prices I have seen for this.
Stash Cannabis Company – When you bring up this Dispensary on Leafly, it displays only “Overview” and “Reviews”. However, if you Google search for them you find a Leafly menu which displays only 8 chemovars (strains). [Today, 5/23/17, they display 10 chemovars.] Stash has only a few of the extracts that have flooded other dispensaries, and maintains only a small number of edibles.
The Green Planet – they have moved two stores down from their old location and in so doing they have expanded their showroom to become a very large glass and pipe retail outlet, with cannabis as another facet of the retail experience. The first strain I was shown is a Purple Hindu Kush by HGP, selling at only $9 a gram. For this chemovar, the price is excellent. I was also shown a Northern Wreck from 45th Parallel Farms, testing in at 30.7% THC, White Super Skunk by Cultivated Industries, and Sweet Meringue by Novik Industries LLC, which is one of the best looking flowers I have seen today. I looked at some of the other offerings from Novik (I hadn’t seen any of their flower before today) and have them in my mind to see what else of theirs I can find over this summer.
Stone Age Farmacy – anyone following my blog will note that I included this dispensary among my 10 best. Today they have 44 chemovars on their shelves; a wonderful abundance of choices for the consumer! Many of their offerings are grown by Stone Age Gardens in south Oregon and are some of the frostiest flower I have seen (as are most of the offerings found in all of the dispensaries on my top ten list). I asked to be shown a sample from each end of the spectrum as well as a balanced hybrid, and they didn’t disappoint. I was offered: Blue Dream (25.6% THC), as a sativa dominant flower; Beast OG (19.7% THC), as an indica dominant flower; and Cherry Bomb (19.9% THC) as the sweet tasting middle ground hybrid. However, with so many choices on flower, I doubt that you could go wrong with throwing a dart and picking any flower on the shelf. And, something that retired consumers may like, there is a public restroom within the dispensary.
Parlour Cannabis Shoppe – let me start right off by saying that they have 1oz bags of shake for $70 medical ($80 recreational)! For those who are interested in making edibles (canna butter is really big in Oregon at this time) or rolling joints old-school, this is something that is absolutely wonderful to find. I have only found a few dispensaries out of the nearly 200 in our area who keep bags of shake on the shelf, so it is important to let you know when I discover another one. Today they have 24 chemovars on their shelves and showed me a beautiful looking Lavender Trainwreck (20.6% THC) and Shaolin Kush (25.3% THC), both from Mindful Organics. The Shaolin Kush is so very loaded with calyxes that it almost appeared to have a white cast. It is oh-so-yummy looking! For me, this dispensary is the prime example of how I see Cannabis storefronts becoming mainstream. This shop is located within a very nice strip mall at a very busy 6-way intersection, with its name right along every other business, as one good business neighbor to another. If you find yourself near the Sesame Donuts at the intersection of Scholls Ferry Rd and Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy, visit this dispensary. You will not be disappointed, and you may need to buy more doughnuts.
Five Zero Trees West – the first thing I notice while they are confirming my IDs (for OMMP cardholders we turn over our driver’s license as well as our OMMP card), is that they have tie-dyed shirts for their dispensary. This is right up my alley, as it would be for many old-school pot heads of my generation. So they get an early point for that! They also have public restrooms, so another point for that. The shelves are fully stocked, with 5 CBD-heavy chemovars, 14 high shelf chemovars ($12/g), 21 regular shelf chemovars ($10/g), and 5 special chemovars ($8/g). When asked to show me a few examples of the best flower in the shop, my budtender produced: Golden Cobra by Bull Run Farms; Key Lime Pie from Prūf Cultivar (among the best farms in Oregon, IMHO); Primate Adhesive [definitely not a Gorilla Glue, since that is a trademarked name] from Nelson and Co; and BB #3 also from Nelson and Co. In addition to the flower, they create 1 gram pre-rolls from flower on each of the three pricing levels, yielding joints that also cost $8, $10, and $12 each. And, just for fun, they create $6 one-gram pre-rolls from a mixture of flowers all from TJ Gardens (another of those top tier cannabis farms, IMHO). These are a definite bargain for those that need to pick up a few party favors and would like nothing better than a hybrid time for very little money.
New Vansterdam Medical – do not be fooled; even though “Medical” is in the name, they have had their recreational license since April. This is the first dispensary where I have found Busy Bee flavored RSO (74.5% THC, 6.1% CBD, 3.4% CBN), and at $35 a gram it is one of the best prices for RSO I have seen anywhere. Another first for me is a product from Canavore called “Weekend Getaway Kit”. According to the label, it includes 4 half-gram joints and one 15mg edible, all for $30 to medical patients. Based solely on quantity, this is a fantastic deal, assuming that the quality is anywhere near Oregon normal. When asked to show me their best buds from the 20 chemovars on the shelf, they opted for: Mindful Kush from Mindful Organics (it had many mature calyxes, indicating that it was not rushed during its flushing and drying cycles); Shaolin Kush #11 from Mindful Organics; and Forum Cut Girl Scout Cookies from Frost Farms. These are three more examples of Oregon flower with which one cannot go wrong.
Friday, 5/19/17, 6.1 miles. Hey, I woke up to the Daily Leaf’s notice of another $5 REL vape pen drop, followed closely by a notice that it would not happen until noon. No problem, and thanks for the heads up! So off I go to Cannabis Corner in Southeast Portland, across from Mt. Scott Park. When I arrived at 1:30pm they were extremely busy, too busy to spend much time chitchatting with me. I will visit again later in the summer for a Dispensary Tour visit. From here I walk the mile to Deanz Greenz on Foster to spend some time with Steve from The Daily Leaf at a networking event. Here I spend some time with the folks from WHO (Walking Happy Oil) where I win a new lapel pin for my hat as well as the guys from Novik Industries where I earn a free t-shirt for purchasing some of their flower at the dispensary. Since it is such a nice sunny day, I head to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and walk the East Esplanade along the Willamette River, cross the Steel Bridge, and continue south along the west bank of the river to Tom McCall Waterfront Park. I love walking this route, as it is both wonderful to view and provides some fantastic people watching. Although the people might not be dressed as I remember the lovely ladies of my youth along the stretches of sandy beach in New Smyrna Beach, the spring and summer fashions along the river in Portland are quite spectacular for this old man. As the afternoon wears on, I head to the NW Cannabis Club to enjoy the company of other like-minded folks. And tonight is a special sesh (we are too lazy to say session – two syllables and all ☺) featuring samples provided by Clay Wolf, a local extract producer. And oh, are they so very flavorful! And smooth. And potent! I love my life!
Saturday 5/20/17, 0.1 miles. Home, with Flo. I feel as though I am the luckiest person in the world, living the luckiest life possible. Until next week, peace out.
