Oregon Road Trip~ 2

We woke up in the hotel and scrambled around getting ready to go down and get the cute little breakfast buffet. It was lovely and the Bald Kid even made his own Belgian Waffle. Yummo. I had cereal because I’m just a simple gal at heart. I didn’t actually take any pictures of the hotel…except this one. So it will have to do.

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Then we jumped in the car and headed out on the road again.

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Anybody hearing old Willie Nelson singing right now or is it just me?

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As we approached Portland, I got in the habit of taking a picture of anything that was new or different or strange to me. In fact, I don’t even know what this thing is, but I took it’s picture alright.

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This spooky little guy was just sitting there minding his own business so I captured him for posterity too.

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I really loved the fire escapes too. Oh, sure the cities in Utah have them too, but these ones were very Jason Bourne-ish, or Burn Notice-y. Can’t you just picture a wild bad guy chase going on here? Well, I can.

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We were excited to go to this famous donut shop but then, after doing a bit of research, we decided that it wasn’t exactly family friendly. Plus that crazy line coming out the door was a bit much. We skipped it and ate Cheetoes instead.

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I thought for a second that we were headed straight to Chinatown, but Jacob turned left right before we got to the gateway. No Chinatown today.

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Tons of lovely lampposts made even lovelier by the hanging flower baskets. Why don’t we do this? Hmmmm? I’m calling the mayor.

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We parked the car and found that the only way to the ground floor was down allllll those stairs. Y.I.K.E.S.

But we survived. Jacob found this Hebrew inscription outside the biggest bookstore in the universe.

Yes. We went inside.

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We all pretty much went our own separate ways for about 2 hours.

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 A cute little lady was staring up at the books in the same “Crochet” aisle as I was in. She said, “Isn’t this just Heaven?”

I said, “Positively. Heaven. I’m never leaving.”

Of course, that was a fib because eventually we did leave, most reluctantly. These fun street performers were playing right outside the store.

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I would say that this is certainly a church, but since I don’t know for sure, and I don’t want someone to make a comment saying, “Silly rabbit–that’s our city hall,” I’ll just call it a tower thingy. Can’t go wrong with that.

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So charming to see the little community gardens all over town–very green and friendly looking.

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April and Jacob found a quilt shop so that was the end of them. The Bald Kid and Lily and Beck and I stayed behind resting our tootsies in the car. I spotted this sweet little flowery tree. It reminded me of the Bougainvillea trees that are beautiful but positively impossible to grow outdoors in Utah…at least for me. Maybe I’ll try again. I need a pink tree in my life.

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Oh, sure. They come in purple as well. I’ll be needing that one too.

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Total tootsie resting…

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until we found this natural food market. We went a bit wild because, well, for starters they had gorgeous fruit and so we were rendered powerless. We bought grapes, and cherries and yogurt and crackers and 9.5 water and some other stuff that I can’t remember. It was a glorious place.

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Funny name, and totally untrue, as I am not, in fact, yoga. Honestly.

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The quaint neighborhood that we parked in had colorful spots painted all up and down the street for no reason other than cuteness. I bet if we tried this at home we’d get arrested. But it was very whimsical and fun.

Might be worth a try…

sometime…

late at night.

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Scribbled on the sidewalk of the same neighborhood.  No mincing words here.

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Proof that the zombie apocalypse is totally real…at least on this street.

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So naturally, we left–for our own safety.

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After wandering around for a while, taking in the sights, we found Jacob and Lily sitting under a red umbrella eating…

I don’t even know what.

But he is brave and I didn’t ask. Go Jacob.

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A bit more driving…

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A trip to the local Costco. Yeah, we like eggs…a lot.

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A few more car games and finally, FINALLY–

We arrived at the beach house. Our home for the next week.

Ummmmm….at last.

Wanna see inside?

Be brave and I’ll show you next.

Oregon Road Trip~ 1

Well, it has been such a long, LONG time since we’ve taken a vacation that we made a break for it this last week. We booked a beautiful beach house on the Oregon coast for nearly a week! EEEEeeeeeee! All my kids and their families took a different route–depending on when they were leaving and where they wanted to stop by the end of the day. The only common goal was to meet at the beach house by Tuesday. The Bald Kid and I jumped in with April and Jacob and the Littles and off we went.

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Now you need to know that whenever you take a trip like this, it is mandatory that you pack a ton of good, healthy snacks. I know what you’re thinking, but I solemnly swear the there are apples and mandarins and bananas in that box. They just sunk down to the bottom because all that goody-goodness is much, you know, heavier. Oh, and there are carrots in the cooler too. I swear.

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It’s also highly recommended that you bring lots and lots of word games and puzzles…

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and bingo cards so that you can keep the short people occupied. And our sweet little Beckham, did very well with his card, by the way, despite the fact that there are absolutely no tole bridges from Utah to Oregon. He got positively everything else so we let him slide on the tole bridge. It was either that or redirect out trip through Pennsylvania.

You see my point.

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We watched a movie…

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stopped and readjusted the seating arrangements…

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and found a few unexpected creatures along the way.  Can anybody say, “RANDOM?”

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We drove and drove through the mountains and hills of beautiful Idaho…

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and watched another movie. The kids had the headphones of this one so we go to watch the no sound version of our dear Harry Potter. Our made up dialogue was better than theirs’ anyway. Heh, heh.

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More mountains, more valleys and then…

who should drive right up next to us but…

Lyle Lovett!!

Ok, we didn’t actually ask him his name, but that’s pretty much because we didn’t need to. This guy was totally Lyle Lovett.

Trust me.

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And just when we thought me just might perish from all the beautiful mountains and valleys…

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we found a park for the wee folk to play in for a while. April and Jacob rested on the grass. Lily climbed the jungle gym.

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Beckham slid on the zip line.

The Bald Kid–who is a bit of an over achiever–ran around the whole park twice to stretch his muscles. I sat on a bench and wiggled my foot around to stretch mine. Hey, we each do what works.

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Then on we drove through the prairie…

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with one more movie in the background.

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Our first stop– The Dalles, Oregon and a wonderfully soft, cool, fluffy bed.

Perfect start, I’d say.

Ahhh…Logan

Sometimes we have “official business” to take care of in Logan–the sweet little town 2 hours north of our place.

And sometimes the only official business is finding the most beautiful raspberries in the State–and buying them two flats at a time.

This time was a mix–April had some fun “official” places to go and I’m always up for the drive…and the raspberries.

We always visit the “cookie store” when we’re in town because it borderlines criminal behavior…not to. We got off easy this time though because it wasn’t a cookie day. Today was Parmesan Goldfish day so we each grabbed a bag–for the kids and got out of there with our lives. Sometime I’m going to figure out when Milano day is…THEN there’ll be trouble.

We took turns saying, “Can we just live here?” about twenty times in the first couple of hours. It would be perfect–just enough town, just enough country.

~sigh~

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We made a new discovery this time around…a truly wicked discovery. Let’s just say that the next stop was for dry ice–lots of dry ice.  :}

Gossner’s Cheese store grabbed us next–and I think we behaved very, very well for a couple of cookie, Creamie, cheese freaks.

Someone should be clapping for us.

Speaking of well behaved–the little dudes were pretty darn good sports as we drove merrily along in one of our favorite, beautiful places.

Yeah…pretty sure I love this town.

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The Random Road

When you blog like some kind of maniac, it is really hard not to take pictures of every single thing you think is remotely interesting, odd, beautiful or just plain nuts. The problem with that is that then, you have to find a place to use all those wildcat photos that don’t really connect to anything—just to prove that there was a point to you taking the shot in the first place.

This is that post. Be brave.

We pulled into a gas station in a remote little place and right behind it was an old school–I couldn’t really tell if it is abandoned or still in use. To tell the truth–it was more the birds that caught my attention. It was a swarm I tell you and we were completely ready to barricade ourselves in the car if they changed directions. It was a bit Hitchcock-type creepy.

Sign on a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Makes you wonder if this is some kind of combo meal or something. I don’t want to know what the burger is made out of. Yikes.

 

Just thought this one was kinda cute.

Please, please will somebody explain this road sign to me? M-1/4 ? Are they kidding? Is it some kind of Algebra problem or what?

And here we have L-7/10 Road. Um, yeah. Stop the madness or get help.

Seriously.

Off to our left was a huge mountain that honestly looked like a big pencil sketch…or sand castle. Either one…or both.

While pulling into a quaint little quilt shop I spotted this teeny tiny man carrying a laundry basket down the street and it struck me as funny. Pretty sure he was a regular sized man, but what’s with the laundry basket? Just saying…

This is said “quaint little quilt shop.” Hen House Quilts and Gifts was a lovely break from that long old road.  One or two of us spend a ridiculous amount of money here. There’s no explanation for it other than craziness…or eccentricity. Likely both. Dang fun though.

Pretty little farm house with a pretty little porch that I wanted to pick up and fly to my town. If only those trees weren’t in the way–we could actually see it.

Not such good news–but luckily, we had no intention of going that way anyhow. Take that–Berthoud Pass.

What? Really? Was someone playing a prank here?

I wasn’t fooled.

Then, from out of nowhere–buckets of snow came dumping down on us…with no warning.

Wellllll…maybe a little warning.

Dicey driving for the next 30 miles, but then, just as quickly as the storm came on…

it shut back down and we rode off serenely into the sunset…and our place.

Home again, home again,

jiggity jog.

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Mini Roadtrip

A Road Trip Tale

The other day, April called and said she needed to drive clear to the moon and back and did I want to come with her? You can’t actually make that long of a trip all by yourself, with two babies in the back seat. It’s not physically or emotionally possible without sacrificing a major portion of your sanity. Not smart either.

So, of course I wanted to come.

Besides the Logan trip is one of my personal favorites. Seriously, it’s quite a pretty, peaceful drive–as long as you can hand out fruit snacks to the two-year-olds in a timely enough fashion.

When we finally arrived at the shop, and April delivered her brand new quilt patterns, we decided that the day couldn’t possibly be over yet.

There was just more to see…and do…and buy…and…umm…nibble on.

So we scooted right on over to the Gossner’s cheese store, where we promptly bought out the rootbeer milk and squeeky cheese. No, there’s no more left. We got it all, so don’t even ask.

Still not satisfied–we kept right on driving until we reached the wicked, evil, marvelous, incredible cookie factory. I don’t have a picture of it for you because I was so excited to get there that my hands were shaking uncontrollably and it screwed up the picture.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

But this is what the car middle space looked like for the drive home. I don’t know exactly where all those ridiculous cookies and crackers came from. Perhaps the rapid intake of sugar impaired my memory some how. Pretty sure they were allll for the kids. {insert diabolical laughter}

It did make the drive home more interesting…that is until the sugar highs plunged down to the sugar lows. But never you fear. Because just as we were about to sink into the depths of much-too-much-junk-ism, we found a lonely little fellow at a roadside stand–with a fresh-picked supply of…

Autumn raspberries!! Oh happy day!

We were saved!

Now we could drive all the way home in corrected blood sugar level peace and safety…or something.

In fact, we bought so many raspberries that we could eat our fill and do it again and STILL have enough to share with the neighbors and all of you guys and the cat! We could send you all a package, just as soon as we got home. What a great idea. Watch for them in your mailbox.

Oh, sorry. Beckham said no.

The End.