Oregon Trip - Part 2

After breakfast and packing up our belongings, we spent the late morning with my Grandma at her retirement home.

Afterward we were supposed to drop by the cherry stand to say good-bye to Aunt Sandi, but sadly it didn't work out. We were on-call trying to meet up with some old friends of mine and because of the timing and because we ended up having to get lunch earlier than expected and then everyone had to go to the bathroom and Ben needed his diaper changed and....boy, it's amazing how much a simple, "quick" lunch can entail with little ones...we had to skip the cherry stand and began our trek home at about 12:30pm. We took a little different route in order to meet up with my friends (my former youth pastor and his family actually) from Arizona who were in Portland visiting family but were traveling to the coast for the weekend. We decided to meet at Arctic Circle for ice cream in McMinnville and arrived just seconds from each other. It was a quick, but wonderful visit with this special couple I hadn't seen in years but have kept up with through the wonderful world of blogging. :)

Candace and me (her kids were already belted in the car)

Then we got back on the road toward home. The alternate, back-roads route we took was only 0.6 miles longer than our normal route and according to mapquest was supposed to take only about 25 minutes longer. But it was Friday afternoon and traffic was bad. By the time we got through Portland it was already 4:30pm and Ben was anxious to get out of his car seat. So, on the spur of the moment, we stopped in Vancouver at Esther Short Park which I had just recently heard about on Candace's blog. What began as an impromptu chance for the kids to stretch their legs turned into a three-hour excursion! We played on the toys awhile and then decided to go get the swimsuits so the kids could play in the water area. They had a blast and never wanted to leave!

Going on at the same time at the park was some type of Hawaiian Festival. There were tons of booths selling and advertising stuff and there was also a concert going on with various types of Hawaiian-inspired music (everything from Beach Boys to steel drums). Ben especially loved bopping to the music. Since the kids were starving by this point, I decided we should just get food there in order to save time and hopefully be able to drive the rest of the way home without stopping (plus I was sick of fast food!). After stuffing ourselves full of Kalau pig, rice, and noodles, we loaded back up and got back on the road at 7:30pm. About 20 minutes later we pulled off the freeway to get gas (there were no gas stations near the park that we could find), and the kids spotted McDonald's and insisted they were hungry. So much for saving time by eating at the park. They indeed were hungry (I don't know how!) and ended up eating a ton. A full hour later we were finally back on the road again, this time for good and made it home at 10:30pm. I'm pretty sure that 10-hour trip is longest it's EVER taken going from Dallas to home in my entire life. It wasn't necessarily horrible that it took so long, it was just unexpected, it was tiring for my mom and me by the end, and it was amazing to me how long each seemingly little thing added to the length of the trip.

Notes to myself for quicker trips in the future: (1) don't go through Portland during rush-hour on Friday, (2) don't go to a water park for a "quick stop," and (3) take my own car so that the kids are allowed to eat snacks in it. :o)