Some much needed time away

Don and I have needed some time away.

Badly.

Our daughter Heidi and her husband Jeff and our two oldest granddaughters Abbey and Lindsay have been living with us for the last five months.
We have had our issues of course, but at the same time I can't help but feel lucky to have great front row seats to watching the girls grow up.

One of the BIG benefits to having extra adults in our household is that Don and I can actually take off and know that someone will be here to watch over Shawn.

I don't know why it's taken us five, long, months to actually get around to getting away. Let's just blame it on me being a talented procrastinator.

With my mom's rapid decline, her passing away and then the funeral, I decided (when all was finally said and done, and mom laid neatly to rest) that it was high time for us to make a break for it. So last Thursday we took off to Portland Oregon.

I love Portland.

A mere three hours drive
and,
we are in a major American city,
that,
wonder of wonders,
has,

No Sales Tax!

That's right. We go from the agonizing pain, of adding a disarming 8.3%, to everything we buy (except most food) to an incredible. . . . .

Cornucopia of Carefree Spending,

where even in restaurants, the price stated is exactly what you pay.
Well, plus tip of course. Portland is civilized after all.

That's not the only thing to love about Portland. It really is a charming and beautiful place. And the people are, for the most part,

just

plain

nice!

This time we did things a little different. Something we've never ever done before.

Quite often our trips to other places, ie, Portland, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, are marred by the fact that we usually spend onerous amounts of time driving around trying to find wherever it is we want to go.

This.

Is.

NOT.

Fun!

Don and I start out with the and best and most loving of intentions, I swear we do.
But, give us even half an hour of trying to find the right exit, while keeping track of which freeway we are on, and at the same time making sure we don't end up inadvertently going the wrong way down a one-way street. (a specialty of Don's.)
Well, what can I say, I admit it.

We end up getting really pissed off at each other.

Now trust me when I say that, this isn't exactly conducive to a harmony filled get away.

So, several months ago, we got ourselves a nice new Tom Tom Navigational Device. And it actually works. A little annoying at times. It (or should I say, she) uses a few phrases and words that makes me wonder if it/she was made somewhere other than the good old U S of A. These are minor complaints though, when compared to how much pleasure we have found in the joy of

Not Being LOST.

We got to Portland. We made it to our hotel. We were so happy to have successfully gotten away that we didn't even go anywhere that first night. Our hotel had Evening Hors D'oeuvres and Drinks. It turned out to be a rather nice little dinner of Swedish Meatballs and gravy, mashed potatoes, and a smallish salad bar.

Friday morning we got showered and dressed and went down to breakfast. A lovely little spread that included a choice of fried or scrambled eggs, country potatoes and sausage links. As well as the more standard hotel breakfast of, mini muffins, doughnuts, cold cereal, bagels and bread to toast and fresh fruit.
It was nice to not have to go anywhere else for that morning meal.

The first order of business was IKEA.

I really like that store.

Don?

Not so much.
But he's a good sport.
Still, even I was shocked when we realized we had spent more than
three hours
exploring every square inch of,

Sweden's answer to good quality at reasonable prices.

Did I spend more than I had planned?

Do Cows Moo?

Of course I spent more than I had planned. But it was okay. We were on Holiday after all. Isn't that how you know for sure that you are relaxing and having a good time. To spend more money than you would ever do if you were home and not worry about it.

Don't worry. The mortgage will be paid on time. We weren't that irresponsible.

Sadly to say, we didn't get much else done that day.

I take the blame here.

I wanted to go eat somewhere new. Some place that we don't have here in the Tri Cities. Preferably, a nice local place. A brochure in our hotel had kindly notified us that Portland is after all,

One of the best cities in America to find a good place to eat.

So yeah, the pressure was kind of on.

You know?

I turned to the restaurant section of the phone book.

Oh My GOSH!

It must have been at least an inch thick. Lot's of wonderful places.

I guess.

Because that's the problem right there. How on earth am I supposed to know which of the 1500 (give or take) local eateries, going on just a listing in a phone book, I will like.

To me that is a big problem. I hate taking a chance and going to some randomly picked out colorful local diner, only to discover that their food is HORRIBLE.

Not just horrible but

Over Priced and with Bad Service thrown in just to put a little more salt in the wound.

I HATE that. (I guess this is a good time to point out that I can find a little comfort in the fact that at least there was no sales tax)

So needless to say we spent hours, (trust me, I do mean HOURS) wandering around trying to find a good spot to eat.

Did we? Well, let me put it this way. I have absolutely no memory of where or what we ate that night.

Really. I don't.

This mealtime fiasco did help us to realize that if we didn't want the rest of our get away to be like Friday that we better do some planning.

And this is how we decided to try something,

so radical,

so risky and different,

so unheard of in any of our previous weekend get aways,

that we would cross a line we never would have thought to cross and discover that once crossed, we would most likely never go back to our old ways again.


What did we do?


We tried. . . . . . . . . .


PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION!

Yes!
Good old Public Transportation.
Or to be more exact (in pure street talk) TriMet.

Let me just say that Portland Oregon must have one of the finest, one of the BEST, PT systems of anywhere in the country.

It is called TriMet. It includes Light Rail Trains (called Max) Street Cars and then those faithful old work horses otherwise know as Buses.

WooEEEE!

We had a blast. Our Hotel Shuttle took us to the Yellow Line Transit Center. From here we could go anywhere in the city we desired. I thought it quite likely that we would be lost in a matter of minutes.

We Weren't!

It was so easy to find the correct routes to wherever we wanted to go.

The people on every train or bus we were on were more than friendly and helpful. Never once did I feel unsafe. And I know that there were a few times when we ventured into what you could call "shady" parts of town. Both on foot as well as on the train. But we never felt that we were in any real danger at all.
For years and years Don has wanted to go to Downtown Portland to just wonder around and explore the city.

And BOY did we ever.

For two days we rode those trains to all kinds of places. Never once did we have to worry about one way streets. Or which freeway we were on, or where on earth we were going to park. No worry about if we would remember where we had parked the car.

The car was safely back at our hotel after all.

Oh this reminds me of what I have come to see as a symbol of just how great an experience we had.

On the second day as we jumped onto a Max Train on the Green line, a young man called after us. We looked back wondering what was the matter.

He was holding up a key ring.

He asked us if it was ours because he was pretty sure we were the ones that had dropped it.

OOOOOOPS!

We got the key from him and thanked him profusely. We would have been in a world of trouble without that key, you see. It's the only one we've got.

I can't say enough of what a great time we had. It's been probably 30 years since I've ventured out onto any kind of Public Transportation.

Don and I have decided that we will probably make a habit of it from now on when in Portland.
Not bad for a couple of Old People in their Fifties I'd say.
In fact we were having such a grand old time we decided to stay one more night and come home on Monday instead of Sunday.

Any longer than that and I would be worried for Shawn's sanity.

As it was, the second he heard my voice he came tearing down the stairs to give me a big BEAR HUG.

Have I mentioned before what a Mama's Boy he is?

So that is how I spent my weekend. It was a really good time and I already feel like planning our next get away.

I doubt I will too soon though.
I think I just might write a letter to Portland TriMet and let them know just how much we enjoyed their services.

What do you think?