| | I had a wonderful trip to Oregon!! It was so great to see Amanda again and to get to know Tyler better. We managed to squeeze in all sorts of local site-seeing sorts of things as well as plenty hang-out-at-home time, watching movies, chatting, and catching up! Not sure we could've done much to better schedule our time if we'd tried!
The first day (Saturday), we went to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm, which happily was still in full bloom. Got lots of great pictures, most of which turned out considerably better than I was anticipating, given what I saw through the view-finder on my camera!
Sunday morning we went to church, and then out for lunch at a great little diner, called The Sassy Onion. The menu was a bit like Egg'lectic, but a bit more Ma & Pa atmosphere. My omelette and hashbrowns were delicious! In the afternoon, we went to the Willamette Valley Vineyards* for a wine-tasting. There was also a jazz concert going on, that we'd contemplating attending, but the tickets were $20 each and we just never quite got around to it. Turns out, we got to listen to it while doing our wine-tasting, plus the guy we worked with was awesome and hilarious! I know Amanda got a picture of him, but I don't seem to have gotten a copy. May need to do that, just for posterity! I ended up buying a bottle of some really yummy dessert wine (of course, the last time I bought a bottle of really yummy wine after doing a wine tasting, it wasn't nearly as good as I'd remembered it when I had it at home...I have higher hopes for this bottle!). In the evening I subjected treated Tyler and Amanda to a viewing of the inestimable Puma Man! Tyler tragically fell asleep, and while Amanda admitted to being entertained, she did express a lack of desire to ever put herself through it again. Silly girl.
Monday we slept in later than planned (well, Amanda and I did...Tyler had to get up early and go to school - tee hee). After Tyler got home, we went to the Oregon Garden, nearby. We took the much-recommended tram tour, which was fine and we learned a lot more about what we were seeing than we would have otherwise, but, despite going approximately 8 miles an hour, it was just enough to create a breeze that I think may well have qualified for registering windchill temps! By the end we were all sort of wishing we'd thrown on a pair of long underwear before heading out, but the weather was much more comfortable when we were just walking around! Lots of lovely flowers (not as many as the tulip farm, of course, but a bit more variety  ), but much of it was not much to look at this early in the year. The rose garden, for example, which consisted largely of a lot of dead-looking sticks in the ground. Still, it was fun, and we wrapped up the night by heading home for Tyler's homemade gyros (yum!) and a viewing of all 5 hours of the BBC Pride and Prejudice! I honestly don't know the last time I watched that all the way through, but it's been a long time! And it made me happy. 
Then Amanda and I stayed up way too late chatting, realizing it was our last night, to the point that I actually never went to bed. I had a 5:30 a.m. flight out of Portland, about an hour away, so we needed to leave the house around 3:15 to get there on time! (Tyler definitely earned some brownie points there!!) I didn't feel THAT tired through the whole process, but I fell asleep on the plane as soon as we were off the ground! I had a layover in Seattle, a mere 35 minute flight away, so that didn't amount to much of a nap, but I was sound asleep again as soon as I was on my flight out of Seattle. I remember the safety spiel beginning, but I think I was out before they finished...I don't even remember take-off! Who sleeps through take-off?! I woke up briefly when they turned the seatbelt sign off, to recline my seat, and then was out again until about 45 minutes before landing in the Twin Cities! I've *never* slept that much on an airplane before!
So, all in all, a great trip! I'm so glad I was able to go! Pics here!
* Tangential story: As we were driving around downtown Salem on Sunday morning, we passed a number of things called "Willamette _______." At some point either Tyler or Amanda said something to the effect of "Just down the way is what is known as the Willamette Valley," to which I replied, "Of course I know that! I did play Oregon Trail in elementary school, you know!"
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| | Posted 4/30/2009 11:55 PM - 7 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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Glad to hear you had a good time. I get you NEXT WEEKEND!!!