Portland '08, part I

In July, we decided it was time to see our Jensen cousins, who live in Portland. With all of Nate's business trips, he has accumulated quite a few hotel points, so we had free lodging. We also have zoo and science center passes for our local area, which are also good for Portland, so we had free entertainment. The only real cost to us was gas to get down there (yikes!) and listening to a car full of kids ask if we were there yet every five minutes or so. By the way, with all the traveling we did this summer--the Utah trip, the Portland trip and the Seaside trip--we discovered that the length of the car ride really has no bearing on the number of times a child will ask "Are we almost there?" You can hear just as many in a 3 hour ride as a 10 hour ride.

So we headed down to Portland Thursday, July 24 after Nate got off work. We arrived pretty much just in time to crash in our hotel room. The next day we went to load up the car to take everyone to breakfast only to discover that our battery was dead. Apparently, we had left the interior lights on all night. Woops. After getting a jump from the hotel maintenance guy, we hit Elmer's for breakfast. I have many a fond memory of meals with my Grandma Tenny at Elmer's (we also frequented VIP's and Sambo's--I doubt Sambo's is still around). The kids enjoyed their meals and voted that Elmer's beats Denny's hands down. I'd have to agree.

After breakfast we went to the zoo. The Oregon Zoo is a lovely zoo. If you’re ever in Portland, I can recommend it. They have a great variety of animals in lovely living environments (well, the primate houses leave something to be desired, but they’re apparently remodeling those) and there’s plenty of shade and easy walking trails.

The kids really had a great time except after awhile they found the walking tiresome. It was pretty hot, so I couldn't blame them.

We started out with the mountain goats.



We saw some real live ones, too, which was nice because it's rare that we catch any at our local Woodland Park Zoo.

Posing with statues is apparently the highlight of the zoo experience for my children.

Syd on a snail, I think.



Elise riding an elephant.



McKenzie hamming it up with a ram.



Tyler and mouse.



My favorite picture with real live animals.



My favorite picture of the day.



I wonder what she's thinking about.

After the zoo, we headed over to the Jensen's for dinner, but we'll talk about that in part II. It's after midnight and I'm tuckered out.