Portland: Land of food-pods and folks with SADD

Well, we've concluded our first stop on our epic Pereyo Road Trip of what the hell were we thinking!? Family Reunions.

I love Portland. I really do. The city is filled with charming neighborhoods. Streets lined with old houses, smoke floating out the chimneys, yellow leaves blanketing wet lawns. There are so many businesses housed in unconventional places--everything from gourmet restaurants serving pho and burgers out of huts and school buses, to this dress shop operating from a double-decker bus.

The food? Incredible. And cheap! Portlanders are Pod-People. Everywhere you go you run into herds of independent food-carts, or entire blocks of huts smashed side-by-side. We ate Vietnamese, Chinese, Southern, Thai, and Italian. Deep-fried okra. Authentic muffaletta sandwiches. Tender bulgogi with homemade kimchi and Miso beef-heart hash. Uuuuuhhhhhhhhhmmmmmm. Mouth drooling...

If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend visiting Tasty N Sons for breakfast--their home-made biscuits with honey-butter, Moroccan chicken hash, chocolate potato donuts, and roasted fall-vegetable frittata were all a-mazing. Their menu is like a tapas-bar where you can pick small plates or slightly larger dishes (like the frittata and hash). Mother's Bistro in the downtown area was also very good (and very accommodating for families), but super crowded on the weekends.

I'm pretty sure I would move here in a heartbeat if it weren't for one thing: the weather. I'm forever ruined by the good weather in California and I'm not sure I could handle living in a city where it's overcast and rainy at least sixty percent of the year. Even if it's not raining, it just feels DAMP all the time. I guess that's why everyone has beards and dresses like homeless people. Sometimes it felt like I stepped into a parallel universe where I was the only person not dressed like a hipster/crunchy granola/tree-logger person. And so serious! It was hard to coax a smile out of anyone on the street, but maybe I'm expecting too much (after all, I used to live in the "Last Hometown of America", where everyone smiles). Considering the weather, I can't really blame them for their grim expressions.

The downtown hotel we stayed at, The Nines, was waaaay too nice for us, yet the people working there were so gracious and never sneered at us, even as Addie ran barefoot through the lobby cackling like a little heathen. I'll post pics of our room soon.

We visited Zach's brother and his girlfriend the first night (they, who introduced us to the food-pod religion), and then we reunited with one of my favorite people in the world. We finally got to meet her beautiful daughter (six months younger than Addie) and the girls played together at the hotel and by the riverfront. Little girls running through the rain toward flocks of geese...

Bye, Portland. Thank you for your hospitality and giving me the opportunity to wear my new rain boots!

Next stop: Seattle!

FIRST RULE OF ROAD TRIPS WITH KIDS: DON'T GO ON ROAD TRIPS WITH KIDS

Second rule of road trips with kids: There are no rules on road trips with kids.*

That means access to all forms of junk food, fast food included, unlimited hours of watching Dora and Olivia in the car, and random nap/bedtimes.

Cue "Where is My Mind" by Pixies....

Less than 48 hours later and we are miraculously alive.

Let's just give a breakdown of what's happened so far.

November 10-11:

1:00pm: We are supposed to be leaving the house to avoid Bay Area traffic.

3:15pm: We leave the house.

4:30pm: We hit Bay Area traffic. A round of meltdowns for everyone, please! First stop of the trip.

7:30pm: Addie throws up the entire contents of her stomach all over herself. We stop at a Denny's to get cleaned up and eat the most mediocre iceberg salad ever to exist on this planet. We begin the doubt the value of this trip.

8:30pm-1am: Children blissfully sleep. Too tired to continue driving, we stop at a Motel 6 three hours south of Portland. Zoe somehow slips past Zach and escapes the hotel room, prompting Zach to sprint down the hallways in his boxer shorts until he finds her on the clerk's lap in the hotel lobby.

1am-7am: With the pent-up energy of a 10-hour drive and 4-hour nap, Addie cries, kicks, and screams to go the park for six straight hours in the hotel room. The adults do not get a single minute of sleep. Louie, because he has magical powers, sleeps through the entire demonic episode. We begin to doubt the value of having children.

8am: We embark for Portland. Children thankfully sleep most of the drive, but not without a couple stops for poop-up-the-back situations. My eye starts to twitch.

Noon: We arrive in Portland. I feel like the Pilgrims did upon seeing Plymouth Rock.

Life resumes.

To be continued!

*Of course, that's only if you ignore the first rule.

over the mountains and into the woods...

Do doo do doooooo!

Behold, our son! Three months old today!

King Louie

Ok, now that that's out of the the way (kidding! I have a Louie-post on the back burner, including his birth story, but hello, I'm kinda exhausted from writing Addie's epic tale last week so we'll wait a bit), I can talk about what's going on with our family. This may all come out as stream of consciousness verbal diarrhea but I don't have it in me to sound eloquent and I'm riding a cupcake high...

We leave for our road trip tomorrow. All of us. That's: one over-worked husband, one sleep-deprived mother, one hyperactive toddler, and one very chill newborn. Oh, and a stinky dog in a peartree. Who I'm sure will vomit everywhere as soon as we back out of the driveway.

doling out books for the trip

I couldn't sleep last night because I was so anxious about what could go wrong during the drive. I don't know why but I keep envisioning that we will get into a car accident and now I almost don't even want to go...which...CRAZY LADY... everything will be fine. I just need to take a Valium and shut up. Or eat a mondo-cupcake, six inches high and filled with chocolate mousse and whipped cream from Whole Foods.

my version of Valium

thank you, Louie

I'm usually an OCD-level vacation planner, with Microsoft Word packing lists that include items for every possible contingency, but I've lost my steam for this one. Maybe because it already feels futile going into it--I mean, sixteen hours in the car with a tiny, drunk sociopath and a creature that needs to feed every three hours (but remember, never after midnight!)? I think all we can do at this point is have a good sense of humor and pray that we make it Portland alive.

We're planning on leaving the house in the afternoon so the kids nap for a couple hours, then stop for dinner and run-around time, bedtime routine, then finish the rest of the trip through the night. I'm curious how long Zach will last before he's so tired he has to relinquish the driver's seat to me...something he HATES to do. He insists that he won't be able to sleep if I'm driving so it's pointless to let me, but I doubt he's going to make it the whole way to Portland.

We will be visiting Zach's brother and girlfriend in Portland, as well as a dear friend who's daughter is close in age to Addie. I think we're going to try hitting up the Portland Zoo while we're there, and since it's Zach's birthday, he will most likely go out with his brother, the Beer Czar of Portland, to various pubs/gardens/whatever they're called. I also booked a hotel on Friday night through Hotwire, which ended up being THIS PLACE...which I'm a little worried about because it basically looks like the hotel equivalent of Tiffany's, and what will the Portland hipster-ati think of our rag-tag family as we drag ourselves into the lobby? But that's Hotwire's fault since they refuse to tell you what hotel you're actually booking until they have your money. The kids are going to have very high standards after this place which is too bad because it's probably going to be Motel 6's from here on out.

Then our journey continues on to Seattle for a few nights where we will be staying with Zach's mother and boyfriend. Zach's family from the Wenatchee area will also be driving over to meet the blessed children. The most exciting part of this stop for me is that Zach and I will get to ditch everyone and see HARRY POTTER ZOMG I"M SO EXCITED. (sidenote: I just heard on NPR that Middlebury College in Vermont developed real-life Quidditch, where people wear capes, run around with brooms in their crotches, and hurl balls threw hula hoops taped on garbage cans while shouting at each other in British accents. I know what we'll be doing this year for Thanksgiving, kids!) Oh yes, and my mother-in-law will be teaching me how to use a sewing machine she bought me for Christmas! I wish her the best of luck and a boat-load of patience because I've already taken a sewing-machine class here in Santa Clara, and I screwed up a PILLOWCASE. That's two sheets of equal-size fabric that I had to sew on three sides. And it did not resemble a pillowcase. Sigh.

Our trip culminates in Spokane, my childhood stompin' grounds, where we'll be visiting my father's side of the family, as well as Zach's dad. I can't wait to take Addie to the classic carousel in Riverfront Park and Manito Park. It will also be the first meeting between Sir Louie and his great-GREAT grandmother, Doris, AKA Granny. She turned one hundred in September. That feels weird to write, let alone say. a HUNDRED YEARS OLD. She's so funny--the last time we were there, we were watching Ellen, and Beyonce was performing when she said, "Who's making that TERRIBLE RACKET?" I love her.

The more I'm writing about this trip now, the more excited I'm getting about seeing my family. They are the whole reason we are going, and while it was tempting to put the time and money into a trip to Hawaii by ourselves, I think this is more important right now. I really want Granny to see the kids, and I know it's hard for the other grandparents as well who only get to see us once or twice a year.

I will attempt to write during the whole trip and use the blog as a journal, so when it's all done and over with, I can look back and laugh. Hopefully there will be laughter during the trip as well. I'm sure there will be.

Wish us luck!

xo Ariel