Mother's Day Weekend in Portland

I thought that, since Father's Day is only a week away, it'd be fitting for me to post about our Mother's Day weekend in Portland. This weekend can also be known as "The Weekend We Decided to Take a Break from Traveling Thanks to Finn." 

Mike suggested Portland for Mother's Day since it's only a few hours away.  There isn't a ton to do in the city, but enough downtown and the surrounding area to make it worth a weekend trip, so I eagerly agreed. In the weeks leading up to our trip, I pictured a few different scenes.

1.  Us strolling down very hipster streets with our smiling one year old looking out from his stroller.

Reality: Mike and I walking down the street, Finn trying to escape from his stroller so he can crawl around and a homeless guy begging for money.

This is not a bad selfie. It's me taking a picture of  a man WITHOUT HIS PANTS ON.  Why?????

2.  Mike and I sleeping soundly in a king size bed as Finn slept soundly in his pack n play. 

Reality: Finn waking up multiple times throughout the night. I should have known that this would be the reality because he never sleeps well when we travel.  Actually, he never sleeps well, but that's 

another post. 

3.  All three of us enjoying a nice, leisurely Mother's Day brunch full of mimosas and savory breakfast foods.

Reality: Us waiting in line for 45 minutes to get in to a brunch place, which meant Finn had used up all of his patience before we even got seated, so Mike and I spent the entire brunch rotating walking around with Mike.  I did get a mimosa though. 

4.  We would arrive home and Finn would be happy to play with his toys and stretch his legs after a few hours in the car.

Reality: Finn screamed anytime I put him down or tried to let Mike (his father who he normally adores) hold him. 




My peaceful and relaxing weekend that I imagined never happened and I think we have both realized that traveling with a one year old is not relaxing.  There is a difference between a trip and a vacation and this was definitely a trip. That being said, it wasn't all chaos.  There were a few moments of fun and funny, which were much more appreciated after lots and lots of crazy.

It was colder than I expected and I had left Finn's jacket back in the hotel room.  I wrapped my sweater around him thinking he would last two seconds before he pulled it off.  Instead, he rode around like a little old lady with her sweater wrapped around her for about ten minutes before it fell off and I wrapped it around him again. Repeat. 

Mini Stonehenge

There were some pretty streets and the weather was gorgeous.

My best friend Karen's boyfriend (did you follow that?) recommended Powell's bookstore and it didn't disappoint.  It's a huge bookstore with shelves and shelves of books.  Mike was less than impressed and just kept saying "I've got my kindle," while I was restraining myself from buying every book in sight.  In hindsight, I should have told him I would just spend the rest of the weekend there.  Peace and quiet and books. What more could I want for Mother's Day?

We did buy Finn a few books, though.  One was used, one was on the banned book list (Moo Cluck Baa), and this one.  Guess who picked it out for Finn? :D 

Brian, Karen's boyfriend also recommended VooDoo Donuts, which has all sorts of donuts made fresh.  We went Saturday morning and were so hooked we returned for a second bite on Sunday!

We passed by Finnegan's Toy Store.  The toys were a little too old for Finn, but still exciting!

We went out to dinner one night and Finn spent the entire dinner staring at the baby girl at the table next to us.  It cracked us up!

We spent Saturday afternoon wine tasting which was as wonderful as it seems, especially since Finn napped through most of it!

And, despite his poor travel behavior, Finn had many moments that reminded us how much we love him and how lucky I am to be his mom. 

The Last Few Days

If you've been following along and made it this far, props to you.  It hasn't been consistent and it's probably been a little boring at times (just like our trip!), but it hopefully was interesting and the pictures were hopefully pretty! 

Our last few days weren't the most exciting or touristy.  The big highlight was stopping in Salt Lake City to see one of Mike's friends from high school. We also stopped in Boise, which is supposedly up and coming.  Unfortunately, we had spent all day driving and Finn was WIRED, so going out to dinner was a poor idea and we paid for it by having a child who refused to sit in a high chair.  Oh well.  I feel like I can't complain because he was such a good traveler for the majority of the trip.  Boise was cool though.  Such a good stop. 

One last Chick-fil-a (the closest one to us is at least a half hour away)

This was fun. 

We spent a lot of time in hotels and luckily one had a pool!! Finn and Mike went for a little dip :)

When we finally made it to Washington, we all let out a sigh of relief and I may or may not have cheered. Even though we still had a few hours to go, it was still pretty exciting.  Our GPS would say "welcome to (insert state)" every time we crossed a state border and this was definitely a well-received welcome!

Driving across country was an item on my bucket list and I didn't know if I'd actually ever be able to actually check it off. It was an incredible experience and it made me realize how beautiful our country is.  I also feel like I learned a ton about the people and the different cultures of our country (people in the south really are extremely friendly). There were definitely some things that got old (eating out, living hotels, the car), but at the same time, I feel like we could have spent an entire driving and stopping and still enjoyed the trip. It was such an amazing experience and I can't wait to do it again when we move back to the East Coast (fingers crossed!!).

Day Seven and Eight:Amarillo, TX and Albuquerque, NM

Day seven was probably the least exciting day of our travels.  We spent the night in Amarillo, TX and the most exciting part of our stop was the chain steak house that we had dinner at.  Actually, it might have been the Target run I made for swim diapers. Needless to say, Amarillo left a lot to be desired.

This is pretty much what Amarillo and the surrounding area looked like. 

The next day, we were excited to hit the road and end up in Albuquerque because we were meeting up with fellow Olmsted Scholars.  Will did his Olmsted experience in China and ended up marrying a Chinese woman! They are now stationed in Albuquerque and were great hosts.  We tested out our hiking backpack as we did a little hike and took in the desert scenery.  I think it's actually really pretty in a weird kind of way.

We had great New Mexican food (basically Tex Mex, just eaten in New Mexico) and walked around the Old Town of Albuquerque that evening.  It was so great to meet Will and his wife and have a personal tour guide around the city.  As much as we like traveling with each other, having friends to show us around is always exciting and welcome!

Day Six: Oklahoma City

One of our goals for this trip was to check off as many states and places that we hadn't been before.  Both Mike and I want to get to all 50 states at some point and this was a great trip to make some progress on that goal.  We knew we should stop at places that we wouldn't travel to on their own, which is how we found ourselves in Oklahoma City.  

I don't think either of really knew what to expect from OKC, but we both LOVED it!  We walked around the Bricktown area which was fun and hip, went to Toby Keith's restaurant, and Mike even went to a basketball game.  The weather was beautiful, the people were friendly and Mike and I were pleasantly surprised at how cool this city was!

The riverwalk was perfect and scenic.

Isn't this cool?  This train had paintings of famous people from Oklahoma!

We both thought OKC was such a fun surprise and wished we had more than just an afternoon to spend there.  Way to go Oklahoma!  You may treat your teachers poorly and might not have much going for you outside of the city, but OKC was a fun treat!

Day Four and Five: Memphis and Dallas

We went back up to Tennessee and checked out Memphis, but not before we drove through the little town of Tupelo, home of the famous Elvis Presley! 

Elvis' home!

Tupelo pretty much summed up everything I pictured about Mississippi, but it was pretty cool to see the birthplace of Elvis.  After driving through Tupelo, we made our way to Memphis where we would be staying the night. 

We had heard great things about Memphis and the music scene, but honestly, we weren't that impressed.  Maybe it was because we were with Finn and had no plans to enjoy the smokey nightclubs, but we both were left feeling a little disappointed.

We walked along the water, checked out Beale Street, and then headed back to our hotel for the evening so Finn could burn some energy.  We were thinking we would go to Graceland, but it was $40 a person and neither of us like Elvis THAT much.

Graceland

Thanks to my grandfather, we knew to make a pit stop at the Peabody hotel to see the ducks march.  We got there a little before five which was a mistake because we only had room to stand in the back.  Some people looked like they had been there all afternoon waiting!

We called it an evening and headed back to the hotel.  I think we are glad we can check Memphis off the list, but it definitely wasn't our favorite.  Oh well.

The next day we had a long drive from Memphis to Dallas.  Both of us have been to Dallas before so we didn't venture into downtown (we were staying on the outskirts), but we have friends there so we had dinner with them.  It's always fun to see friends!

Thanks for meeting up with us Fi and the Bowdens! Despite Finn's face in this picture, he was glad to meet/see you all!

Day Three: Birmingham, AL

We knew from the start that we weren't going to take the most direct route to Washington, but a little detour to Birmingham proved that point pretty well.  One of Mike's room mates from the Academy is from Birmingham and is stationed a couple of hours away, so he came up to meet us for dinner.  

Before we met up with Nick, we had a few things to do.  We wanted to do laundry (the puke clothes from earlier in the week were in desperate need of washing), go to the grocery store, and let Finn crawl around before we sat down at dinner.  While we were wandering around town, I found this rock!  It's part of the The Kindness Rocks Project (check them out, so cool!!).  I wish I would have thought about bringing rocks to leave in each place we stopped, but it was fun to find this one!

Nick suggested this taco restaurant and it didn't disappoint! It was absolutely delicious and it was so fun to see Nick! Finn fell asleep about a half an hour into the meal, but we know that he loved meeting his Uncle Nick.  Birmingham and Nick were well worth the detour!

#besties

Day One: Harrisonburg, VA

Aaaaand, we're off!! 

We checked out of the Navy Lodge, jumped in the car and headed south as we began our trek across country.  We were excited, Finn wasn't screaming and didn't have a fever for the first time in days, and we seemed to be making good time.  All of a sudden, we heard some coughing, looked back and Finn was puking everywhere. Lovely. Just lovely.

We pulled over, cleaned up the mess, Googled "car sickness in infants" and "ear infections cause motion sickness," and continued on.

This was one of our longest days so we prepped ourselves and Finn with lots of snacks, toys and podcasts to keep us entertained.  For the most part, Finn did great! He had Cheerios and lots of toys, so he stayed entertained until nap time and then he napped. I moved back to sit next to him for the last couple of hours.  I needed a change of scenery as much as he did! 

The long drive was worth it because this was our view!!!

We walked around (a very cold) campus and introduced Finn to his future alma mater (don't tell Mike!). Most of the students were on spring break, but we ran into a group of students taking pictures with James Madison and it took all of my energy not to bombard them with questions about their experiences. 

Finn was clearly loving his time on campus.

Three of my favorite guys!

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After spending all day in the car, the thought of making Finn sit in a high chair at a restaurant was extremely unappealing, so we ordered Dave's Taverna gyros to the hotel.  Let it be known that Dave's is much better after 10:00pm and when you're under the age of 25 :)  Regardless, I went to bed with a happy heart in one of my favorite places.  Day one set the bar high, but day two helped channel another one of my loves. 

PS at the rate I'm posting, we'll make it through this trip by the end of 2018. :)