The weekend on January 10th we road tripped to Portland with the LeVines. For Christine and I this was going to be our first weekend away with Katherine and Bisco, the whole family. We packed the Volvo full of stuff for Katherine and Bisco, Christine and I shared a bag, and set off for Portland Saturday morning. The trick to road tripping with babies and dogs is to set your expectations low as to progress. Portland to Seattle is 3.5 hours at an easy pace. Unfortunately, this is longer than both babies could handle. We ended up stopping at the factory outlet stories in Centralia to feed and change. Our next stop was Fry’s Electronics in Wilsonville. Eric and Suzi picked up some electronics gear but Steve decided to just window shop and buy online. We left Fry’s at 4P and raced up I5 to check into the RiverPlace Hotel in Portland. We had arranged for a pair of nannies to come at 5P to babysit Sidney and Katherine while the adults had dinner at Lucere Restaurant.
The food at Lucere was excellent. Eric got a bunch of great Portland suggestions for dinner and breakfast from Mark Squires’ Wine Bulletin Board. A lot of helpful people on this bulletin board. Eric the wine aficionado brought an aged Bordeaux for all of us to sample and enjoy with dinner. Eric’s become quite the wine expert and we all reaped of rewards of his newest hobby.
Dinner was going great until my cell phone went off. It was the nanny and she couldn’t get Katherine to sleep or stop crying. So much for the relaxing dinner on the town. Christine ran upstairs while I gathered our dinner and had it sent up to our room. Our dinner away from Katherine turned into room service.
I’ve heard for friends that hotel operators put families into a special part of the hotel because their kids are often noisy. Well, I hope the RiverPlace has this policy because Katherine would wake up in the night and start crying. Christine and I would wake up panicked and try to quickly calm her down before she woke up the neighboring rooms. Up until now, I had taken for granted how nice it was to have a house where we didn’t have to worry about disturbing others.
Sunday morning we got a late start and had a delicious breakfast at the Bread & Ink Cafe before shopping downtown. After breakfast, Christine and Suzi headed off to Saks while Eric and I headed for CameraWorld. I used to love shopping online at CameraWorld.com before Ritz Photo purchased it April, 2002. After Ritz bastardized the CameraWorld.com site, I switched to BHPhoto.com for my online photographic purchases. I was anxious to shop for a new high end digital camera at the CameraWorld retail store (no sales tax). Christine had accidentally dropped and broken my Nikon 990 digital camera so I was in the market for a replacement (read the details). I ended up buying a Nikon D100 SLR digital camera. I own a Nikon F100 so I can reuse all of my lens for the new SLR.
After shopping, we began the slow journey back to Redmond. Katherine and Sidney had to stop several times for feedings and diaper changes. About 3/4 of the way home, we decided to stop the caravan and just make our way home at the pace allowed by our respective infants.
The first photo is of Katherine and Bisco riding in the Volvo. Bisco shared the way back with Katherine’s Pack and Play. Katherine shared the backseat with our luggage.
The next two photos are taken from our room at the RiverPlace Hotel. The RiverPlace allows a dog in the room with a modest cleaning fee. Bisco received the VIP treatment from the staff upon arrival, a welcome dog treat and doggy bowls.
The next photos are just us on the road.
