Around Eugene

Tuesday morning we headed to an old favorite of ours (and many other people we suppose).  None other than Brail’s, well known for its fast and greasy breakfast.  Good waffles, bacon, and good sausage.  TJ joined us and gave us the lowdown on the city and county’s budget problems (hello 4-day school weeks and no police).


After breakfast, we headed to Trader Joe’s that we have missed so much since moving from Oregon.  We mentioned as much to the cashier as we were checking out and he let loose that they were opening a Trader Joe’s in Salt Lake City later in the year.  Once the story was corroborated, we had reason to celebrate.
After Trader Joe’s we headed back to possibly our favorite restaurant in Eugene, that of La Perla.  The fococia al Beppe and Gianni brought back fond memories of many dinners here.  We have since attempted to duplicate their roasted garlic offerings, we great success!
Next we headed to Alton Baker park to show Frankie the ducks and other water animals.  Unfortunately, there’s a new fence nearly all the way around the pond and of course we got rained on.  Good fun either way.

The Foresters hosted a wonderful BBQ dinner for us and some other friends from ORI.  Kathy even brought out some old baby toys that Frankie enjoyed playing with.

To Eugene!

Monday morning, we headed out towards our old hometown of Eugene.  We visited ORI and Alan’s old office and colleagues, and went to lunch with Kathy at Newman’s fish market. In the afternoon, we met up with our friend Chris and went to the international café area at 5^th Street Market. We had the best carrot cake and cocoa from Marché. Eugene lived up to our memory and managed to rain on us this day (and subsequent days we visited Eugene).



We met up with Chris again that evening to go to our favorite sushi place, Sushi Domo!  Good stuff, including some of our favorites like the crazy roll!

We then crashed at TJ and Kathy's house after a nice catch up session. Tiny guy was just tuckered. 

Corvallis

It turns out that Salt Lake isn’t the only place where many businesses are closed on Sunday.  Corvallis’s “downtown” is nearly dead on Sundays.  Not many places open, but we were able to find lunch at the Old World Café.  We had a nice walk through Corvallis and then got to see one of their nice co-op’s.  We also got to visit one of our favorite grocery stores, Market of Choice, where we got fish for the evening’s meal. 

After dinner, we wrapped up warm for a walk to the University Campus where we had dessert at Yogurt Extreme.  This was the first self serve frozen yogurt experience for any of the three of us.  Tasty flavors and tasty toppings.

Around Portland

Saturday morning, we picked Jen up and headed to meet Rita and Josh at Portland’s Saturday Market. It is always entertaining to walk around Portland and see the crafts at the market. After the market, we all loaded up and drove to have lunch at Escape From New York Pizza, some of the best pizza on the planet.  Next, we walked around the 23rd area, stopping at Moonstruck to get chocolates. We saw a tree branch fall right behind a skateboarder and everyone around commented at how lucky he was to not be one second behind.

Next, we stopped at the new Saint Cupcake after going to the old one despite our GPS’s instructions. We actually drove past the new one first (as I’d programmed it into the GPS), but thought it was either something else, or just a second location.  But alas, the original (or at least previous) location is gone!  It’s now replaced witha “coming soon” to be called simply “Fish Sauce”.  Appetizing…
Cupcakes loaded, we headed South for Corvallis, home of the Beavers and our friends Kevin and Laurel! We arrived to a warm welcome at their new house and had home made pizza, mmm tasty!  Frankie enjoyed their cat (Zorra) and the awesome, non-barking dog (Tess).

Arriving in Portland!

Continuing our drive to Portland, we headed out after acontinental breakfast.  We stopped atMultonomah Falls and were amazed at how humid and muggy it was, stepping out ofthe car.  As we later heard from friendsin Portland, it had been unusually muggy the past couple days, and the waterfrom the falls was only adding to it.

It was hard to take pictures of Frankie at the falls becausehe couldn’t take his eyes off the lower falls.
Pressing on, we made it to our hotel at the Residence Inn, unpacked, then headed back out to meet our friend Jen at an old favorite, Beta Lukas (Ethiopian).  We all shared the veggie platter and then headed to Pix, a dessert place where we each got a treat.  Alan had the “Concord”, a chocolate taste treat.  After Pix, we went back to our hotel and witnessed Frankie’s first crawling. As my Grandma Dorothy said, "put him down in a strange place and he will crawl!" He went back and forth on the carpet going after a metal fork.
Later in the evening, we were able to meet up with our good friends Rita and Josh at our favorite food carts at 12^th and Hawthorne.  We got Perierra Crepe’s and Potato Championfries.  Yum!

Roadtrip begins

Let the road trip begin. Our bags are packed, Frankie’s things are packed (pack and play, check, diapers, check, toys, check), and we’re ready to go!

We started our trip Thursday afternoon hoping to make it as far as the Idaho/Oregon border at Ontario, Oregon.  The drive went pretty smoothly and Tiny Guy had a good time.  We stayed at the Sleep Inn and saw a pretty purple sunset after we unpacked.

2,200 miles and a tiny guy...

Here is the plan:

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