Portland - Take 1

Let me just start by saying that I am exhausted. We were gone for 48 hours and spent roughly half of them driving.

- We rented a car to go, hoping for something more economical than my lovely Suburban. We ended up with a Nissan Rogue. It got 26 miles to the gallon. I guess not everyone's idea of 'economy car' is the same. (It was still better than the 'burb I suppose but I have gotten up to 24 mpg with it so only a slight trade up in my opinion.) We left Fairfield shortly after 5 a.m. on Thursday morning.

-You know we got an early start on the day when Adam saw the first sign for the $50,000 Silver Dollar Bar and asked if I wanted to stop there for lunch so I could walk around for a while, then looked at the clock and realized it was just after 10 a.m. so lunch might not be appropriate yet. :)

-Scariest bathroom award goes to the Flying J at the junction of US-395 and Highway 26 in Eastern Washington. After we got back in the car, Adam said "Are we on an Indian Reservation and don't know it????"

-I may or may not have had to pee every 100 miles. Traveling with a pregnant woman is possibly worse than with a child.

-The tree farm west of Umatilla is awesome.

-The Umatilla Army Depot is perplexing. It goes on for miles.

-Hydroelectric dams on the Columbia make dams in Montana look pathetic.

-The Columbia River Gorge = breathtaking.

-Arriving in Portland at 5:15 p.m. on a Thursday = not awesome rush hour traffic. Staying in a hotel right in downtown Portland = you get out of it really soon.

-Downtown Portland is a maze of one way streets. If you're really lucky, the gps will constantly tell you to turn the wrong way down them, making you 15 minutes late for your appointment with the neurosurgeon.

-Visiting the Portland Temple and OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) is a great way to spend your morning. OMSI sounds really grown-up. OMSI really is more kid oriented. It should come with a warning label.

-Being seen at the clinic attached to a medical school means you will be seen by 15 people during your visit there. Our medical student was awkward. Her resident was down to business. The 'real' neurosurgeon was fantastic - said he had been waiting for Adam. (Nice to know he's not just a name on the paper but maybe I should be concerned that he made that much of an impression?) We also saw a nurse and the surgery scheduler then got sent down to the pre-operative medicine clinic where we saw a CNA, had bloodwork done, and then met with a nurse practitioner who explained everything about the surgery and surgical prep we needed to do. In all, I think we were at the clinic for 2.5 hours.

-Surgery is scheduled for the 26th. They said the prognosis is very good and that where the tumor is they won't even have to touch the brain.

-The drive home was relatively uneventful. I drove through a good chunk of Washington, all of Idaho and into Montana while Adam slept. I listened to 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen which kept me thoroughly entertained and bored Adam to sleep.

-We finally got home at 5 a.m. Now I get to rest up to do it again in two weeks.