On the Labour Day long weekend, we took a short driving trip to Portland, Oregon (4 nights). We left Vancouver on Friday night at 6:30pm and came back on Tuesday late night. On the way down, we were expecting heavy border waits but to our surprise, it was the shortest border crossing we've ever had - 10 minutes. Since it was already evening when we drove down, the kids were mostly calm and very well behaved. We stopped once for a break and it took only 5 hours to get to our hotel! Wow.
The 1st day, we took advantage of the free breakfast at the hotel (had great selection including cereals, bread, waffles, muffin, egg, bacon, sausage...) and we were ready to rock by 10am. Our first stop, shopping at the outlets! No tax. We managed to buy some kids clothes and a few things for each of us but unfortunately, the stores there were only so-so and we didn't feel like driving another hour to a different outlet mall so we called it a day. The kids mainly sat outside where all the rides were...
I didn't look into restaurants for the trip so we mainly ate at fast food places and the restaurants by our hotel (Sweet Tomato and Applebees). All the McDonalds there had Playplace (play area for kids) and boy, did the kids love it. They wanted to go to McDs all the time. We discovered Sweet Tomato on our very last day and the food was very good, nice selection and pretty healthy. Too bad as we'd have eaten there more often.
On our 2nd day, we marched towards the Portland Children's Museum. I've read mixed reviews about this place and decided to check it out anyways. it's basically a little exhibits such as water works, pet hospital, dig pit, clay studio. It's more for younger kids I think as even Jas was a bit too old for it. Julia had a fun time. They loved the ball shooting thing at the entrance of the museum (check the video). You stick the balls into the hole, shut the door, push the button and the balls shoot up into the air! The kids played with this thing for 20 minutes.
On the 3rd day, we went to the Oaks Amusement Park... the highlight of our trip! Both Rich and I love rides. The kids too. Oaks is like a mini-Playland in Vancouver except without the high prices. The regular all-day-ride pass is only $15! For kids, only $12. And for the Labour Day special... only $9!!! Yay! What a nice surprise. We would have gladly paid full price.
It took about 1.5 hours to get there (traffic) but so worth it. We got there around noon and basically went on non-stop rides until 7pm, when the park closed. The kids didn't even want to leave. I lost track of how many rides we went on, some we didn't take pics or videos of (like roller coaster, bumpy airplane, boat ride). Check out the video. Everyone had a blast.
For our 4th day, it was time to drive home. We had to make stops at Costco, Target and Walmart though to buy our TVs, pillows and other junk. We also noticed that Julia wasn't feeling well, not eating well and she started throwing up while we were driving. We had to make many pit stops, to use the washroom, buy food, stretch legs... It took us over 10 hours to drive home. Boo. Oh, and the border crossing was also only 10 minutes! But best of all, no tax!
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