Two Best Friends On A Whirlwind Adventure

After sending the kids off to their various locations...David and I prepared for our "day" trip. I love going to the zoo. I try and make it to the zoo in every city we fly to. David, however, not so fond of looking at the animals. He was a good sport and humored me for the day. We set out for the Portland Zoo. The great thing about Portland is that they have great public transportation. You can pick up the Trimet, which is the train thingy, right at the airport. It only costs $4.50 per person for all day. Love it! So we caught the train headed for downtown. My good friend Katherine had given us a brief agenda of the "places to see" on our way to the zoo.

First stop: Voodoo Doughnuts: "Made famous for their girth." Home of the famous bacon maple bar. This doughnut really has a couple of slices of bacon on top... I suppose it would be just like having pancakes and bacon but I was too scared to try it. I ended up with a chocolaty chocolate cake doughnut. It was yummy. We did take some pics.. but unfortunately, they have been misplaced. :( But you can check out their menu here... pics and all. Be forewarned they do have some nasty doughnuts. Viewer discretion is advised. http://voodoodoughnut.com/menu.php

Next stop: Portland Zoo: This is a very quaint zoo. For its size there was a surprising amount of animals. The animals were even out in the open where we could see them. Nothing sucks more than going to the zoo and never seeing any of the animals. They have a fantastic bird show. I would def recommend it. They also have a baby elephant! Elephants are my favorite and to have this precious little gem there.. wowie. He was sooo cute (he was probably a she). David continued to be a good sport.. he moved me through the exhibits without making me feel rushed. We did come upon an exhibit that even David loved. There was a Polar Bear making a tribute to Michael Jackson. He would walk up to the top of his exhibit and moon walk back down, over and over again. Ah, our beloved 80's star. Dead. Even the Animals were mourning Michael. Next stop.. lunch er a dinner rather.

Hotlips pizza: Sort of a gourmet pizza joint with all homemade ingredients. We don't care about that too much. But I did want to try one of their home grown fruit sodas. I ended up with a blackberry soda. Interesting, tasted good. Our day well traveled it was time to get back to the airport.

PDX airport: When you get through security at the Portland airport there is this destination tree. It's this big pole with all of the arrival/departure monitors hanging around it like a palm tree. David walked up to the tree of wonders and said.. "Hey look, there's a flight leaving for Vegas in 30 minutes...Want to go?" Now, I don't typically like to travel this way and we had no overnight bag. With a small amount of hesitation; I did have to consider that this is fun stuff for David, and since he was so nice to walk around the zoo all day I said... SURE! Yes, indeed. 30 minutes later we were sitting on a plane to Vegas. Two best friends on a whirlwind adventure. A quick call to my friend Katherine; she had us hooked up by the time we landed with a room. $14.99 at the Four Queens down town! $20.00 for the night.. Hello! What more could a cheap person ask for? We jumped a shuttle downtown, dined on some great prime rib ($6.49 per plate) and marveled at the lights. Then next day we roamed around a bit, bought our usual stash of baby powder (if you are a male, you know what this is for) and headed back to the airport.
Ahhhh so fun. David would get back on a plane the very next day to retrieve our lovely little girl. woosh!

Rayce would return home on Saturday, the 4th of July. Porter would join us on the 5th. Rayce and I would have a few days of rest before we were off for Disneyland.