Highlights from Oregon

Highlights from Oregon

After the incredibly timely and incredibly long Las Vegas live blog, I figured that I would just summarize the Oregon trip in 4 brief highlights inter mingled with 4 interesting facts about Oregon.

Day 1
Highlight:
Well Day1 pretty much consisted of traveling. We flew out of ORD and arrived in Portland at around midnight just a short 3 hour drive through the mountains and we were there. I guess the highlight would be our new GPS that we got. When you are exhausted and on a road you are not familiar with it is very nice to have an overly helpful navigator always barking out directions. Also fun you can mount to the inside of your airplane window and see where you are and get all sorts of fun info about how fast you are going

Fun Fact:
Montana is huge… Seriously it is ridiculous. It took half of our trip just to fly over Montana.
Also Oregon is cougar country, so watch out young men.

Day 2
Highlight:
After sleeping in everyone finally made it up and went to the bouncy house. Basically just a bunch of those inflatable carnival games in a big carpeted warehouse. The Entry is $5 for children, but then adults can bounce for free… FOR FREE. Apparently they thought that the adults would be more interested in watching their children. FOOLS. Anyway after a couple of hours of running through the obstacle course and throwing young children around the bouncy things with reckless abandon for their safety I was kind of tired. Also I got sent to a time out by my niece. The time out consisted of bouncing with them in the bouncy castle the concept may be lost on them.

Fun Fact:
When you move to Oregon you are given a choice of 2 vehicles. 1) Any kind of Subaru 2) Pickup truck (a big one probably 4x4). There are still some stragglers out there, but it is only a matter of time before the overwhelming peer pressure catches up with them. Volvo’s may be substituted for Subaru’s with a written justification.

Day 3
Highlight:
In the morning we hiked to the top of pilot butte. It was a good hike and a great view. While we were up there the kids ran around aimlessly and then we hiked back down for nap time... sweet nap time. That night we went to an 80s party. Outfits ranged from elaborate Crocket and Tubs to 80 prom dresses to numerous 80s rock T-shirts Extra Credit was given OEM 80s wear. As a bonus my tight rolling skills were still as honed as ever, even on Caras bellbottom jeans(not meant to be tight rolled).

Fun Fact:
Oregon does not have any sales tax. So when you got to buy something that is $19.95 at Target your bill is 19.95. It is kind of weird buying stuff.

Day 4
Highlight :





We went to the park with the nieces and played on all of the playground equipment, and learned to count our way across the monkey bars in several different languages. I think I may have led the children astray on the German counting, but who really needs 11 of anything. Then there was a Sly and the Family Stone cover band in the park. We laid on blankets in the sun and took it all in while a woman on the stage in a white wig twirled and marched around to the music. I think she was with the band, but who knows. We ended the day with a cookout with Cara’s cousin who also lives in bend and her daughter and played “ladderball” “hillbilly golf” “boloball” that we had spent a ridiculous amount of time driving around trying to find earlier that day.

Fun Fact:
You are not allowed to pump your own gas in Oregon. It is all full serve by law. I don’t really know what the point is and it is kind of frustrating when you do not know what is going on and you just want to get some gas. Maybe it is some sort of job creation thing or maybe it is a safety thing, either way it was all kindof weird. Also do you tip the gas fillers? Should you get out of your car and talk to them? Do you get out of your car at all?
Excerpt:
Gas Guy (GG): What do you need?
Me: Gas?
GG: How much?
Me: All of it… Fill’ er up (I knew that phrase would come in handy eventually)
Me: (giving the gas guy a wad of bills) thanks.
GG: Uhh you have to take this inside with this ticket
I took the ticket inside with the same wad of bills. There was a group of about 4 people standing in the vicinity of the cash register. I asked them if they were in line and they said they were waiting to pay for gas (yet they were not doing anything). A couple of seconds later the cahier said #7. I looked at my ticket and there was a large 7 on it. I exclaimed “That’s me”, probably a little too loudly and w/ more excitement than anyone was used to. I paid and gave them the ticket, and then as I was walking away was informed that I needed to take the now stamped ticket back to the Gas Guy. [sigh] I had already moved my car, so I drove around the station lot a couple of times looking for the guy. All in all I would have rather just gotten my own gas.

The real question is what to the Oregon people do when they come to Illinois. Do they need some special instruction on how to pump gas when they get here. Well at least if I looked marginally retarded trying to deal with their gas system they will look equally retarded when they get here.

Day 5
Highlight:
We went out to breakfast in the morning and then drove back across the mountains to some wineries. We stumbled on a nice free one right at the beginning with an awesome view of the valley. Then we tried a few more that were not as good or closed. The GPS we got nuvi200w performed admirably for the entire trip, then as we were trying to get to one of the wineries it took us through the parking lot of another winery and then into the vineyard. The roads got smaller and smaller till eventually we were just driving through a field. I am sure that if we kept following it we would have gotten out eventually, but we opted to turn around. We ended up going to a different winery where there was a rather inebriated group from Boston. Nothing like a bunch of drunk asses to make you look like a responsible wine coinsurer.

Fun Fact:
The Portland airport has FREE wireless, and happy hour specials $2.50 microbrew pints, and $3 gourmet burgers… and happy hour goes from 5 – midnight. It is weird not to be screwed in the airport. But bottled water was still $3 so I guess it is all relative. Also note that if you are trying to check luggage with wine in it United will make you buy some stupid box to put it in.

Bonus Fact:
The Oregon flag has two seperate sides. The back side has a picture of a beaver, much to the shagrin of all Oregon middle school boys.

Vegas Baby... Vegas 3

Vegas Baby... Vegas 3

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Lesson of the night... never pay full price for anything in Vegas. So tonight we decided to take in a couple of shows and dinner. We got a package deal for dinner, some drinks an impersonator show and a trip to the top of the tower (more later). All told it was fairly cheap and a good time. then we had a coupon for another show later in the evening. We got all signed up and got all of our tickets, then Cara signed up for the casino rewards program. All we had to do was lose about $10 and then we got a free admitance to the "romance lounge" and a buy 1 get 1 drink ticket.

The impersonator show was pretty good (Elvis, Some Country guy, Rod Stewart, Agularia and, Michael Jackson). It had its highs and lows (I'll let you guess), but over all it was pretty good, and we got free drinks while we were there. The dinner was about what I expected. Then we went to the second show which had 6 things that John loves: Classic Rock, Magic, Acrobats, Vampires, and Light Show. After that we went up to the top of the tower "the tallest structure W of the mississsippi" It had some awesome views. We went to the romnce lounge which was a bar on the bottom of the wig sphere looking out on the city. the 1/2 price martinis were about as much as normal in champaign, but WTF its vegas, and you are really paying for the view. Well I have to turn off this horrible movie w/ freddie prinz and ving raims. L8R

BTW the wig sphere did not have any wigs but there was a wig store right out side... It is only a matter of time.

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Tonight was a whirlwind night before leaving las Vegas. We went to see the fountians at the Belagio which were pretty cool and free :). Cara found some tickets to a free magic show that we were intrested in. I was skeptical ♫Nothing gets you nothing♫. As we approached the hotel which was off of the strip the density of people deccreased exponentially. When we got there the place seemed kindof shady.

We sat in the lounge and had a beer while we contimplated our next move. while we were there there was an older couple fiddiling with some sound equiptment on the other side. Behind us some woman one a small amount of money on a slot machine. Unfortunatly these machines did not actually pay out directly. She went to get someone to open the machine and give her the money. At this point the elderly gentelman got up and introduced himself his wife and his friend, and informed us that they would be starting the keroke now.

Exerpt:
Old man (yelling to the bar): "Hey can you turn that music off"
no response
Old man (louder): "HEY! would you turn that music off"
Old mans wife: "Honey I think it is the TV"
Old man: "HEY! would you turn that TV off"
Old friend: "I actually think it is one of those slot machines" (it was)
(Old man begins singing)
Epilogue: The woman who was playing the twight zone slot machine, after she realized that she was inadvertantly causing all of this comotion slowly packs up her things a cashes out. The bartender came over to give retrieve her winnings from the machine, or at least the remainder of her losings. The old man never realized what had transpired, but seemed happy that the noise was gone. Cara and I mad a hasty exit.

The whole experiance was kindof sureal, like we had some how entered some alternate retirement home version of vegas.

After that we went back to the strip for a delightful dinner at a parisian cafe in the Paris casino. It was probably the best meal we had the entire time and was very reasonably priced for Vegas. We waxed extatic about our time in actual paris and enjoyed the short respit from the hectic rush of the strip. Then we hectically rushed next door to a varity show we had gotten half priced tickets for. There were some pretty awesome jugglers, gymnasts, and some awesome short shows with some fantastic special effects, at one point I was slightly concerned the theater might burn down. After that we made a slow retreat to our hotel past the throngs of day labourers handing out prostituse playing cards (they may have been advertisments, i did not ask), and tried to get some shut eye for our long day of travel.

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This morning we made a 30 min trek to get some free Starbucks that Cara had a coupon for. I tried to point out that, while we were on vacation our time did still have some value, but it was nice to get some fresh air and excercise before being confined (not unlike the gymnasts) to a very small space for the next 10 hours. On the way back in I still had $10 in chips that I figured I could either lose or win big. I played couple rolls of craps, and a couple hands of blackjack and lost it in no time. I did not win a single hand in blackjack.

We tried to make one more trip to the lazy river, but alas it was closed. So we splashed around in the wave pool for a bit and then went to pack up. Caught our shuttle and hurried off to the airport. At one point going through the security area there were no slot machines around. The people in front of us commented on how quiet it seemed. I guess you get used to the constant clang of 1000 slot machines all clamouring for your attention.

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We made our flight with a few minutes to spare, and then on the connecting flight we had to run down an entire concorse get on a tram and then run down another entire concorse to jump on our plane just before it left. They closed up everything and pushed away from the gate...stopped... pulled back in... opened the luggage compartment... threw in our bag... and pulled away. We pulled into bloominton @ around 10 and our bag had indead made it. It took us some time to find the car. We had parked in the Itchy lot. We got to our car, and realized that someone had left the dome light on [sigh]. A nice gentelman helped us jump our car. Yeah Bloomington again.

So this concludes the vacation blog. I hope this has been as exciting for the 3 people who read it as it has been for us to write. OK lets hope it has been more exciting.

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Vegas Baby... Vegas 2

Vegas Baby... Vegas 2

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We made it! After getting in to Vegas about midnight (2am to those on Central time) we partied till dawn...ok, we checked out a brew pub, then gambled away $3 at the nickel slots and went to bed. Looking out our window we can see a castle (Excalibur), several sky scrapers, and a roller coaster! John was excited that our hotel has a magic shop (sigh). John says the lazy river isn't in today's plans, but we'll see. The weather for Vegas for the next week will be 83-85 for highs and 65-67 for lows. The weather forcast had a big banner across it that said NO CHANGE. You don't see that much in IL! We'll come back with more adventures!


050308 1245 CST (1045)
So since we are still kinda on central time we should be getting an early start right... Maybe it is the getting to bed @ 4am. Anyway our plan is to mosie up the strip take it all in and maybe see a show. Unfortunatly Cara is not going to let me bring the laptop down the strip so I the next update may be late. Unless... I can sneak my laptop in Caras rediculously large purse. We'll see.


Anyway Here is the view from our room, and it looks like they fired up the roller coster... Well I know where I am going to be!

050308 (1525)
Well if took us about 4 Hours to puruse the 4 hotels that are adjecent to ours. We previewed some new show on NBC about a tutor to spoiled kids. We were going to put $10 on Colonel John in the Kentucky Derby, but I did not really know what time the race was, which was ok since the finished horribly anyway. This afternoon we are going to take the monorail ♫monorail monorail♫ up north for a show and the stratosphere (wig sphere). So far in the money losing race Cara and john are tied @ $-3.00

BTW we have picts up on picasa

Vegas picts

Vegas Baby... Vegas

Vegas Baby... Vegas

Cara and I are heading to Vegas for a long weekend and to get away after her National board stuff. I thought I would include the 4 people who read my blog by posting frequent updates (live blagging) the trip. Cara is somewhat sad because she will be missing her Scholastic Bowl Teams appearance @ the state finals "GO Jaguars" but not sad enough to rearrange the trip. We have everything planned and we will be staying at the Monte Carlo (I assume it is in the shape of a giant car). We are not planning to gamble much as we each have taken a high school math class, and are aware of probability, but we will probably each get a small gambling stipend so we can at least have a competition. Lets call it $1 a piece I will post updates as to who is winning. We will probably see a show or 2, but have not made any definite plans yet.

Exciting future blogs to look forward to include:

Waiting at the airport

Layovers

more Waiting at the Airport

So check back often and I will keep you updated.

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The weather graph looks frightful, but we will see how Bloomington fairs with keeping planes in the air. I happen to know for a fact that the planes that fly our of Willard are made out of some sort of sugar based composite because whenever it rains they cancel all of their flights, but I have high hopes that the planes @ BMI are at least wooden if not Alumnium... We'll see If it does get canceled / postponed @ least we can pop over to the Scol bowl (also in Bloomington).

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More awesome transportation news I have been trying to call our pre-reserved trans from the airport to the hotel to confirm, and they have been putting me on hold for ~15 min and then I get dropped. So far I have been on hold for a cumulative 60+ min and have been dropped 5 times. Oh well I am pretty sure if they do not show up that I can figure out a way to get where I am going... It will be just like the amazing race w/out Jeff Probst.

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"Good news everybody"

It looks like all of the weather has mosyied on, and the incredibly professional [sarc] AirTran website says our flight is on time. I got a hold of the shuttle lady and apparently we did not even need to call for an airpot pickup. Also with some help from me and the art teacher Senior Fernslero there are now life size pictures of Cara to go to the scol bowl tournement.

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You know how sharks can sense fear. I think my users can sense when i am about to leave the office early or take a day off. I try not to let word get out but they all seem to swarm me 20 min before I am getting ready to leave.

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Bloomington airport is Grrrreat!

We got in parked Checked in Checked our bags and got through security all in 30 min. Also I forgot to take my pocket knife out of my pocket.

Security woman "you can't take that on the plane"

Me "I know"

Security woman " but you can put it in this envelope and we will mail it back to you at the airports expense."

Awesome

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Apparently our next flight is slightly delayed, but @ least the atl airport has a shit ton of electrical outlets. We went to a seafood resturant in the airport for some overpriced crab cakes and the worst forks ever. Seriously I went through 3 forks. I expect this from fast food, but if you are going to screw me on a pint of beer @ least give me a decent fork.

Cara says:

So I let John choose the restaurant....Cara 1 John 0. I too love Bloomington...free parking and short lines...what more can you want? Got some updates from the state schol bowl tourney. Jefferson won 1 and lost 2...to make us 19-3 for the season. I am super sad that I couldn't be there, but people have little sympathy for me when I tell them I'm heading to Vegas. We'll be in all 4 continental US time zones today, so that's something to look forward to. Tomorrow- Lazy river!