We are home from a week long visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Vancouver (Washington). I took the girls down Monday morning and we came home on Friday. Sadly, Daddy had to work, so he stayed home (thank you Skype, for our evening conversations, however). The drives both down there and back were great — no stops, other than to pull over to distribute toys and snacks to the passenger in the far back seat that I cannot reach. The combo of toys, books, snacks and a nap in the car makes the 3 hour drive very manageable nowadays!
On Tuesday, we hit the town with Grandma C via Max, the light rail train. Since the train has yet to cross the bridge into Vancouver (boo!), we drove to Delta Park and got on at the park & ride station there. We rode downtown on the yellow line, and got of near Pioneer Square. Easy peasy! The girls love to ride the train, though an extra pair of arms is definitely a plus.
Once downtown, we headed up to Finnegans Toys, three blocks uptown. The girls loved the animal statues and ponds that are right downtown (I always remember enjoying them as a kid, too!). We had to do the classic tourist photo op with Umbrella Man in Pioneer Courthouse Square (in the rain, in August, ha ha). No pictures of the toy store, but the kids had a blast. I remember going there to buy random trinket toys as a teen — they have tons of cool stuff! Its a huge store compared to the ones we go to around here!
After an hour or so of playing at the store, we headed out for some lunch. A block away from Finnegans is a new (to me anyway) water fountain, part of Director Park, which looks like great fun for the kiddies on hot summer days. Sadly, this was not one of those days, so we enjoyed it from a distance, and then ate our packed lunch out of the rain at the nearby covered tables (under a huge glass roof), which were adjacent to a lovely little restaurant…
Holy mackerel, I am so impressed with the Portland food scene!!! I’ve read things about it online and in various magazines, but its great to see it in person downtown. It is crawling with gourmet food carts and amazing restaurants that are hugely tempting for a chow hound like me. Must go back for a grownup-only food tour weekend sometime soon!
While the girls ate their sandwiches and fruit, I grabbed a cheeseburger and sweet potato fries from nearby Violetta. This little restaurant, boasting "Portland’s fastest slow food" has both indoor and outdoor seating right there next to the fountain, in partnership with the parks department. The food was ready really quickly, and prices were pretty good! They also packaged everything in compostable containers (including corn plastic cups and wooden silverware!) which was great. I should have taken photos of the food, but alas! It was gone too soon.
We then headed back to the light rail train, but the kids needed to burn off some steam so we walked (ran) for awhile. We enjoyed public art and window washers. I should have paid better attention to where the train stops because we ended up walking a little too far, and had some whiny tired kids by the time we sat down to wait for the train. But, cookies and some new little toys from the toy store pulled out on the train revived everyone pretty well! All in all, a great outing — we will definitely be doing it again!
One more with the kids and Umbrella Man, because he’s cool..
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