In our adoption process, David and I were instructed and "highly encouraged" to attend a western United States including California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii FSA (families supporting adoption) conference in Portland, Oregon. We had a few hours left for foster care training in our required training left, and we had been talking for about 2 years taking a drive up the Pacific Northwest, so we seized the opportunity to accomplish both. Here is a rough journal of our trip.
DAY 1-
arrgg- always takes longer to take off on trips, we left 2 hours latter than planned because we remembered a few more things to bring, and I missed the alarm.
Our journey begins up highway 5, with a quick stop at Denny's for breakfast- happy to admit that my moons over my hammy, and David's pancakes didn't make either of us sick as I always try to stay away from that place. We only resulted to it to make the stop fast.
After we hit Williams, Ca, where highway 20 that takes you to fort bragg meets highway 5- we were in territory neither of us had been, so we kept our eyes peeled for new scenery, and tried to get good glances and views of towns we always hear about, but have never been to, Redding, Red Bluff, and Yreka. They are all what they sound like and look like on the news, mountain towns, lots of northern, CA pine, a few redwood trees. As we passed Yreka, it was open land for awhile, and we figured we must be soon hitting the Oregon border, sure enough we saw the "Welcome to Oregon" sign. We already had seen the mile markers to Medford, OR. It was actually right near the border we got our first random rainfall, and were initiated to the eratic rainfall and then sunny weather patterns typical of the Northwest. I tried a new thing this trip, David insisted on driving most of the way, so I became the photographer for cool scenes/views from our car, and I can brag, some of the pictures turned out great for taking them from the road.
When we hit Medford, OR at around 4 pm, David and I wanted to go see the Medford, Oregon Temple, so we went straight there so we could see the Temple in daylight. It is so pretty,the smallest Temple plan, with only 1 sealing room, and is also located on the same property as a stake center. We took some pictures, and walked around the grounds. We were leaving to go back into town and when David shut the back door of our car after putting the camera in the back seat, he hit his head pretty hard on the door, enough that he got a terrible migraine. We relaxed a few minutes, and then went to eat dinner, we ended up choosing Applebees. The migraine wasn't getting any better with Advil during dinner, so David had an idea to go back to the stake center right next to the Temple, and get a blessing. We went back and there were two brothers that were in the Stake Offices that were willing and able to administer a blessing to David. We decided with a little drama to stay in Medford for the night, instead of proceding to Portland. We decided to let David chill, and get up really early the next morning and make it to Portland early before having to be there for the conference by 3 pm. We layed low and watched a movie in the Ramada Inn so David could get over the Migraine.
Day 2-
Yeah! we woke up early as planned, David's head felt somewhat better, and it wasn't raining, cloudy, but not rainy. After a contiental breakfast at the Ramada inn, we got on the road to proceed to Portland. We pulled over to gas up our car at a cheveron outside of Medford, and when we drove up to the gas pump and stopped, David got out to pump the gas, and I got out to go into the gas station to get some bottles of water for the road. We were approached by a woman, in a raincoat asking us how much gas we wanted. David and I looked at each other a little bit surprised, and a little confused why she was asking us, and who she was. It was then we learned, and were told by this Cheveron employee the state of Oregon has a law that consumers/public are not allowed to pump their own gas. In fact, you will be fined $500 dollars if you do. David and I looked at each other in shock, and thought she was kidding at first. She pumped our gas, and I got our waters, and then we continued to Portland.
The journey up to Portland from Medford was the most picturesque, and amazing with mixtures of fall colors, moss, and amazing landscape of hills and trees. There was low setting clouds, amdist alot of groves of trees. We enjoyed gauking at the scenery, and had of course some beattles music going on that David had loaded on our GPS.
About an hour and a half before Portland, our rear ends were traveling soar from sitting, we were so ready to just be there already. David finally let me take a driving shift, and sure enough, right after I started, I was in the middle of a dark, heavy down pour, but then it subsided, and the rest of the leg to Portland was nice until we hit the city.
Portland is kindof hilly, green and lots and lots of trees, and very updated and modern. They have every store and thing to do possible. It is much bigger than I thought. We made our way to Hillsboro, a suburb only about 10 minutes west of Portland, to check into the Marriott near the chapel where the conference was. We checked into the motel, and I have to say Marriott rocks for being the cheapest motel near the conference we could find! The lady said when we checked in that the hotel was brining complimentary cookies to our room, where do you find that service? After checking in, we freshened up and then went to the chapel for the conference.
Conference Friday afternoon and evening:
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