Portland Road Trip

We were lucky enough to head down to Portland Friday night for a quick road trip. Adam (of Adam+Kris, and SweetJuice) emailed a few of us Seattlites last month to say, “You need to come visit. Here’s a list of shows we’re playing.”

Well, how do you argue with that?

So, the stars aligned, childcare was found and at 2pm on Friday, Todd picked me up from work and we were off!

I’d found the Ramada Inn at the airport for a mere $49 a night, so that was the original plan. You know, go the cheap route, save some money.

Oh, but you know Rae-rae don’t go the cheap route. I ASPIRE to go the cheap route, but in the end, I am a snob.

I booked the Hotel deLuxe two days before the trip and just happened to forget to tell Todd about that change of plans. Until he was driving into Portland and I had to tell him, “No, we’re not exiting here. We’re exiting downtown.”

Wha…?

I am such a good wife.

And not only is the Hotel deLuxe simply gorgeous, it has a theme – 1930’s and 40’s movies. Because my husband is a movie guy. Get it?

Who loves ya, baby?

Anywho, we checked into the hotel (free valet package!!) and changed clothes, then headed out to have dinner with one of Todd’s high school friends and his family. They went uber low key and ordered take out from an Italian place, so it was a nice, casual introduction.

After a lovely dinner, and lots of stories from high school, Todd and I took off to see the show.

Adam and Kris always, always rock it. I am never disappointed when I see them play. It was nice to have Todd finally get to experience one of their long, live shows, too.

As always, Adam wanted us to come up and play one of our songs, but since our songs aren’t really ready for public ears, we declined. But they still invited me up to take the lead on “Promises”.

And this was after three gin-n-tonics so you KNOW they love me.

(And now that they FINALLY have a bunch of videos up on YouTube, you have to watch them do "I Row the Boat". Holy crap, I LOVE IT. Adam is OWNIN' that guitar! It's one of my favs.)

At about 11pm, Todd started fading (poor baby was up at 5am) so I actually took the responsible route for a change and started drinking water so I could drive us back to the hotel.

Look me! All mature and crap!
That’s what happens when you get married.
So I hear…

We made it back to the hotel after taking a couple of wrong turns downtown because that little map that the hotel gives you just doesn’t cut it when you have no idea where you are. Thank goodness Portland uses the grid system/numbered streets like Seattle.

The next morning, we up somewhat early to check out and meet another old high school friend and his wife for breakfast.

Side note: Todd went to high school in Palo Alto, California and yet he has….um….6? friends up here in the Pacific Northwest. That’s not including their spouses, who may or may not have also gone to school in Palo Alto. I have never run into a person who went to my high school in Huffman, Texas. Go figure.

After breakfast and quick visit to said friend’s lovely craftsman home, we hit the road and headed back to Seattle. And believe it or not, it was a straight shot. No stopping to gas up. No pee breaks. No stretchin’ the legs.

Straight shot.

We got home about 3pm to find Uncle Gavin and the kids playing a game, and Aunt Michelle curled up on the couch reading. It was a lovely, Saturday afternoon. After Gavin and Michelle went home, Tyler retired to his room, Kayleigh got picked up for an overnight, so Todd and I made some dinner and watched Ray (after watching the CMA Awards for an hour and making up naughty adult phrases for the sparkly hot pants that Carrie Underwood was wearing – my gawd, to have legs like that!).

Since we’d been up way later than usual the night before, and drove straight for three hours that afternoon, we were in bed at 10:30 and sawin’ logs by 11pm.

It’s official – I am no longer a party animal.
It’s very sad.

What’s not sad is that I slept until 10:30am on Sunday! I had my earplugs in so no amount of banging in the kitchen or gunfire from Todd’s Champions game could rouse me. Once out of bed, I wanted to start my day with walk, so since Todd was busy flying around and throwing things with his buddies, I called Stephanie. To my amazement, she stopped what she was doing and came over to walk my 'hood with me. For a whole hour.

I felt very healthy.

After the walk, I piddled around the house a little, played some guitar with Kayleigh, then got cleaned up so I could dash off to my hair appointment. See previous post.

Once home, there was dinner and Buffy and finally, bedtime.

I love bedtime. I wake up looking forward to bedtime. I don't think that's such a good thing, is it? That's called depression, huh? I should work on that.

This week is already a colorful mess on our Google calendar, but there is a prize at the end. The Super Bowl! Or, as I called it in my email to a few friends The Semi Okay Bowl. Our football season sucked, so this really isn't a "super" bowl for us. But I am very excited to watch the Saints in their very first one. Even though Peyton is a hoot in those commercials, I would love to see the Saints crush 'em.

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I just went over to see if Todd put up a post today. And he did the same thing I did - lay out the weekend for you. Lucky you - you get both perspectives!

At least we don't do this every day, huh?