Eugene

For Father's Day this year, Bob wanted to go to Eugene for a little road trip. You know - get out of town for a mini-vacation.

After I came back from the airport (seeing Katya off for the summer) I packed all the bags and assorted baby accessories (the smaller they are the more stuff they have) into the Durango (best car EVER) and we headed off towards the West.

Well, that road to Eugene is one of the prettiest drives I have ever taken. It was green ferns, green pine trees, green, green, green the whole way (actually once we got past the reservation it was green). They must get a LOT of rain to have that much green. It was beautiful. It takes a little over two hours to get to Eugene from Bend. It is a mountain pass so the road is only two lanes and you can only go as fast as the cars in front of you.

Eugene is the home of the University of Oregon (go Ducks!) and is the closest big city that we have. Portland is the next largest, but it is more of a four hour drive. However, Eugene seemed pretty darn big to us after living in Bend for a while.

We stayed at a Phoenix Inn on the outskirts of downtown and it was really nice. Bob and Alexis got to do a little swimming in their pool to burn off some energy from sitting in the car for so long. Afterwards we just walked around downtown and tried to find a place for dinner. There were a lot of people on bikes and I guess they have miles and miles of bike trails all around the city. To me the city wasn't anywhere as pretty as Bend because there were still a lot of those sterile cement squares all over the place called buildings. They have the charm of a box of cat food.

One thing they do have is a beautiful river with lots of beautiful bike trails and an amazing playground. After checking out of the hotel, we headed over there for a nice long walk and some playing. We wanted Alexis really, really tired before we put her back in the car to head home.

Before we left town I had to do a little shopping! We hit the Toys R Us there and picked up a few items for the babies. Alexis got a sit n spin (she thinks of it more as a stand n spin), some play doh, finger paints and jumbo crayons. Logan got a Bumbo seat and a couple of little toys that he is enjoying trying to hit with his hands. We found out from the store manager that Toys R Us bought some land here in Bend so hopefully we will have our own store soon!

They also have a Trader Joes. Man, I miss that store! Bob dropped me off and I ran in to get a few things. I grabbed some marinara sauce (so good and only $1.60 a huge can), cereal, applesauce, doggie treats, cookies, mini carrot cakes, cheddar popcorn and some tangerine juice. We munched on our goodies all the way home. We should have our own Trader Joes no later than Spring 2008. They have already begun construction on their new building in front of G.I. Joes. Yeah!

It was a fun trip. Short, but fun. Next we need to explore Salem. I understand there isn't a whole lot there, but I would like to check it out nonetheless. Hopefully Bob won't be as allergic to Salem as he was to Eugene. He had the worst allergies the entire time we were there and he didn't have as much fun as he could have had he not been in a Benedryl induced fog.