road trip!

Recently returned from a trip to Oregon for a wedding (congratulations, Rand & Geraldine!). It was the first extensive road trip for kiddo, us with kiddo, and our new car. Yes, we got a Prius. No, we don't have any pictures of it. Yet. And we averaged about forty-six miles per gallon, just to get that out of the way.

Ashland, Oregon – home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival which we did not attend this time around – is about 460 miles from Seattle. You can make the drive in eight hours, if traffic isn't bad and you are not traveling with a toddler. Since Yuki and her car seat still have a tenuous relationship, we broke the drive up as much as we could. We left on a Friday (the wedding was on Sunday) and drove down to Portland. One nap, one me stepping in dog crap at a rest stop, and four hours later we arrived at the home of friends Amy & Tim. We brought Seattle's own Top Pot doughnuts and Café Ladro coffee, they favored us with beer and barbecue. And Yuki got to go splashy splashy with new pal Stella.

After dinner and coffee and doughnuts and a bath, we got back on the road for a two hour drive to Springfield (Springfield, it's a hell of a town). We requested a crib/playpen for the room which, while certainly in the room, was not assembled. Yuki, who slept most of the way down, was growing increasingly fidgety and by the time we got the playpen assembled (Mimi was totally MacGyver, by the way) and her in it, she was wide awake. It was about midnight. Mimi held her while she cried for a bit and I fell asleep, fully-clothed, on top of the bed. Eventually, everybody got to bed properly and after a leisurely morning

we were on our way to Ashland. Another car nap, a quick stop at Denny's to eat sandwiches that had different names but identical ingredients, and we made it to our hotel. Okay it was really a motel. The Rodeway Inn. The groom commented that "it sounds like the kind of place where the mafia would hide a body." I didn't check the crawl space. From the road it did look like an ideal spot for extramarital affairs and/or the transfer of contraband, but it was clean and quiet and, best of all, dirt cheap. Since we were only staying for one of the two nights we reserved it (explanation later), cheap was our priority. We checked in, took a short rest, then headed down to the barbeque being thrown by the wedding couple.

It was a casual gathering full of meat and beer, old friends, new friends, and lots of Yuki running around and wearing a bow in her hair for the first time ever.

Then back to the Rodeway – after a stop at WinCo Foods (because Mimi is the only person I know who goes to a buffet and leaves hungry) – for a bath and bed, this time in Yuki's own playpen which we hauled with us because the Rodeway doesn't have cribs. Why we didn't just haul it out at the first hotel is a question that cannot be answered.

The wedding wasn't until 3:30 on Sunday so we had half a day to kill. First stop? The Farm! While I believe they had several activities available, the major focus is the petting zoo. And while Yuki was more interested in the tent poles –

seriously –

than petting any animals,

we had a good time visiting with the goats and ducks and pigs and llamas and deer and chickens and ponies and wallabies.

After lunch in Ashland we went back to the motel for a nap that didn't happen, so I ended up driving Yuki halfway to California while she slept in the car and Mimi got ready for the wedding.

The wedding was, in a word, purty. Also hot. But mostly purty.

It was held at a mansion at a winery so there was lots of ground for Yuki to run around on. During the reception, dear daughter was awfully fond of finding the hottest place available and playing in it. We tried our best to coax her into the shade.

She did take a break

but spent most of the evening doing laps around the mansion grounds.

If it looks like Daddy is about to pass out, he was. My child is a cyborg, impervious to heat or cold.

We danced together for a couple of songs after dinner, before pals Mindy and Christine took turns holding Yuki while Mimi and I danced together (for the first time in a long time, it seemed). By then Yuki was pretty spun so after a couple of songs we decided to head out (if anyone reading this was there and got cake, how was it?). We managed to get one last visit with the bride and groom who, as you can plainly see, are two incredibly unsightly individuals so I guess we're all glad they found each other.

They were honored that their wedding was Yuki's first and the groom asked Yuki for a high-five and she obliged, much to our surprise and delight. Since it was their wedding day, I'll allow that the high-five was the second-coolest thing that happened to them that day.

So it was back to the motel to pack up, get changed, and hit the road back up to Springfield. We decided not to spend the second night in Ashland so we could eat up a bunch of highway while Yuki slept. An interesting plan but she only slept for about an hour in the car before we got to the same hotel we stopped in on the way down (same room even). This time I went up to the room to check on the crib situation and there it was, in all it's put-away glory. I set it up, sent Mimi a text message that it was ready, and Yuki was wide awake again by the time they got in. We made the room dark, put Yuki in the playpen, and fell asleep to the sound of Yuki playing with Mimi's cell phone … hoping she wouldn't make any calls in the middle of the night.

After our hundred dollar nap, we were back on the road to Portland and another stop to visit Amy and her girlies (thanks for bagels!). Then it was time for the last leg of the trip which was largely uneventful.

So, that's how you make sixteen hours of driving last three and a half days.

I will leave you now with this series of photographs which makes us laugh, because the images were captured in the space of about two seconds.

The End.