The final chapter of our trip!!
Saturday morning we packed up and said goodbye to our little campsite.
Rory and her hiking stick.
She used this stick walking to and from our campsite. Every day she would stash it in a bush where it would be waiting for her when we got back from our day trip. And then she would use it to hike back to our campsite. She would only leave it behind on the last day if I took her picture with it.
We left the campground and went back into Portland...our plan was to picnic in Washington Park this time and then perhaps hit up their Farmer's Market. However, Saturday in Portland is way different than a normal week day! It was so crowded in Washington Park we couldn't find a place to park anywhere!! It was absolutely insane! I hate crowds...it's a big turn off to me. We ditched our plan to picnic in Washington Park and decided to not even try the Farmer's Market...we knew parking in the city would have been a nightmare too. Perhaps if we had a local with us who knew the shortcuts and how to navigate a little better we could have succeeded. But after a long week, none of us were up for fighting with crowds.
We decided to head more into the burbs and found a really nice park for our picnic with easy parking.
Much better.
While at the park we booked a hotel in The Dalles (yes, that's the name of the town, THE Dalles). It's a little over an hour east of Portland. We thought we just get a head start on our drive to Boise. And we all liked the idea of getting to the hotel to chill, swim and SHOWER!
But before leaving Portland we were about to get on the freeway when we all saw the Portland Tram. On a whim, we decided to check it out...just one last thing before saying our final farewell to the city.
The tram is basically for commuters, it connects the hospital to the Oregon Health and Science University. They have a balcony at the top to lookout from and the views are beautiful!
You can just barely see Mt. Hood in the distance.
After the tram we all loaded up in the car and made our way out of town to The Dalles.
We found a very authentic Mexican place for dinner and then we swam the rest of the evening.
The next day we drove to Boise and then home.
It's funny because a lot of times people will say to me, "Oh my gosh, how do you do those trips with so much driving with a big family?!"
I won't lie...driving long distances is super hard with kids. Reality check: We have fighting, we having yelling, lots of whining...you name it, we have it. Everything will be going smoothly one second and then all hell breaks loose the next...and I have no idea what triggers it. It's just life. My kids aren't perfect...and I"m definitely far from perfect. Often times I'm convinced that every road trip we do it takes a year off my life from all the crazy in the car, ha! But, it's all worth it! I wouldn't trade these trips for anything!!
This trip was full of brand new things for us and definitely an adventure, never knowing what to expect from day to day. We had some hits and we had some misses...but as a whole everyone had a blast!
We all give our Portland/Oregon Coast trip a big thumbs up!
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