Friday night after a busy full day.. Amanda and I left for Portland. We started at dark and soon she was a very snoring, sleepy copilot. I let her sleep, knowing that she could only offer emotional support and that she might get scared with all of the snow that I was experiencing. As she snoozed away I made the way up Mt. Hood. It was cold and very snowy. I stopped and went into 4 wheel drive and then proceeded to go at very slow pace. I only do 40 mph in bad conditions. I am a pretty confident winter driver as I have lived in Iowa and Utah and now the snowiest part of Oregon. It is the other drivers that scare me. Trucks barreling through at 50 and 60 mph on slick roads. I prefer to creep along, thank you very much. We were going to Milwaukie. I had mapquested things and was overconfident. Thus we arrived in the general vicinity around 11:30pm and it was suddenly a little confusing and scary. When I grew up in Portland I think it was a smaller place in general. Now it is huge.
When you watch those Jason Bourne type movies, the main character always has this amazing sense of direction at all times because the car chases don't generally involve people getting lost or turning around. Also the guy knows all the entrances and exits to every building and generally understands north and south.
I am seriously directionally impaired. North and south mean nothing to me. I understand general Portland vicinities, big freeway systems and the area I grew up in... but beyond that I become very confused. Amazingly, I was able to get us to a hotel semi close to our destination the next day. I attribute this mainly to my phone.
In the morning we went to the Elks club where we were served breakfast and the winners of each district were given their trophies. Amanda was the district champion for 12-13 year old girls. The Elks from all the State of Oregon were there in their cute little uniforms. It reminded me of when my grandma was a lady Elk. Some of the Elk officials had very elaborate hoop shoot embroidered jackets. We ate the yummy pancakes and bacon and visited with another girl from our town who was representing the younger age group. Luckily her dad knew how to get to the school where the next part of the competition was occurring. I followed him to the site. This alleviated my stress because at that point I was not directionally aware. Each of the district winners then had to shoot for the state title. Basically they got 5 practice shots. Then they each took 10 free throw shots. Then they started over again and shot 15 shots. The winner was the one who scored the best out of 25. Amanda shot 20/25 at the district competition. She has a very special free throw routine. She dribbles twice and then aims, squaring up and doing her shot and follow through. At the higher level of competition it was a lot of pressure. She ended up making about 10 of her shots. She was a really good sport and high fived many of the other girls after their turns. I could see her getting a little teary eyed when she realized that it wasn't going to be in the cards for her to win. But she ended with a smile.
We celebrated by eating at the Olive Garden and walking through the mall. Then we drove to Grandma and Grandpas house and let ourselves in their garage. We collapsed on the couch.
Sunday morning we visited a bit and then attended Dave and Karli's baby blessing for their cute little son. Dave gave a really nice blessing. He talked about choosing the right. I liked his blessing because it reminded me a lot of what we are trying to teach the kids this year in Primary. So that seemed fitting. I got to hold the baby for a lot of church. He is good baby and quite snuggly. My cousin Shellie came with her girls. They are precious. I felt pretty old because I remember Shellie at that age and now she is a young mother. We went out to lunch afterwards at Red Robin and my nephew Will stole the show eating fries and rubbing ranch dressing in his hair. The cutest part of the whole day was watching my dad walk down the steps outside the church crouched down holding my nephews little hand.
After that Amanda and I drove back home over the now dry mountain. We made a quick stop by my old house, my grade school, high school and church in the old neighborhood. Everything was still there. It was nostalgia to the max.
She was a pretty good travel buddy.
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