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Today was a good day for playing in traffic. (Kids, that's just an expression - don't try this at home!)  After we pried our eyelids open this morning and did our little household chores, we decided it would be a good day to run some errands around town, and maybe try to figure out some routes.

 

I had some reservations about driving the pickup truck around in Portland, because some of the streets in the older parts of town are quite narrow.  For example, there are streets where it is actually too narrow for two-way traffic to maneuver past parked cars.  Quaintly, Portlandiers pull to the side behind the parked cars and wait until you've gone through the tight place!  They, like, take turns!  How strange is that?!?

 

Anyway, it hasn't actually been a problem slinging our truck through these little neighborhoods.  So I've gotten quite a bit less timid since we've arrived.  It probably doesn't hurt that the truck is kind of intimidating.

 

So this afternoon, we set out to:

 

1)  Figure out the best route from our apartments in Tualatin to Morgan's house, using I-5, which I otherwise avoid.  This would be step one if we were called to take Morgan to the hospital when Aaron is at work.  Step One: go pick up Morgan.  Took about 20 minutes.  Have to work on that - maybe rely on the intimidation factor more?

 

2)  Go to Powell's book store on Hawthorn, and have lunch at The Cup and Saucer (slogans:  Same Day Service and Serving Portland for 15 Flippin' Years.)  We realize that this is something we probably wouldn't do if Morgan were at her house having contractions, waiting for us to come take her to the hospital, but we were flexible today in as much as this was just an exercise.

 

3)  Try out route 'A' from Aaron and Morgan's house to the hospital.  Now, we're smart enough not to go to just any old hospital, but to the hospital where she actually would go for the delivery of the baby.  We just got on Burnside and headed west.  This may not mean anything to those of you who don't know Portland, so let me explain that, while other streets may seem more direct,  Burnside is a better choice in as much as it has a bridge across the Willamette River.  Also, for us, it's good because it doesn't require any turns.

 

Again, about 20 minutes.  Total elapsed time from Tualatin to hospital (with no stops for books or lunch): 40 minutes.  Add maybe 10 minutes more for actually getting Morgan from the house into the car ... pretty good, depending on the timing of those contractions.  We can do better, people!  We would strongly encourage Morgan to start having her baby when Aaron is at home.

 

4)  Go get a replacement light bulb for Karen's sewing machine.  Again, something we probably wouldn't do right after dropping Morgan off at the hospital.  If we needed another light bulb, we'd probably wait until we had walked her into the building.  Anyway, just in case, we bought two.  This required us to find Beaverton Town Cneter, and within it, the sewing store.  Score.

 

5)  Get Mike's glasses fixed.  The temple piece had fallen off earlier this morning.  I thought about using the traditional masking tape to fix it, but I already am wearing shorts, and Crocs with Sox, so I don't think my dork quotient could stand the hit.  This required us to find the nearest Lens Crafters, which was located in the Washington Square Mall in Tigard, which we accomplished in only three tries.

 

You may shocked to learn that this mall looks almost exactly like Chapel Hills Mall in Colorado Springs!  What are the odds?  There are even many of the same stores there!  Unfortunately, Lens Crafters doesn't service what they sell, but they referred us to a little old man who fixes spectacles.  Unfortunately, his shop was back in Beaverton, only about a mile from the sewing machine place.  Oh, well.  I am now wearing the successfully-repaired glasses, so apparently, all came out okay.

 

By this time, end-of-work rush hour was underway, and the temperature had reached 95 degrees.  So, I intimidated my way into rush-hour traffic, and pretty soon, we were back in our apartment, sweating profusely (I knew you'd want to know that.)  We hit the pool, and we were cool.

 

And that, as they say, was that.

 

Pretty long "News" today, so no headlines.

 

Love you all ... more later!