How I spent my Saturday
There were so many options for this weekend that I thought I'd be able to at least participate in SOMEthing.
Earlier this month Andy bought some coupons to a pumpkin patch and corn maze. Coming from Los Angeles/San Diego/San Francisco, this would be a unique experience for us and we thought it'd be great outing to take our mothers out of the house for. PLUS I'd be able to sketch interesting things for Worlwide Sketchcrawl while we were out.
The night before, Andy said we're leaving at 11:30am. So the following morning I got ready accordingly and as I was finishing get ready (11:30am) I asked Andy if he had gotten something to eat.
"No, I thought your mother was cooking breakfast."
So there was a bit of miscommunication going on there. And after a bit of shouting and sorting out we sat down to a quick breakfast.
We hit the road about 1:00pm or so. The place we were going to is on an island and it's serviced by a 2-lane bridge. We noticed that traffic on the outside lane is at a crawl so we instinctively got in line to cross the bridge. Meanwhile tons of people zipped passed us on the left and cut in line up ahead. This plus Andy's mother commenting on other drivers did not help Andy's attempt at Zen-like driving. Meanwhile Mom and I started doing some menu planning for our 1yr housewarming.
Once we crossed the bridge, traffic was STILL bumper-to-bumper in both directions, and the farm was another 2 miles away. At the very least, the view was pretty. There were pumpkins growing in the open fields and some farms had cows. I tried to take pictures, but the car was moving enough to make it difficult for me to do.
We found out later we SHOULDN'T have been following those signs.
When we finally approached the farm, we immediately snagged a parking spot near the exit and walked over to the farm. We felt so lucky. It was a long walk though because Andy's mother is not so-mobile. As we approached the main area, we saw that there was handicapped and elderly parking nearby. :headsmack:
The farm was PACKED. It's like half of Portland was there. There were lines everywhere. Lines to buy food, lines to buy stuff, a line to go into the corn maze. We were at a complete loss of what to do, so my Mom went inside the gift shop to see how to redeem our coupons. I asked Andy's Mom if she wanted to use the bathroom. She said yes and we proceeded to wait in a line that was 30 deep from the building. Then my Mom came back to tell us we were actually at the wrong farm! Since all the traffic was headed to "Pumpkin Patch", we assumed that was where we were headed to. It turns out there are several farms on the island. As we were debating what to do, a worker started unloading porta-potties and fast as a new line formed, a rumor started that the building's bathrooms were really gross.
We decided to bail (and secretly hoped this other farm was less crowded and had clean bathrooms) so we headed back. We opted to bail and go look for this other farm. Walking with Andy's Mom proved frustrating. I didn't like walking too far ahead and leaving her behind, it made me feel guilty. But if I slowed down to keep her company, she'd walk even slower. It was a hair frustrating.
Andy smoothly gets us out of the lot and back onto the road. And we look for the street address of this farm. But we couldn't find it. The street numbers skip the address of the farm. So we head off the island. Which took another 15 minutes in traffic.
At this point it's about 3:30pm and everybody's a pretty hungry. We decide to eat somewhere in Portland proper since it's on the way home. But then we kind of have a brain-freeze on where to go. Usually Andy and I stop and eat near where whatever drew us into town. When it came to decide on a destination, we were stumped.
As if to make up for a couple of hours of constant, mild frustration, we pass by Andy's favorite Lebanese restaurant. And the sidewalk in front of it is uncharacteristically free of people. He dropped us off and we managed to get a table immediately. Andy scored the Magic Parking Spot right next to the restaurant. It was everything but the double rainbow, man!
We went home, carbed-out and happy. later that evening, Andy and I were laying in bed, watching the news. And THIS story comes on: http://www.kgw.com/news/Kyrons-parents-raise-search-funds-at-Roloff-pumpkin-patch-105111144.html
Well that explains the crowds, I guess. I joked with Andy ,"And you didn't even get to see the celebrity little people!"
Then the weather forecast came on and they predicted "heavy rain" on the day of our housewarming party.
:sigh:
Earlier this month Andy bought some coupons to a pumpkin patch and corn maze. Coming from Los Angeles/San Diego/San Francisco, this would be a unique experience for us and we thought it'd be great outing to take our mothers out of the house for. PLUS I'd be able to sketch interesting things for Worlwide Sketchcrawl while we were out.
The night before, Andy said we're leaving at 11:30am. So the following morning I got ready accordingly and as I was finishing get ready (11:30am) I asked Andy if he had gotten something to eat.
"No, I thought your mother was cooking breakfast."
So there was a bit of miscommunication going on there. And after a bit of shouting and sorting out we sat down to a quick breakfast.
We hit the road about 1:00pm or so. The place we were going to is on an island and it's serviced by a 2-lane bridge. We noticed that traffic on the outside lane is at a crawl so we instinctively got in line to cross the bridge. Meanwhile tons of people zipped passed us on the left and cut in line up ahead. This plus Andy's mother commenting on other drivers did not help Andy's attempt at Zen-like driving. Meanwhile Mom and I started doing some menu planning for our 1yr housewarming.
Once we crossed the bridge, traffic was STILL bumper-to-bumper in both directions, and the farm was another 2 miles away. At the very least, the view was pretty. There were pumpkins growing in the open fields and some farms had cows. I tried to take pictures, but the car was moving enough to make it difficult for me to do.
We found out later we SHOULDN'T have been following those signs.
When we finally approached the farm, we immediately snagged a parking spot near the exit and walked over to the farm. We felt so lucky. It was a long walk though because Andy's mother is not so-mobile. As we approached the main area, we saw that there was handicapped and elderly parking nearby. :headsmack:
The farm was PACKED. It's like half of Portland was there. There were lines everywhere. Lines to buy food, lines to buy stuff, a line to go into the corn maze. We were at a complete loss of what to do, so my Mom went inside the gift shop to see how to redeem our coupons. I asked Andy's Mom if she wanted to use the bathroom. She said yes and we proceeded to wait in a line that was 30 deep from the building. Then my Mom came back to tell us we were actually at the wrong farm! Since all the traffic was headed to "Pumpkin Patch", we assumed that was where we were headed to. It turns out there are several farms on the island. As we were debating what to do, a worker started unloading porta-potties and fast as a new line formed, a rumor started that the building's bathrooms were really gross.
We decided to bail (and secretly hoped this other farm was less crowded and had clean bathrooms) so we headed back. We opted to bail and go look for this other farm. Walking with Andy's Mom proved frustrating. I didn't like walking too far ahead and leaving her behind, it made me feel guilty. But if I slowed down to keep her company, she'd walk even slower. It was a hair frustrating.
Andy smoothly gets us out of the lot and back onto the road. And we look for the street address of this farm. But we couldn't find it. The street numbers skip the address of the farm. So we head off the island. Which took another 15 minutes in traffic.
At this point it's about 3:30pm and everybody's a pretty hungry. We decide to eat somewhere in Portland proper since it's on the way home. But then we kind of have a brain-freeze on where to go. Usually Andy and I stop and eat near where whatever drew us into town. When it came to decide on a destination, we were stumped.
As if to make up for a couple of hours of constant, mild frustration, we pass by Andy's favorite Lebanese restaurant. And the sidewalk in front of it is uncharacteristically free of people. He dropped us off and we managed to get a table immediately. Andy scored the Magic Parking Spot right next to the restaurant. It was everything but the double rainbow, man!
We went home, carbed-out and happy. later that evening, Andy and I were laying in bed, watching the news. And THIS story comes on: http://www.kgw.com/news/Kyrons-parents-raise-search-funds-at-Roloff-pumpkin-patch-105111144.html
Well that explains the crowds, I guess. I joked with Andy ,"And you didn't even get to see the celebrity little people!"
Then the weather forecast came on and they predicted "heavy rain" on the day of our housewarming party.
:sigh: