Goat kart racing

In our 1.5 months in Portland, we have really adopted to the local culture.  We shop at farmers markets, buy  lots of local cherries, act overly friendly to everyone and have adopted greener modes of transportation.  You can see our newest method of travel, using our neighbors goat (Spike) in this video: 

http://1drv.ms/1EuscTb

Last Day On the Trail - a Hike in Rainier

As you may know, we arrived in Portland Monday night (07/06/15).  After 82 days of travelling and driving over 7,000 miles (not to mention Dad flying 4,000 miles), our trip on the Oregon Trail has concluded.  While our Big Adventure continues, it shift from sightseeing to getting settled in our new environment.

Pictures from our journey are forthcoming, but in the meantime, I wanted to share this video from our last morning on the road.  Our final stop was Mt Rainier National Park and our final hike in the park was in search of Snow Lake - a backcountry lake accessible by a trail with a lot of stairs.  Unfortunately, while the hike was recommended for families, no one thought that 200+ dirt/mountain stairs each way is way too much for little legs (I had to walk - Amelia rode in the backpack).  We never made it to our final destination, but we did make it to a much closer lake (still a 1.5 mile hike + the .75 miles extra we did trying to make it to Snow Lake).  Yeah, Alpine Lake Swimming!  On the way, Amelia and Dad shot the following video of the hike - I thought it was cute and wanted to share.  Click here to view the video.  The white blob you see in the background at 1:07 & 2:01 is Mt Rainier - it dominated the skyline and we were on a hike going away from it. 

Peace out & See you in Oregon,
Phin

A Visit to Papa's Work

Despite the boring title of this blog, on Friday I had a super exciting visit to Papa's work.  For those that don't know, Papa works at a very large construction company.  He gets to travel all over (by car and plane) and see really big machines.  At his office, they have 2 very, very, very large parking lots full of all sorts of cool trucks, diggers, semi's and other equipment.

As we drove around the lot, I took pictures of the various equipment that I saw. 

This dump truck is for sale - only 14k miles

Ahh, watch out an oversized load... hehe, it was parked and we drove by it

Check out all of these graders.

You can check out all of my Phin taken pictures here.

Peace out,
Phin

Dad Goes On an Adventure Without Us

As many of our readers may know, while we have been in Milwaukee for the past three weeks, Dad was in Portland looking for a house and causing trouble.  While I skyped with Dad on a regular basis (to make sure he was not causing too much trouble), I was so excited to pick him up at the Milwaukee airport earlier this week.  After we got him, he shared a few details about his trip - photos of which are included below.  You can see his general Portland photos here, and pictures from his hike around Mt St Helens with a friend here.

At a waterfall

Drinking Pickle Brine (that's Gross!)

Hiking around Mt St Helens

Glad to have you back Dad, so we can continue the road trip.  After another week or so in Milwaukee, it's off to South Dakota.

Peace Out,
Phin

You still need to look good, even on the road

Just because we are on the road, does not mean we should look "shlumpy," as mom would say.  For the past three weeks, our wagon has been hitched in lovely Mequon, Wisconsin at Nana and Papa's.

While there, our Chicago family has come up for a couple of visits (and we've gone down there too for dinner).  During one of these visits, we go 'all dolled-up' and Cousin Lisa from Felise Pomerantz Photography.  Here are a few of my favorites; but you can check them all out here.

Peace Out,
Phin