Road Trip! (Thanksgiving readers, keep on reading, I've posted a lot this morning.)

Last week, we were given free tickets to the Trailblazer/Sacramento game in Portland. Tony from Lehigh game them to us. Thank you, Tony, we had a blast. Here is a summary of our trip, which ended up not costing very much at all.

On Sunday morning, November 23, my BFH and I got up, packed and drove to Madras. We ate lunch at The Stag. We met some super nice people there, including a lady named Norma who I still need to send a pair of Indian earrings to. Several people there were wearing Jacoby Ellsbury shirts and jackets ... the local boy who ended up playing for the Boston Red Sox. Yay, Jacoby, we are so proud of you!

After lunch, we drove to Warm Springs and checked in at Ka-Nee-Ta Resort. The man at the desk was super nice to us and gave us a huge king sized room for only $81.00. In the summer the same room would have been around $160.00.

The lodge.

The casino.

View from our room.

Our room.



More of our room.

The pool. I think it is open all year ... the water is pumped in from the hot springs. We didn't go swimming, but we did use the hot tub outside of the exercise room. There is also a lounge and fine dining room, and we went to both of those. The food was sooooo good! I had a rib eye steak. It wasn't cheap, but it was very delicious.

View the next morning from our room.




The view on the drive out.



The reservation is open range.
Cows and horses are all over the place.



Little me on the big reservation.

Old church across from the little store on the way out.

Mount Hood.

View from the rest stop at the top of the pass.

Mt. Hood again.

We got to Vancouver and checked into Motel 6. It was $57.00 a night and very basic

... and was glaringly boring for only $24.00 a night less than the resort.

Cary at the door to our new room.

It was a handicapped room,

which always bugs him.

I don't care too much about getting a handicapped room,

but I always feel like I need a step stool to reach the toilet.

There was not one picture on the walls and the bedspread looked like it should be in a little boy's room, but the room was clean and the tv was good. The guy's tv next door was good too, because we could hear it through the wall next to our headboard. He was nice enough to turn it off by midnight. The pool was closed for repairs ... but it was a covered/inside pool.

We went next door to Elmer's and had lunch. And we called our friends Lee and Fran to tell them that we were in town and looking forward to seeing them soon.

We left Elmers and crossed the street to go back to our room. We were not far from our door when we heard a loud crash ... a car wreck. Cary called 911 on my cell, since he knew where we were. We walked over to the curb, and the lady who pulled out in front of the girl was hurt and could not move her arm. Two young witness girls and I went over to check on her, which worried Cary to no end; he was envisioning us getting hit too ... but we didn't. The ambulance took that lady away, and the girl who got hit was probably getting a ticket for no insurance.

She was a really nice young woman too. That's the way it goes sometimes I guess ... blame the victim.

Lee and Fran came and picked us up. Thank God they were driving ... we are used to wide, rural roads where tailgating is still considered sinful. They took us to the Widmere Brewery, were we had pints and hamburgers. Good choice, Lee and Fran. Thank you.

Then we got to the Rose Garden Arena and found out that our tickets included free food like prime rib and shrimp and dessert. Thanks again, Tony, for those $120.00 each tickets! We ate again anyway, just because it was there.

Fran, Cary and Lee

(Lee is a realtor, so if you need to buy a home in

Vancouver or Portland, give him a call.)

Fran, Kathy and Lee

(Fran writes grants and curriculum.

Sounds like cool job to me!)

There are these huge TV screens so

you can easily see all of the action.

A free throw situation.

MAKE SOME NOISE!!!

The Blazer's won by one point in the last second. It was very exciting,

and was a close game all the way through.

The next morning, we got up and drove home. What a fun trip, and it was a pleasent surprise that we didn't have to spend a bunch of money to have a bunch of fun.