This week James' ship was in Portland. Portland is having their Rose festival and the Navy decided that this is a great way to show off. On the way back from Portland his ship is having a Tiger cruise. A tiger cruse is where friends/family of the sailor can ride the ship and learn about Navy life. My little brother Jonathan was going to go on the tiger cruise but last week I decided it was just too long of a drive and too expensive of a trip. We are still recovering from our Disneyland trip. Saturday morning I woke up and decided we would go to Portland. We left at around Noon. The drive wasnt bad... just long. We got to Portland at 4 and then came the fun of trying to find James. We parked and I called him and we finally found each other. We decided to go ahead and check into the hotel and find some dinner. We got lost a couple of times trying to find the hotel but we finally made it. Hotels in Portland are expensive! We walked to Denny's for dinner. At dinner I decided to text my friend Kahlene(we were good friends growing up) and ask her if I could meet up with her to say hello. I haven't seen her since like 2000. She said sure and we met up quickly to say hello and try and catch up. Hopefully sometime soon she can come visit us. By this time it was around 8 and we drove to the ship so James could get a few things he needed for the night.
In the morning we woke up and went to breakfast at the hotel. After that we headed to the ship it took us forever to find parking. Finally we parked and James gave us a tour of the ship. Then we decided to head to the mall to look around and grab some lunch. We found our way to the Loyd Center fairly easy. We looked around and had lunch. After that we headed back to the area where she ship was and see what they had going on around the ship. They had a little fair and a Saturday market. By this point we were trying to figure out if James and Jonathan would be able to spend that night on the ship... since we really didnt want to have to pay for another hotel plus they had no way to get from the hotel to the ship. I agreed to stay in town until he found out... incase he needed a ride to the ship. He made a few phone calls and finally someone else who had a tiger said they'd find out and let him know. We decided to head to dinner hoping that we might have an answer by the time we were done. We finished dinner and came back to the area where the ship was. We decided we'd just sit in the car and wait since there wasnt anything to do and I wanted to head out as soon as we knew. About an hour later we got the phone call we were waiting for and James and Jonathan headed to the ship. Finally, at 9pm I was on my way home.
After we left I called my brother in law tom and asked if I got too tired if i could stop at his house. He lives about 2.5hrs from Portland and about 1.5hrs from my house. He said that we should just plan to stop and that Carady and him would be happy to let us stay the night. We got to his house at around 11:30 and we stayed up and chatted until around 2am and by then I was so tired I passed out right away. We left his house this morning and got back home at around noon. I am so happy to be home! The trip was fun and now we are looking forward to James and Jonathan returning.
Below are some pics from our trip. See more at the "more pictures" link to the right. Enjoy.
Jonathan on the ship where James works. The poles keep the food boxes from sliding during rough seas.
Sierra in Daddy's work chair
Three Canadian ships. They are so small! The biggest one of the three was smaller than James' ship and his ship is pretty small. The two smaller ones...were VERY small. I can't imagine how many people are on them.
Sierra and Jonathan outside the ice rink at the mall. It was out of order....too bad!
