Trips, Trips, Trips!!

The trips I mentioned a few weeks ago are now closer to reality. Yesterday I booked the flights for Las Vegas for the May conference. YAY!! Adult beverages shall abound and now that I'm more comfortable playing craps, I shall attempt a table or two while I'm there. Won't be as much fun as if I were going with just my co-worker (taking the husband and two sons along) but it'll still be fun. I have made myself a promise to drink myself into a stupor every day and I intend to hold myself to that. No, I'm not an alcoholic, I just want to reward myself for the seven months of Hell from 2008 when I didn't feel like walking, let alone drinking anything.

The Penner-Ash Winery near Portland, Oregon

Today I booked the Portland, Oregon flights for June. I'll be taking my oldest daughter and my two grandchildren out to visit my veterinarian son. Won't be a lot of drinking on this trip...hold the phone! I forgot! He lives in the heart of the Willamette Valley wine country and on our last trip we did some winery hopping. Penner-Ash (pictured above) was a favorite stop. Do you think it would be wrong to take a 6 and 3 year old winery hopping? I can bring along some juice boxes and they can pretend it's wine. That would be a fun role-play, don't you think? And you really can't get drunk just tasting so they won't be in any harm, right? This is shaping up to be a plan!

Drinking aside, the purpose of the visit is to let my daughter and grandkids see where he lives, his work, etc. They haven't been to visit before so it should be fun. This will be my 4th trip in about 3 years. I miss him and it's fun to go out there. It doesn't hurt that there is an outlet mall about 20 miles from his house. Not a cheapy one like we have around here, this has Tommy Bahama and other high-end stores. There is also a very nice mall nearby as well. He lives in the heart of Intel country and the upscale yuppie population have made the area a very nice place to visit.

We're also going to do some boring kid things, too, live visit the Portland Children's Museum and the Oregon Zoo. There is also talk of a trip to the coast to visit another child's spot the Pelican Brew Pub in Pacific City, Oregon. Okay, that last one could be a kid's dream! It's right on the ocean. Last time we took our beers outside and drank them with our feet in the ocean and watched a number of people surf. A kid would like that, right? Must remember to take along extra clothes - I can see the grandson jumping in.

Last but not least we'll either go up to Mt. Hood and eat lunch in the Timberline Lodge (the exteriors were used for the hotel in The Shining) or go up to Mt. St. Helens and let the kids take a look at the destruction the last eruption caused. We've been there before, on the west side while visiting some of my husbands relatives in the area, but I want to go to the Johnston Ridge Observatory on the east side and see the mountain close up.

It's a lot to fit into 3 1/2 days, but we'll make it. And there is no schedule, so we'll do what is easiest for the kids, I'm sure, before we do anything for the adults. We can always go into downtown Portland, too. There is an Illini bar there that my son goes to when he's not on call on the weekends to hang out with fellow ex-patriot Illini and have a few. We watched the Illini in the final four there a couple of years ago on a visit. Lots of fun, and they gave out Illini prizes, too. Gotta love those alumni.

Anyway, I have trips in April (conference in Peoria, Illinois), May (Las Vegas for 7 days), June (Portland, Oregon), September (conference in Chicago, Illinois), October (conference in Springfield, Illinois) and possibly one more trip with the family in August to Boston. I am a traveling fool, and I like it.