Being a state employee, I get all the major holidays off as paid vacation. MLK day is a nice one because it creates a lovely three day weekend right after the Christmas holiday, breaking up the transition into the new year. We decided to use the long weekend to go check out a cool RV park I had read about in the Oregonian.

The Willamette Wine Country RV Park is conveniently located right in the middle of the Willamette Valley wine country and only a short drive away from tons of amazing wineries.

Although the location is nice, what made me want to visit this particular park was the collection of vintage restored travel trailers. The park has amassed a impressive collection of these vintage trailers, all restored, and ready to rent. Essentially, the park took one row of its available parking space, filled it with trailers, and started renting them out like hotel rooms. Each trailer even comes with two vintage style bicycles! Continue reading “Willamette Valley Wine Country” →

For Christmas this year we flew down to Texas, where both of our families live. After moving to Oregon we started alternating Christmas in Texas with Christmas in Oregon. Although it makes more sense for us to just fly to Texas (where everyone else is) than to have everyone fly up here, we kinda like decorating for Christmas and we can only do that if we are the hosts. It helps that our house has such prime decorating potential, including a vaulted living room ceiling that can house a GIANT tree. Also, Oregon has the best Christmas trees around. Seriously, if you bought one of those fancy imported Fir trees this year it probably came from Oregon (or maybe Washington). But here in Oregon, you can just go cut one of those amazing trees down yourself and probably for under $30.

A few years ago we decided to go all out. We cut down a 13 foot Noble Fir. Decorating it required an extension ladder, 1400 lights,  120 feet of garland, and nearly 400 ornaments. Removing it from our house after Christmas required using an electric saw to cut it into more manageable pieces, just to get it out the front door. Totally worth it.

This year we went to Texas. It was almost 80 degrees, which was not very Christmas-like but we had a wonderful time visiting with friends and family.

Our trip home was a whole different story.  Continue reading “Leaving on a jet plane . . .” →