ReadySetMom

Portland area sites to see with children while vacationing

Kat, a reader from Hawaii, will be visiting Portland in the fall. She's looking for the best Portland area sites to visit with her toddler son:

I recently found your awesome blog and wanted to ask you about sites to see (I've been told there are fantastic parks) in and around the Portland, OR area for visitors with children.  I have a nearly-two-year old, and we'll be visiting in early October to visit some friends and check out the area.  Living near the beach in Hawaii, we're outdoor folks, and want to expose our child to a different form of outdoors. If you have time, could you send some suggestions?

Having just been out of state on vacation myself, I returned home to Portland on Saturday and am so happy to be home I feel like kissing our recycling bins! The low humidity, the warm but not overpowering sun, the lush green-ness of it all... Portland, Oregon is paradise to me. Today I sound like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz: There's no place like home! There's no place like home!

I won't go into too many of my personal recommendations as my brain is still fairly fried from jet-lag and over-stimulation (we went to Orlando, Florida on vacation including three hotter than hell, action-packed, expensive days at Walt Disney World). But I will say that trekking outside of Portland and getting to the Columbia River Gorge is well worth the rental car and tank of gas: see Multnomah Falls and the many other lovely waterfalls along that route, the historic highway, the dams along the Columbia, the fish ladders, etc. Heather wrote a great post about taking some of her out-of-town guests on the Columbia Gorge loop to Mt. Hood last summer.  Our beaches are also a far cry from what Hawaii offers, but beautiful and windy and wonderful in their own way.

Please chime in on what you think Kat should visit while in Portland proper and its environs.   

Spring Break: woo hoo or boo hoo?

It's coming. Next week at this time I'll be wondering why we didn't plan to go someplace warm and dry, rather than sit at home with BOTH OF MY CHILDREN whom I love very much BUT DRIVE ME INSANE when I have to be with them 24/7. (Did I just say that out loud?) I did have the foresight to get them into a morning camp at a nearby community center, but I know those mornings will just fly by like the last six years of my life. Maybe I'll take this opportunity to get down on the floor with them and play space station and make crazy craft projects and bake cookies and bwah ha ha ha, ok, ok, I'll stop. I must be thinking of someone else's mother. No, you know I love my kids and I love being a mom. But maybe the school system needs to rethink Spring Break -- I mean, have you seen those test scores? Spring Break seems highly disruptive to a young person's cognitive and social development. (What does 'cognitive' mean again?)

So what are YOU doing for Spring Break? Are you taking the whole family to Hawaii? Isn't that kind of expensive? Well, good for you! Traveling over Spring Break seems like a hassle, but right now I'd give my right arm for a plane ticket to Sacramento. Anywhere. It just sounds good to get away. If you're are staying put are you doing camps? Any fun events that we should know about?

A little distance

It really is true that distance makes the heart grow fonder. Lately I've been convinced that I have the two most obnoxious children on the planet. I found myself counting down the days to when I could escape from them...and escape I did. I went to Florida last week with my mom and brother for my grandmother's 97th birthday. No spouses or children came along because if they are too much for me to handle, then I'm pretty sure grandma would have never made it through alive.

It was fantastic. Days 1-3 went by, and I still wasn't missing them. I spent my days playing cards, drinking beer, walking on the beach, napping, looking at old photo albums...bliss. I called them every night, heard all about their days, but happily hung up the phone knowing they and I were content. By Day 5, departure day, I was missing them mightily. I wanted to feel my little boy snuggled up in my arms and hear about my daughter's adventures in kindergarten. I wanted to be back in my home with my family, obnoxious behavior and all.

It was a successful trip for everyone. I got a little distance and perspective. They spent a few days hanging out with their daddy, playing games, watching movies, hiking in the freezing cold. My husband got to experience life as a stay-at-home parent, so now he understands why the house looks the way it does and why our dinner sometimes comes from a can or a pizza box. He had a great time volunteering in our daughter's classroom, driving our son to preschool, packing lunches -- a nice break from a stressful office job. I can't stop touching them all, stroking their heads, giving them hugs and kisses, smelling their necks. It's good to be home! I'd like to be able to get away like that a couple times a year, just so I can enjoy coming home again.   

Stub Stewart State Park opens late June

Oregon's first new state park in 35 years will open this summer -- sometime in late June. It's the L.L. "Stub" Stewart Memorial State Park near Vernonia in rural Washington County -- all 1,654 acres of it! Here are some of the details listed in the Oregonian:

The full plan for the park calls for 78 camping sites with water, sewer and electric hookups; 12 walk-in tent sites; 22 hike-in sites; 22 horse camp sites, each with water, sewer and electric hookups and a four-stall corral; and 25 cabins with central restrooms and showers.

In addition, four group-tent camp areas could each hold about 25 people. Three day-use areas include one for equestrians. Crews also have built 17 miles of multiuse trails, many of them on old logging roads.

I like camping with my family -- for a couple of nights. I'm interested in checking out the yurts I've heard about on the Oregon Coast. You can't get much closer to home than the Stub Stewart park; but I wouldn't mind venturing a tiny bit farther. Any favorite campgrounds on the coast? Mt. Hood? Anywhere else?

Orcas: our island getaway

My family is days from heading to our favorite vacation destination: Orcas Island in the San Juans in Puget Sound. Orcas Island is "our" island. My darling husband first introduced me to Orcas -- it was our first vacation together in our heady dating years, and we stayed in the most romantic cabin, aptly called the "Heather" cabin. Since then, we've been back five times; the last three trips have been with children. It's pretty much the only place we go on vacation. Whenever I talk about Orcas, people always ask the same question, "What do you do up there?" It's hard to give a quick answer to that (since my favorite thing to do is sit in a chair and stare out at the water looking for the resident Orca whales), but here are some things we do with small children:

1) We always rent a house or cabin on the water. For me, there is no sense going to Orcas unless you can see water the majority of the time. When you stay on the water you often get a beach along with it, so we'll hang out on the beach (rocky, not sandy), look for shells and tide pools, throw rocks in the water, just hang out. When we're inside our rental, we're generally looking out the windows, scanning for whales and seals.

2) We usually hike the 2-mile loop around Cascade Lake at Moran State Park, which is perfect for the kids. You can also swim in the lake, but (brrr) we usually just wade around. There's also a playground! (And awesome campsites.)

3) You can rent a small runabout motor boat at Deer Harbor Marina, which we do for one morning, and tool around the islands, visit Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, and again, watch for whales.

4) Biking! My husband will hitch up the tag-along, and he and our daughter will tool around the back roads.

5) We generally go to Eastsound, the main town, everyday for groceries or just to hang out.

When the kids get a little older, we'll do some kayaking. Mt. Constitution is the highest point on the island (and offers a spectacular view), but a little steep to hike with kids, so we'll wait a few years on that. For me, Orcas is all about relaxation and enjoying the natural beauty. The interior of the island is mostly rolling hills and farmland. Bucolic and peaceful. You find yourself trying to figure out how you could possibly afford to live there.

If you're thinking about going, here are some sites with rental homes or cabins: Cherie Lindholm Real Estate; GoNorthwest; Bayside Cottages; Windermere; Vacation Rentals by Owner; Beach Haven (we've stayed here twice, but it's always booked in the summer); West Beach Resort. The only campground is at Moran State Park. It's lovely and situated right on the lake.

Of course, one of the highlights of the trip is taking the ferry to and from the island. The kids LOVE it. I'm sure there are many other great highlights I haven't mentioned. Have you been up there? Do you love it? What are your favorite Pacific Northwest vacation destinations?