#55 November 20, 2021 Vancouver, Washington, 2 Week Visit to Jeremy, Andrea and Quinn, Waterfall Hike, 1 Bedroom Airbnb.

Here we are on Saturday in our Brush Prairie Airbnb.  Behind me is the one door into the main room combined living room and kitchen.  Darrell is enjoying the comfy recliner.  We flew Tuesday from Huntsville, Alabama to Portland, Oregon.  The airlines (Delta) kept changing our flight time from our original tickets until we got into Portland at 10:30 pm, not our original time of 5pm!  We had already planned to spend that first night at a hotel near the airport with a shuttle.  On Wednesday we slept in for us to about 5am local time, got a pretty good cup of coffee in the hotel lobby.  It is Portland, Oregon where the coffee is usually really good!  We put on our winter coats and walked about a 1/2 mile to a breakfast place we found on Google.  Airport Cafe was very clean and operated by a senior Asian couple.  The food and prices were good.  We took a hotel shuttle back to airport, got our rental car, drove back to our hotel and checked out by 9am.  We Googled to find a mid-morning pastry and another cup of coffee in Portland before heading north to Jeremy and Andrea's place in Vancouver and about 20 minutes drive.  On that Wednesday afternoon we checked into our airbnb.

Here we are on Saturday morning in our airbnb with our self-made breakfast of eggs, sourdough toast, jelly, coffee and orange juice for Darrell.  Andrea, our daughter in law has become quite a good cook over the years and has prepared amazing dinners for us that she serves early around 5pm, as Quinn is accustomed to going to bed around 5:30 and sleeping a full 12-13 hours!  It is dark all of those hours now.  There has been a fair amount of rain and some sunny days during this first 3 days here.

On this Saturday, the sun came out and Jeremy found us a doable hike in Oregon that he and Andrea have done in the past.  Silver Falls State Park was still a few miles from this lunch spot we stopped at in Silverton, Oregon.  Because of the pandemic, masks are required when you are not seated, or you are going to the restroom, etc.  Andrea is feeding Quinn a peanut butter sandwich that she brought for him.  He has a healthy appetite and also had snacks of banana, cheese sticks, milk and applesauce!  He is just past 14 months old, and sweet as can be!

This is Jeremy and Quinn after changing him from carrying on his back to his front.  It was such fun to see Quinn's very happy expressions as he took in the views of each waterfall!  He seemed to feel the energetic high from nature!  We walked down and up about 5 miles in total.  Jeremy got a work out, as we all did, but he gets the prize for carrying the baby!  When we did get back close to the car, and got Quinn out of his pack, his legs were jelly!  We still drove in the car for about 90 minutes back to Vancouver.

Darrell and me with the exhilaration of big waterfalls, one after another!

Andrea entertaining Quinn in his car seat with his 'Chuck Bear', a child promo gift from Chuck's Produce market!

When we got back to Vancouver from our hiking day, it was about 5pm, pitch dark and we were all tired and ready to wind down for the evening.  Darrell and I took off for dinner out at Planet Thai.  This is a picture of my soup.  It was just right to warm me up.  Also is a partially eaten spring roll that we ordered as appetizers.  We also got a pot of jasmine tea.  We were chilled and in need of deep warm which we got.  Below is the picture of Darrell's Thai Clam Chower! lol!  Yes, Thai Clam Chowder is a thing and he enjoyed it!