#76 April 16, 2022 Nomad Diary: Vancouver, WA. Airbnb. Visiting Grandson Quinn and His Parents.

Saturday Activities

Three generations walk. Quinn is setting the pace, and walking longer distances of up to .8 miles this week! 

Gluten free Pancakes and bacon breakfast at Jeremy and Andrea's place. Darrell redeemed his pancake making from last week's flop. Today these were delicious! He used Bob's Red Mill gluten free pancake mix. 

Jeremy and Quinn on our walk. Jeremy is tall! 6'6-7"! Quinn (19 months old) looks like his Dad looked. 

Week's Highlights

Andrea and Jeremy have become amazing cooks through their 11 years of marriage.  Jeremy makes amazing sourdough breads.  Andrea spent considerable time cooking delicious dinners from scratch.  After a few days, she let me plan and prepare some meals.  

Sunday:  Worship together at Tualatin, Oregon as we reconnected with familiar faces and get to know them a little more. Lunch with Shelly and Mark, Jim and Jennifer at Oswego Grill.

Lunch with church friends. We knew Mark's sister Mary when we lived in Germany 37 years ago! 

Darrell ordered the beef potpie. It was made fancy with prime rib.  He said it was good, but he wouldn't order it again. 

I had the Salmon Power Bowl. It was delicious.

Visit to Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn, Oregon even with cold wet weather. 

Beautiful fields of flowers. 

Quinn got to ride on the tram after pointing to it over and over! I'm not sure how he knew.

Monday: We awoke to a beautiful and heavy snow fall.

Later after the snow, we had a couple of hailstorm, sleet and even thundersnow! 
Wednesday: Andrea, Quinn and I toured a Fire Station 
Most days Darrell and I ate lunch at Chuck's Produce. They have a large soup bar, a Deli, ice cream, etc. 
At Chuck's my favorite soup selection of Hungarian Mushroom and a shared Reuben sandwich. 
Wednesday and Thursday:  I cooked dinner.  Sausage Kale Soup made in an Instapot with an appetizer of cheese and crackers one night then Elk and Veggie Tacos the next night.  We saw ground elk at Chuck's and it seemed like a great option as we have enjoyed my brother-in-law's elk in the past!
Friday:  Andrea planned and prepared a delicious roast chicken dinner with roasted vegetables and green beans and Almond Flour lemon cake for dessert! 
Beautiful day for a walk at Salmon Creek Greenway.
A virtual call with grandson Owen (7months), and his parents in Alabama.  He's paying attention to me singing to him!

Nomad Notes

Now that we are retired we are able to travel on weekdays.  We flew out here on Wednesday, April 6th.  We've been here about 10 days.  Andrea and Quinn picked us up at the airport and took us to our rental car location.  We rented a car about 13 miles away from the airport and that saved us 40 percent on the 16 day rental compared to getting a  rental car near the airport.  Andrea saved us an Uber ride to the rental agency, and we got to visit too!

The gas prices have skyrocketed to double in some places, since the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Because of this our choice of an economy car was not available, and we were upgraded to a full-sized pickup truck that seats six for no extra fees.  It's an amazing upgrade especially since we learned that Quinn loves trucks of all kinds, but the gas will cost more.  A fill up at $4.05 per gallon was $84! That's the most we have ever spent at the pump for one purchase.

Our airbnb is a one bedroom apartment built in the back of a shop barn at a family's home.  They also have a Hipcamp lot and a canoe launch here.  Nextdoor is a graveyard that we went walking in and dates back to the 1860's to present.  We are a 10 minute drive to Jeremy and Andrea's.  

View of the chickens out our airbnb kitchen window. 

I enjoy planning a preparing meals now that we are airbnbing, but I am out of practice of cooking.  Keeping up with skills like cooking and driving (especially in different cities and countries) is a bit of a challenge for me that I will chalk up to the good challenges of being a Nomad!

Darrell checking out the pantry items in our airbnb kitchen. We like the pancake mix they have! 

Outside entrance to our Vancouver airbnb. 

Airbnb bedroom. 

Airbnb inside door looking down the hallway towards the kitchen. Couch is immediately to the right and the TV is to the left, then the bedroom and bathroom doors on the left also.

The weather went from 65 degrees and sunny to 40 with rain, then 30 with heavy snow. I didn't pack my hiking boots to save on weight and bulk. I do have wool layers and wool socks that should get me through these few days of cold and snow.  Both Darrell and I have rain shell jackets that we shopped for in 2020. Knowing we were going to England for 4 months in 2022, we are expecting rainy days. The shells did great at the Tulip Farm! 

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