After breakfast, Bob and I said our good-byes. We made a stop at Long's for some last-minute gift purchases and Costco to fill our rental car with fuel before returning it to the airport. Our plane took off on time at 3:45 p.m. The flight was bumpy at the beginning, but smoothed out enough to sleep. Our five-hour flight seemed short when compared to the 9-1/2 hour flight from Sydney to Honolulu.
We arrived in Portland at 11:10 p.m., picked up our rental car and made it to Mom's by 12:30 a.m. Our bodies were on Hawaii time, so we stayed up until 2:30 a.m. reading.
Tuesday, December 11:
Happy birthday, Laura!
This morning after breakfast, Mom and I headed over to Michael's crafts store in Tualatin so she could buy supplies to finish a necklace she made for me with hand-painted beads. Then we were off to Costco in Wilsonville to look for jeans to fit her. We found some in her size in long. She bought two pairs.
In the afternoon, I watched three Lonesome Dove videos. I had never read the books or seen the show. I'm really enjoying it. I have one video left to watch.
Mom finished the necklace and gave it to me. It's lovely and just the right length to wear with my scoop neck tops. Thank you, Mom!
For dinner, Mom made turkey, potatoes and carrots in the CrockPot. What a wonderful dinner. The turkey was tender and tasty. She had also baked chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
After dinner, we watched a travel video on Australia. It covered some places we hadn't been and we loved it. However, I kept falling asleep with my full tummy.
Right now I've got three loads of laundry going so I'll be awake a while yet.
I thought I'd share a couple of our Australia trip events with you that I had forgotten about until we started telling Mom about our trip.
Before we started one of our hikes to a waterfall, I had to use a toilet that was in a rustic area. It was clean enough, however, when I went into the stall and closed the door, there was a huge spider (small tarantula size and fuzzy, probably poisonous) behind the hinge. I about fainted. I HATE spiders. There was no way I could use that stall. I fled to the stall next to it which did not have any spiders, large or small. Every time I went into a stall after that I did a thorough inspection for spiders before using the toilet!
I wish I would have taken pictures of the yellow highway warning signs for kangaroos, koalas, wombats, and echidnas. Those signs are not part of our U.S. or Canada highway system.
Tomorrow, Mom, my sister, Jan, and I are going to Beaverton Bakery and the Woodburn factory outlet stores. Bob is driving to Tacoma, Washington to check on our rental there. In the evening, we're meeting our family friends Kimmie and Ky and my son, Mike, at Claim Jumper for dinner.
That's it for yesterday and today.
Travel Bug out.
