Mother of the Year

At least I was for 2 days. . . .

I love my mom!

While Kelly was gone to his motorcycle rally, http://onegreedymonkey.blogspot.com/2008/08/pnw-dual-sport-rally.html
Riley talked me into taking him and his best friend Jace to Portland to skate at the famous Burnside skate park. It was a spur of the moment trip; we talked about it on Sunday night and were gone by Monday afternoon. We drove to Vancouver and then turned east along the Columbia River for about 35 miles, ending up at Beacon Rock State Park.

Columbia River

We claimed our campsite then drove about 7 miles to Stevenson, where Kelly was at his rally, and had dinner with him at a pizza place. Leave it to Riley to sniff out a skate park. After we left Kelly we stopped to skate, then went back to our camp site, built a fire and made smores. Riley also cooked a hot dog and I have no idea how he was able to eat it after eating so much pizza.

The boys stayed in a tent and I slept on a mattress in the back of the van. (I'm kind of liking the car camping. It's cozy.) Beacon Rock has got to be the nicest campground I've ever stayed in. It was gorgeous and private, and had flush toilets and hot showers.

The next morning we crossed the river into Oregon near the Bonneville Dam and drove down river to Portland. We stopped at Multnomah Falls because I insisted the boys needed to see it. That's about all they did do. We walked up, took a picture and left.

We arrived at Burnside before noon and the boys spent the next 5 hours skating and watching some really good skaters while I took pictures, slept in the car, wrote a little, went to a bookstore with free WiFi to check my email, etc.

Here is a little background on Burnside.

Here are a couple of videos of Riley skating at Burnside and one of the really skilled skaters there.



It was a fun little trip and now I owe Valerie one of her own. She wants to go to Vancouver B.C. Stay tuned. . . .