This morning we woke up around eight and headed next door to The Wild Goose for breakfast. Mum had a cinnamon roll and a slice of cheese and I had a small order of bacon & eggs. Most importantly…we had coffee – good coffee. After packing up the car, we headed downtown Ashland and then north up US-99 towards Medford where we met up with I-5. We continued up the Interstate, getting off briefly in Tri-City to grab some necessities for lunch, and then continue on our way. The drive was quite uneventful, and by one o’clock we were pulling into downtown Eugene, and heading to our picnic spot.
Two years ago, we discovered Skinner Butte Park, a hill rising above the city of Eugene and our go-to picnic spot in Eugene. Mum grabbed a picnic table while I grabbed the food and my camera. As I have done for the last two years, I took some pictures before I sat down to eat. What I had forgotten from our prior visits was the wasps that like to fly around while we ate. I am not a fan of anything that flies and can sting or bite me – wasps especially. I attempted to get my salad put together so I could eat it – several times forced to walk away from the table (and my food) to avoid the wasps. I then decided to try to eat standing up while holding my food – this did not work either as the wasps continued to follow me. By this point I was swatting at wasps, jumping around trying to get away from them, and general looking quite spastic from what I understand. Mum sat at the picnic table; laughing at me and telling me that I was lucky that she didn’t have my camcorder. Although I didn’t care what I looked like, I am glad that I didn’t end up of Youtube.
After lunch, we checked into our motel and relaxed for a couple of hours before heading to the mall. Our shopping trip only yielded one shirt for me from Macy’s, but it was a nice break from the hecticness of travelling. By this time is was almost dinner so we jumped onto the highway and went to the Outback in Springfield. We, of course, ordered a bloomin’ onion to start. Mum had a 6 oz. sirloin and I had the chicken tacos…well, I ordered the chicken tacos – I couldn’t eat them. I took one bite and all I could taste was the seasoning on the chicken and cilantro. Rarely, in the fifteen years that I have been going to the Outback, have I had a meal I didn’t like – unfortunately, today was one of those meals. I mentioned it to the waitress, who took it off the bill and bent over backwards to make sure there was nothing else that she could get me. As Mum was almost done, and anything I would have grabbed would have been to go, I didn’t bother ordering anything else. I still had leftover Bloomin’ Onion and bread so I wasn’t too upset – if there had been onion issues that would have been a different story.
We got back to the hotel and spent a couple of hours googling and youtubing broadway songs and watching reruns on the Food Network before heading to bed. Tomorrow we are heading to Portland, and may or may not, stop at Woodburn Outlet Mall. It will depend totally on the number of people there – as it is Labour Day, it’ll be a crap shoot.
Thank you for reading and I will talk to you soon.
L