One Year Trip - Part Two (Portland)

So, we left early Thursday morning to leave for Portland. I had an appointment at the Legacy Transplant Services to do my one year check-up. It is about a three hour drive from Seattle to Portland, and I needed to be there by 2. When we were about 20-30 minutes away, Mom's car gave us a warning that one of our tires were low on pressure, but since we were running a little late out of Seattle, we figured we would just check it after my appointment. I thought I would remember right where everything was, but having not been there for a year, we got a little lost. Thank goodness for Jennifer's GPS!



So for my one year check up, I have lost 20 pounds since my surgery and my blood pressure looks good. Then they had me do a urinalysis and they took two vials of blood. I found out the next day that my creatinine level is down to 0.98!! And, there is no sign of protein in my urine. So, I am fit as a fiddle! Laurie also warned me to make sure that I always tell every doctor I see that I only have one kidney, because none of my levels give that indication. I basically just had two amazing working kidneys! I am so proud of them.

After my tests, Elisabeth met up with us at the hospital and we went to see my name on the wall. Wesley had sent my pictures of it back in February, but I had wanted to also see it for myself. Here is the wall:






After visiting the wall, we walked to the courtyard about a block away where the Annual BBQ for Legacy Transplant Services was honoring the people who have given and received kidney donations in the last year. They served us a very healthy lunch, and then proceeded to give certificates to the people who gave or received kidneys. Elisabeth got Wesley's for him since he wasn't able to come. Overall, the BBQ was a lot like graduation, but at least Legacy pronounced my name right.

Sidenote: It says that they have done 920 transplants so far. I believe that Wesley and I were #884. It only said on Wesley's certificate and not mine, so he can correct me if I'm wrong. Just in case people were wondering.

After the BBQ, we chatted with Elisabeth for a while longer before she had to go back to work. Then we walked back to the car to drive to the boat. On our way, someone honked at us and told us that our tire was really low. I had pretty much forgotten about it. So, we started looking for a gas station on our way to the boat, but after a stretch and we still hadn't found one, we pulled over at a McDonald's to have a look. Our tire was completely flat! We found the spare in the trunk, and Jennifer knows how to change a tire, but we couldn't find a jack. I called Mom, and Elisabeth, and Dad and then Eddy to help me. While Eddy was looking up where the jack should be in the car, I found it in the manual that the Insight has a secret compartment on the side of the trunk that holds the jack. Right as we found it, a nice guy named Steve offered to change our tire for us! Thanks Steve!



After the spare tire was on the car, we continued on our way to Elisabeth's boat. By then, it was after 6, so we knew there was no place open that late that would fix our tire. We decided that we would take it in the morning to be fixed. We found the boat relatively easy after that. (Meaning we only passed it once!) We unloaded our suitcases and went down to the boat. As we were about to climb on, the neighbor lady came to have a look at us and said, "Can I ask what your doing down here?" Elisabeth had warned me that this might happen, and that I should just say that I was her sister staying on the boat for a few days. She warmed up to us after that. So, we loaded all of our stuff onto the boat and then took off again in search of dinner. We were really tired, so we just went to the Subway that was close to the island and the 711 to stock up on snacks. We ate our food on top of the boat, enjoying the night and the river scene, until I had to smack a spider off of me. Both of us being scared of spiders, we went back inside after that and went to sleep.

The next morning, we had a lot more people come around to see who the hell we were and why we were on Elisabeth's boat. I think I talked to at least six people and had to explain to them that I was Wesley and Elisabeth's sister and we were staying there until Tuesday. One man I passed after my shower, saw that I got onto Elisabeth's boat so he sent his wife over to see who we were. Wesley says they are a very tight-knot boat community. I didn't really mind. I think it is great that everyone there is looking out for Elisabeth. I explained to everyone that my friend Jennifer was staying on the boat too, so she didn't answer nearly as many questions as I did. She is braver than me too. I almost skipped showering because the first shower I tried had three spider's above it. Luckily the other one didn't, so I showered in there. Jennifer sucked it up and showered with the spiders, but there is no way I could have done that.

After we had gotten ready, Elisabeth came and got us and lead us to a Les Schwab for us to take our tire int o be patched. We found a staple in it, so we were hoping that we would only had to get it repaired, rather than buy a new tire. We left the car there and jumped in with Elisabeth. Less than a block away, we found a Baskin Robbins, so we stopped to see how we compare. I don't think that I mentioned that we also did this in Seattle.





The Portland one was better than the Seattle one, but neither one compare to the Utah ones. :)

After taking some pictures and spying a bit, we got back on the road. The plan for the day was to head out to the Outlet stores outside of Portland and do some shopping. I went a little overboard with how much I bought, or rather, how much I put on my credit card, since I really didn't have any money. My excuse just is that I am not used to finding so many cute clothes that I actually think look good on me. And, after losing as much weight as I have, not a lot of what I own fits me anymore. I'll post more pictures as I wear more things, but here are two examples of what I bought:

I bought this cute hat and a couple others from Claire's.

And this shirt and belt are from Banana Republic. I loved this shirt, and the mannequin was wearing the belt, so when I found the belt I had to have it!! It is so cute! I felt very stylish.

After spending about $300 in the first two stores I went to, I tried a lot harder to curb my beginning shopping habit. (Mom can attest to the fact that I have also started ordering clothes from Victoria's Secret online. Allie warned me about those damn Angel cards and how they just get you into trouble. :) Anyways, I told Elisabeth that if I started to buy too much then she had permission to tackle me. And she would have too. She didn't let me buy anything in the next store we went in to, but eventually she let me go back and get the sweater that I tried on since I still really wanted it when we came back that way.

After a very successful shopping afternoon, we tried to make it back into Portland to get the car before the place closed, but there was an accident on the freeway, so we weren't able to get it that day. In traffic, Elisabeth explained to us about the problems she has been having at the Coast Guard and that she is now suing them.

Elisabeth took us to her favorite sushi place, called the SanSai Sushi Bar. I don't actually like Sushi, but Jennifer and Elisabeth do, so I ordered a Chicken Teriyaki and Beef Teriyaki Roll. I still don't like the seaweed on it, but otherwise it was pretty good. During our dinner, some guys at the base started texting Elisabeth to find out when she was coming in. She said that since she usually doesn't have much to do she goes in early, but the shift that she was covering that night was completely voluntary. So she told them that she didn't know and that she was with us. A little while later, they text her again asking when she was coming in. Her response was, "F*** off. Respectfully." He answered, "Roger." I guess in the coast guard, you are allowed to say that, as long as you write respectfully afterwards. So that was something else that we started saying a lot on our trip. :)

I felt like Elisabeth started off kind of distracted and sad when we first got there the day before, but the more we hung out, talked, joked and laughed, I could see a visible difference in Elisabeth. I think she was much happier by the time we left. She says that she didn't even remember the last time she laughed so hard, so I am glad that we could keep her company for a few days. I was also happy at how well Elisabeth and Jennifer got along. Elisabeth was able to join right in with a lot of the inside jokes that Jennifer and I had started in Portland. So, backtracking a little back to Portland, remember the hair thing I got that turns my hair into a bun? Jennifer was going to try one out to see how she liked the color with her hair. The lady saw her and freaked out! She was like, "Don't try that on!! It is like underwear! You wouldn't want it if someone else had tried it on!" So saying, "That is like sharing underwear" became something that we said quite a bit. Second story is that the night before we left Seattle we were playing a game called Loaded Questions. One of the questions was, "Why don't other people get along with you." You have to fill out the answer to the question, and then the person that read the question has to guess who said what. So, I'm not sure if you noticed, but Natalie's sister's boyfriend is black, and someone put, "Because I'm black." as the answer to the question. Turned out it was Jennifer, and not Raheem, but he had put her up to it. Anyways, so "You don't like me because I'm black" also turned out to be an inside joke that stuck. Or a combination of the two.

Anyways, after Sushi we stopped at a gas station to support my caffeine habit. Elisabeth actually got one of my Sugar Free Rockstar's too. She had only gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before, and only about 2 the night before that, so she was in need of some caffeine!! We also went to Trader Joe's. Elisabeth found some Seaweed snacks that she loves. They have been discontinued, and were only a few more, so she stocked up.



As she was filling up her basket with them, she said, "Don't judge me!" So I grabbed a few more and put them in her basket too. She laughed and said she felt much better. :) Realizing that we had only left four more, I told her that she might as well finish them off, so we took those too. She loves them and they are only $0.99 each, with NO SALES TAX. So why not, right? Plus, I have scarcity issues, and I like to support people's habits. :)



"We don't judge!" and "We support people's habits!" became one of the phrases and jokes that we said a lot more for the next couple days. Maybe you had to be there, but I think we are funny. We had so much fun shopping and loading up on things that Elisabeth can and LIKES to eat. (In case you are wondering, Elisabeth LOVES Mango gummies and her seafood snacks, and Sushi!) We ALMOST convinced her to get some gummies that looked like army men. We told her than anytime she got mad at work, she could take a bite off one of their heads, just to make her feel better. :)

Elisabeth took us a McDonald's after that to let us rent some Redbox movies to movies. We rented The Town and Your Highness. After we were leaving, Jennifer noticed that they sell $0.50 cones there, so Elisabeth took us through the drive-thru so we could get some, saying, "I support people's habits!" Even though we were having such a good time and she didn't want to leave, Elisabeth dropped us off after that and headed back to work. Jennifer and I watched the Town, and then I watched Your Highness. Jennifer fell asleep halfway through. Elisabeth text me and said that the guys back at the base asked her to bring them Taco Bell on her way into work. I told her to tell them to F*** off. Respectfully. I really like all of our jokes. We laughed a lot.



The next morning, we got ready and had to wait around the boat for a while until Elisabeth could get off work. We stopped and got mom's car, which we had to replace the tire on! $144 later, we parked it at a Safeway nearby and headed off to the Saturday's Market.









We spent the morning wandering around, looking at all the things for sell. I tried to be much better about my spending habits since I had bought so much at the Outlets, but I still bought quite a bit of souvenirs. If only you knew all the things I wanted to buy and didn't!

After a nice morning at the market, we walked over to Powell's Books. I love Powell's! It is huge!! It is definitely a bookstore you can get lost in. It also has a coffee shop inside. We were there for an hour, but it really didn't seem like that long to me. And, of course, you can't go to Powell's and not buy a book or two... or five...








After Powell's we went to Voodoo Doughnuts. We were told that we had to go there while in town because it is actually famous for its doughnuts, and Elisabeth said it had become a tradition of hers and Wes's to go to the Saturday's Market, Powell's and then to Voodoo Doughnuts.







(This is how long the line is to get in. We never saw it get any shorter than this!)


We all ended up taking a bite out of each one that we wanted to try. We thought it might be kind of like sharing underwear, but decided to do it anyway since we all wanted to try the different kinds. They have some crazy stuff! For example, they had a maple bar with bacon on the top... I liked my chocolate cake doughnuts with chocolate frosting, the M&M one, the Oreo one and the Butterfinger one. :) I bet no one is really shocked that I gained five pounds on vacation, right?

Before eating the doughnuts, we went to dinner at Sushi Town, Inc. It is a Sushi Go-Round place. That means, they have a moving wheel, and they cook sushi, and you grab what you want and eat it. Then you pay for what you ate. The plates are color coated, so you know how much what you are taking is going to cost. It was actually really neat and I liked the food that I grabbed. Well, I got some pot stickers and Edamame and then ordered a Chicken Teriyaki Bowl, but it was still really good! :) Both nights Elisabeth insisted on paying for our dinner. Jennifer did talk her letting her pay half of the bill on the second night though.

We were going to go try and see a movie after dinner. Elisabeth said she hasn't seen one in a while, so we wanted to go see the Help. We ended up missing the starting time for it though, so we decided to rent a movie and watch it on the boat. We stopped at the Safeway to get my car and so that Jennifer could stock up on Mike's Hard Lemonade. I guess it is about $4 cheaper in Oregon and doesn't have sales tax, so she wanted to get a lot to bring home. We don't judge, so we helped her carry it all. I also ended up buying X-Men First Class, which the girls decided would be fine to watch that night. However, when we got back to the boat, we just sat and talked and ate our doughnuts until Elisabeth had to go back to work.


Jennifer was super happy to find the beer.


This is what the moon looked like that night.

We packed up the car that night. Jennifer wanted to leave as early as possible. She had a lot of homework to do and wanted to see her husband before he went to bed. She also said she didn't see a point in dragging out leaving. So, Elisabeth helped us pack up the car and we said our goodbye's. She said that she loved having us there, and we said we want to come back again next summer and that she was an amazing hostess. (She was worried that she wasn't.) Then Elisabeth went back to work, and Jennifer and I set are alarms for 5 am.



The next morning, we loaded up our final things and hit the road. It was super hard to find an open gas station that early in the morning! In Oregon, you have to have a gas attendant fill up your car, so you can't just go to any old one and use your card to fill up over night. So, finding an open one set us back a bit. We grabbed some McDonald's for breakfast and started home. I was driving so I put in my Ipod and sang probably for a good 5 to 6 hours. Jennifer slept. I LOVED seeing that part of Oregon, especially as the sun was coming up. Before it did, I saw fields filled with mist, and then when I rounded a bend and saw the raising sun, it was so red it took me a minute to understand what it was. Oregon is so beautiful and I can't wait to go back!! I ended up driving the entire way home, all 12 hours of it. We stopped only to fill up and got home around 6:30. I had to take Jennifer home to Salt Lake first, so it took me even longer to get home, but I almost finished one of the books on CD that I bought at Powell's.

I am so glad that I was able to go on my trip. I wish I was still there! I had such a great time! I loved all the company, and the things I saw, the things I bought, the food we ate and all the places we went. I am so happy that my kidneys are happy and healthy, both the one in me and the one in Wesley. I am so glad that I took this trip to honor this huge thing that I did last year. I'm hoping to do a trip somewhere every year to continue this tradition in memoriam.