decidedlyodd

I drove down to my parents’ house in Oregon for Thanksgiving this year. Both my brothers, my brother Kevin’s fiance, my grandfather and his girlfriend all drove up too, giving the whole thing pretty decent turnout. This was my first Thanksgiving with my family since 2001. Since then, I’ve always just been too far away to deal with the cost and hassle of flying home for just a few days. It was nice to see everybody and just relax with the family.

The drive down on Wednesday afternoon was fairly horrendous. It’s about a 300 mile drive, but it took me nearly 9 hours with the severe traffic I hit going from about Renton to Centralia and then again on near the I-5/I-205 interchange south of Portland. The drive back was smooth sailing though. It took about 5.5 hours including the stops I made. First, I stopped in Eugene at REI for some tax-free shopping to buy a coat (yes, I bought some “Seattle Armani”). I also ended up driving around north Portland looking for a gas station for a while. So all in all, I made pretty good time.