Oregon Day 6: House Hunting & Lunch

After a slow start to the morning, we piled into the cars and headed down to Bend for a little eating, shopping, and house hunting. The Mill District in Bend used to be home to the ... wait for it ... mill, and is now home to an outdoor shopping and dining district.

We stopped for a bite to eat at Red Robin. For those unfamiliar, it's a burger joint with pretty creative burgers and bottomless baskets for fries. I'd been two times before, once in Oregon and once in Virginia, and both times we were served by 15-year-olds wholly incompetent in every way. The service was terrible, the food marginal, and I marvelled that a restaurant could be so consistent on opposite sides of the country! They might have been terrible, but at least they were consistent about it.

Thus, I've avoided the place for the past few years. I swallowed my opinions (oh! the many that I have) and walked into the restaurant. We were quickly seated at a table that accommodated our large group and a WONDERFUL server approached our table and provided some of the dining best service imaginable. When a specialty drink was spilled, she appeared with a second one at no charge within moments. When we struggled over a menu choice for Clara, she had a quick recommendation. When the sun shone in our eyes, she lowered the blinds. And the food was pretty dang good! It restored my faith in Red Robin. Not completely though. I have to have equally good service here in Virginia. If that happens, they have a customer back.

We sat down and Clara immediately went to Jeff and Sabrina. It might have had something to do with a box of crayons. She sat with them until our food was served, enjoying playing with PaPa and attempting to eat the crayons. I was able to catch a few cute pictures of the two together.

 

Due to the cold weather, we bundled up Clara before we left the restaurant. She looked more than a little like the kid from A Christmas Story, but with a cuter face. Check her at the right in her stroller right before we left the restaurant. Oh! And other cool thing. The house we're staying in is totally decked out for a kiddo. They have this collapsible stroller that folds like origami. Preferable to our $20 umbrella stroller we brought on the trip.

We visited the various stores. I ducked into a gaming store and got to try Mario Galaxy out (amazingly intuitive controls). Even though Clara wasn't smiling, I had someone take a family picture.On our way out, we passed a store that had these huge nature sculptures and one tried to attack Justin. Luckily, I pulled him out of the talons of death before he suffered permanent damage.

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We left the mill and headed out to house hunt. Jeff, being the architect, loves driving around and looking at homes and developments. He even has favorite areas near us from his trips to D.C. I couldn't even begin to describe where we went, but I do recall that I was the guy "lucky" enough to sit shotgun and jump out at every house for a flier. We had fun playing the "guess how much this is going for?" game. I really like Craftsman-style homes and the areas we hit had a lot of beautiful homes.

As tomorrow is Thanksgiving, we hit the local Fred Meyer for extra supplies. Apologies for the quality of this next picture, but I HAD to include it. Our cart was more than a little loaded, as was the store. It is still being debated who made the choice, but someone picked the line with a cashier-in-training. Check out Jeff's exasperated face and Sabrina's laugh as she copes by finding humor in the situation.

One last picture of Jeff and Clara playing together. She sure is fond of her PaPa.