Going Native: Travel Like the Locals Do

One of the best evenings we had this trip back to the US was an evening being local. There were no amusement parks, no hotels, no fancy restaurants or reservations of any sort. We didn't really plan it out, there was not a tourist map in sight. No guidebooks or pre-scheduled activities. It was just a group of great people, a field, fresh fruit and good music and one amazing night.







Summer in the Pacific Northwest is magical. Long days with evenings that cool off, twilight lingers until 10pm and you have the amazing sense of peace and wonderment around you. What a tourist might do in Portland is to head downtown and check out one of the amazing clubs. Kids with families will hit the zoo, Omsi and walk down waterfront park. Tourists might escape to the beach, or drive up to the mountains. They might hit Oaks Park or do a fair, but there is lots-lots-more. Those hidden gems that every city has and the locals know them all.

Tourists and locals alike will stroll the aisles late into the night of the best independent bookstore in the world (Powell’s). Tourists and locals hit the farmers markets and Saturday Market. Tourists marvel at the late evening sun, but locals, those smart locals know that summer is fleeting. Summer passes far too fast, summer is something to be savored, sucked dry for every single second wasting none of it, summer is to be enjoyed now!


Listening to the tunes




Locals in Portland have a secret. One of the best ways to enjoy one of those summer nights is the Thursday evening concerts at Kruger’s farm on Sauvies’ Island. I first read about Kruger’s concerts long after I left Oregon by following Alicia Paulson’s Blog Pozy Gets Cozy. Alicia, a new Oregonian (which by my definition is someone not born there) had found what natives knew all along, it is about the company you keep, the local food and the local music scene that make Portland special. Her posts about Kruger's make me hunger for that local scene.

Having tried to go to Kruger’s on our last trip home, but unable to find the time, this summer I was determined to go. I had never heard of the singer, but when you tell the kids it is time for a concert and oh yeah you can pick blueberries…they were in. We set off, picnic foods in hand, met my sister and her family as well as our “Taiwan friends” Peter and Blythe and their family for an evening of music food and fun.

Sadie and her watermelon

What makes travel exciting is the unexpected finds, the spots that you see and know are special, these spots are often those loved more by the locals than the tourist. The local bakery down a side street that no tour bus has ever traveled. The local brewpub, up far in the hills that is filled with regulars who know the name of the barkeep as well as the tavern cat. The local scene is filled with a comfortable feeling of "I have been here, this is good and I will return". A tourist is often more interested in capturing the shot for the photo album (yes I am guilty of this) but slowing down and seeing things with a native gives such a deeper appreciation.

I still consider myself a native Oregonian (although I have taken a 12 year vacation from my home state) and I also consider myself a local Singaporean. My goal is to impress upon my children the joys of seeing things from a local perspective, speaking with and connecting with the citizens of those places we travel rather than simply taking a picture. Exploring deeper, stepping down the side alley, being native and when we stop traveling we can say we went native.

How I spent my summer vacation aka back in the USA

So how did you spend your summer?

Ours was jammed into a three week trip back to the States...

family goofballs

Visits in California included Disney, American Girl, Legoland, La Brea Tar Pits and the Page Museum, Hollywood and the Santa Monica Pier, and then stops at the Mission San Juan Capistrano, getting lost in the Rancho Santa Margarita hills....kids in hot tubs and visits with the OC family.

Visits in Oregon, including McMinnville and the Evergreen Air and Space Museum, a drive through Salem to see the State Capital and Willamette University, the Enchanted Forest in Turner (South Salem), OMSI in Portland, Thursday Music @ Kruegers Farm in Sauvie's Island, Fort Clatsop, Fort Stevens, and Seaside with a stop at Tillamook Creamery for Ice Cream. Kids running through sprinklers and enjoying summer evenings in the twilight.

Washington State visits included Mt. St. Helens (the long way) Fort Vancouver and ice cream in old town Vancouver.

Summer Fun!

Add in visits with family and friends, a family reunion in Oregon, too much food and wine and great conviviality. Great people great summer. No time to blog. But, come back to Singapore and this is what happened.

Kiera's broken arm.

She is recovering well but will be attending second grade with a new cast on her right arm. I am back on the road in Kuala Lumpur and will be back on Flickr, Twitter and blogging regularly now that things are slowly returning to normal.

I hope your summer is perhaps less eventful than ours :-)

Oregon With Kids: Timberline Lodge

I love Timberline lodge, it brings back such great memories from my childhood. Mostly memories about what it must have been like to go skiing (we didn't start skiing until I was in highschool) and how cool it was that Mt. Hood had a big St. Bernard. Well, Heidi the dog has been replaced by a Bruno, and while we didn't get to see him, the lodge is still a great place to take the kids for a bit of fun as well as a history lesson. Timberline was inducted as a National Historic Monument in 1978. Timberline is a ski resort (one of the only in the US with year around skiing) a museum, a hotel and a work of art. It is also just fun to go see snow if your kids live in the tropics like mine!




Timberline lodge was a great ambitious public works project that was launched during the depression. I love the fact that the whole lodge was crafted by hand, with artisans creating a structure that would stand over time and act as a symbol of what can be done. Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the lodge in 1938 and stated the following

"This Timberline Lodge marks a venture that was made possible by W.P.A., emergency relief work, in order that we may test the workability of recreational facilities installed by the Government itself and operated under its complete control.

Here, to Mount Hood, will come thousands and thousands of visitors in the coming years. Looking east toward eastern Oregon with its great livestock raising areas, these visitors are going to visualize the relationship between the cattle ranches and the summer ranges in the forests. Looking westward and northward toward Portland and the Columbia River, with their great lumber and other wood using industries, they will understand the part which National Forest timber will play in the support of this important element of northwestern prosperity.

Those who will follow us to Timberline Lodge on their holidays and vacations will represent the enjoyment of new opportunities for play in every season of the year. I mention specially every season of the year because we, as a nation, I think, are coming to realize that the summer is not the only time for play. I look forward to the day when many, many people from this region of the Nation are going to come here for skiing and tobogganing and various other forms of winter sports."

One of my dreams is to be able to teach my children about the places they travel. Mt Hood's Timberline lodge is no exception. What a great opportunity to teach the older kids about the history of the depression, the WPA and what craftsman style design can be (check out some of the old pictures here).

The food in the Blue Ox bar was great, simple and inexpensive, but while kids are allowed into the bar to eat, OLCC (Oregon Liqour laws) require kids to sit at tables rather than the very cool bar. The mosaic work in the Blue Ox was amazing btw.







After Lunch we took the kids up to the chairlifts and were able to take the lift about half way up. Skiers and snowborders were heading further up the mountain, but hikers and people like us were able to head up about half way up the mountain, get off and walk around. If you were able, and not exhausted like our kids were, you can walk back down the hill to the Lodge in about 20-30 minutes.

After our snowplay we loaded back up and went to Hood River for some fresh fruit and a stop at Multnomah Falls. Come back for more!

For more information about the history of Timberline you can check out the Friends of Timberline website

Mountains and Valleys: Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, and Hood River

As I prepare for our trip home this summer, I found part of a post from a travel blog I tried to start back in 2008, filling out some details makes me hope we can do it again this year!

Mt.Hood

I love going back to those places I visited as a child. I have such memories of driving down the Columbia River Gorge and seeing Mt. Adams. Mt. Adams was such a different view from our favorite Oregon mountain, Mt. Hood. Adams, well she is pretty, round and young. Hood always seemed a bit craggier, a bit wizened perhaps, but less, well, matronly.

When I was a young adult, probably right after college, I loved to drive the Hood River loop, starting up and over Mt. Hood, down through the orchards of Hood River and home back again through the majestic Columbia River Gorge. Vagabond Dad grow up in the Gorge, my grandparents were from "Eastern Oregon" so the Hwy 84 drive was not foreign to either of us... but it was quite a trip for the kids

This is a great day trip for kids, a full day yes, but one filled with fast luge rides, snow ball fights, historic buildings and fresh picked fruit, ending the day at Multnomah Falls.

We started from Vancouver Washington, and took the full day and drove to "Multipor" Skibowl and took a fun filled luge ride down the hill. Little did I know it is not known as Multipor anymore, they are simply known as Ski Bowl, but I am showing my age here....In order to ride the Alpine Slide solo the children must meet minimum height restrictions. I think the level was about 45 inches, but I could not find an actual measurement. My son was tall enough, but we still chose to double up. To get to the top, you ride a chair lift to the mid level where you get off and zoom back to the bottom. (You can also ride to the top (a common mountain bike area) and bike the trails around the top of the mountain. The Alpine slide opens between 10 and 11 each morning.

After a fun morning on the luge, we stopped at Historic Timberline Lodge for lunch and snow. The kids, being proper Singaporeans now, really have only seen snow in a faux snow atmosphere. So getting up on the mountain seeing the real thing was a bit of a shock. We ate lunch at one of the pubs at the lodge-Corn Soup- Oregon Pinot Noir-Historic surroundings=Bliss for the Vagabond Mom and Dad.

Mt. Adams

We then packed up in the car and drove the full loop, down Highway 26, passing through Hood River Valley and Hood River proper. We stopped at a farmers market and picked up a bunch of fresh cherries and some dried fruit. The view of the mountains was so spectacular, it made me think I never want to leave. Of course Hood River Valley is amazing in summer, it is just the other 9 months of the year that stink.

A drive down the Columbia River Gorge, stopping at the Multnomah Falls. Again, another memory from the Vagabond Parent's childhoods, but one the kids had yet to experience. There is not much to say about the Falls that hasn't already been said, by those much more prose filled than I, but an jaw dropping sight to see. Finishing with the 45 minute drive back to Vancouver Washington for an overnight stay with Grandma rounded out the day. It was long the last few miles filled with cries of "are we there yet" but it was beautiful and everything that Summer in Oregon should be.

Oregon with Kids: Yaquina Head Lighthouse

We traveled to Oregon the Summer of 2008 (although this day at the beach was anything but summer like).

Tramping around Newport, we went to some of the same spots I visited when I was a kid. One of our thoughts was that the kids would think it was cool to be able to climb a lighthouse. To see what it was like living and working in a lighthouse over a hundred years ago? The Yaquina Head lighthouse now has tours. Which is very cool and I highly recommend it. We were not able to do the whole tour as we had plans to meet family further up the road, but next time we will. We only climbed up a portion of the stairs and missed the docent's historical tour. The tour portion gives actual history of the lighthouse as well as information about the workings on the coast in the late 1800s.



Growing up in Oregon, seeing working lighthouses were part of the beach trip every summer. Thinking back now, what a cool thing was that? Lighthouses are part and parcel of the history of world wide travel and commerce, lighthouses protected the wayfayers as well as the cargo. I love the thought of the lighthouse. The Beacon, the safe light in the storm. I also just think they look cool!



We will be back in Oregon this summer and we will defiantly do this with the kids. The only catch is there are a quite a few steps up (114 to be exact)so gage the trip in terms of the age and abilities of your kids.

TIllamook Icecream

Originally posted in September 2008, our family will make a return trip this summer to Tillamook and do the tour all over again!

The best ice cream in the world, or at least the northern corner of Oregon all starts at the Tillamook Creamery.

For those of you who are lucky enough to live or be traveling in Oregon, a trip to Tillamook is a fun day. First, the countryside as you drive into Tillamook is amazing, pastures valleys and lots and lots of dairy farms. The old town in Tillamook has fun little shops, used bookstores and restaurants. I can also attest that the Les Schwab dealership does a bang up job fixing tire flats (just in case you wanted to know). Oh, and Tillamook is on Tillamook Bay, a lovely bay with great views. But Tillamook is most famous for Cheese and Ice Cream.

For real cheese heads, stop first at the Blue Heron French Cheese Company and get some Brie. Wander around the grounds, have a taste of wine and enjoy the converted Dairy Farm. Next, drive about 5 minutes north, and take the self tour around the Tillamook Creamery. I tell you, even bribing kids with Ice Cream it was hard to get them away from the windows of the working Cheese factory. As a note, I remember as a kid, before the Tillamook brand was so popular, you could actually tour the floor and see the operation close up.

and, then, yes then, sit yourself down for a grubbing burger topped with Tillamook Cheddar, finished off with a big ole cone of Tillamook Ice Cream (over 40 flavors including seasonal Strawberry with Oregon Strawberries!) Just remember, if you are like me and lactose intolerant... don't forget these. They are life savers.