Our trip to Portland

A few friends and I decided to load up some of our kids and take them to Portland for the weekend. There is an Amtrak line that starts in Chicago, goes through the Northern States and through the Tricities on its way to the end of the line in Portland. The "Empire Builder" makes the journey in about 48 hours with stops about every 1-2 hours for stations or "fresh air/smoking" breaks. It comes through the Tricities at 5:35 am and reaches Portland at about 9:30 am.
Ryan, Craig, Rusty and I woke our kids up at 4:30 am to make the train. I took Ansel, Jonas, and Owen; Ryan took Ian and Jakob; Craig took Jake, Carson, and Luke; and Rusty took Ryan, Derrek, and Amelia (sorry if I misspelled any names). All told we had 10 boys and 1 girl all under the age of 9 and four fathers. The kids were totally excited as we planned on spending the night, going to the zoo, and to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI).
When we arrived at the train station, people were pretty taken back by the large mass of children and the station master did a double take when he asked how many were in my party and I replied, "15, 11 kids, and four adults."
We boarded the train in complete darkness trying not to awaken the huddled masses of cross-continent travellers. I almost heard a symphony of groans as our kids kept boarding and walking down the aisles. Owen was especially excited and as he only has two volume levels - loud and ferociously loud, we basically woke up the entire traincar.
The lights came on in the car about 6:45 am and our kids had already consumed most of the over 2 metric tons of junk food that we had brought for them. Luckily the train snack bar opened and we could purchase more or we would have most definitely had a mutiny on our hands. We split our time between the rear car - where our seats were - and the observation car at the front of the train immediately behind the engine. I was surprised by how quickly Owen could disappear and I almost thought he had detrained in Wishram when I walked the entire length of the train without finding him. I finally found him "hiding" from me under a bag in the back. He proved to be quite adept at diverting my attention to something else and then disappearing quickly throughout the entire trip.
The most popular thing was the Ritchie's DVD players and the Bagley Nintendo DS game systems. It was nice more than once to see my kids huddled around this little game system watching someone furiously play BBall or Mario Bros. I did not have to worry about them exploring through the sleeper cars or begging for money for the snack bar of the multiply tatooed and body-pierced passengers. Ansel directly and loudly announced loud enough for most of the passengers that were not completely deaf that a passenger next to us had, "Alot of earrings and things in his lips and nose." Score one for teaching your children to be observant and honest.
When we got off the train in Portland we had little clear recollection of where our hotel was. I did not bring the address or phone number so we just wandered in the general direction of where we thought the hotel should be. Finally, I called and got the address, the clerk told me that it was just three blocks away from where we were. It ended up being about eight blocks further and I began to realize that city-folk have a different sense of distance than us country-folk. It was a funny site seeing 11 small children and four fathers pulling luggage and hefting backpacks through downtown Portland. We were mostly worried about one of the kids running out ahead and getting hit by a car or truck as the kids seemed to be completely oblivious to the speeding traffic all around them on the city streets. Each of us agreed that it would be at least somewhat awkward explaining to our wives how it was that one or more of the children had been lost, killed, injured, maimed, or kidnapped. I think that unpleasant picture was in each of our minds as we cooperated in herding the kids from point A to point B throughout the weekend.
We were able to check in early and take a potty break and drop off the luggage before taking the light rail to the zoo. The light rail enters a tunnel in the hill that the zoo is on and you get out in the subway portion and then take an elevator 450 feet up to the top of the hill where the zoo is. We dutifully purchased unlimited train passes for each of the adults and the 11 children before realizing that the zoo train stop was within the "free ride zone." I hope those native Portlanders appreciate the subsidizing effect of tourists like us that cannot figure out the train schedules and needlessly purchase tickets at $4 a piece. The train ticket stubs did give us 50 cents off at the zoo though as I guess Portlanders are gracious about confusing tourists out of their money at the light rail stations.
The zoo was a hit. We lost and found each of the kids and each other about every 5 minutes. We spent most of our time in line at the only lunch cafe open in the entire zoo. We spent about 45 minutes waiting for some microwaved hot dogs, sodas, cookies, greasy pizza, and chips. By the time we got the front of the line, we were so panicked about making sure that we had enough food that we each ordered four of everything they had just to make sure we had enough and did not have to go back for something else. We had a ton of overpriced, disgusting zoo food. Just to spite the zoo staff what we didn't eat we fed to whatever animals we could reach. Who would have thought the ring-tailed lemurs and ground hogs would have eaten pepperoni pizza so quickly?
After the zoo we jumped back on the light rail only to have it break down about halfway home. We waited for about 15 minutes before giving up and deciding to walk (a Portlandite told us it was only about three blocks) back to the hotel. It ended up being about 18 blocks and we were passed by the train about five minutes later. Again with the stares from people and trying to avoid sudden death of one of the children at every cross walk.
Back at the hotel we took the kids swimming, then they were ready to collapse. It was about 5:30 and I put Owen in his PJs and he fell asleep almost immediately. The kids had not yet consumed quite their body weight in pizza and soda so we ordered Pizza Hut and soda and the kids ate with abandon polishing off four large pizzas, cheese bread, and a couple of liters of soda. (Interesting that the U.S. uses liters for soda, but we still purchase gallons of milk... could it be that soda is a Canadian plot to weaken America's resolve to stand firm in the fight against globalization of the godless metric system?)
We had a two room suite with Ryan and his kids and Rusty and Craig had another one for them and their kids so we did our own thing that night. Our kids watched a PPV movie "Night at the Museum" then collapsed in bed.
At 4:30 am I was awakened by Owen jumping up a down yelling, "We go train now, we go train now?!!" I was still exhausted and prayed my most fervent prayer that I would get him back to sleep. He fell back asleep after waking Ansel and Jonas and instigating an Indian Leg Wrestling tournament between them as they were sleeping side-by-side on the floor. we got up about 7:30 and went for breakfast and swam in the morning before checking out and heading to OMSI.
The boys liked OMSI, except the movie about saving the muddy water swamps around New Orleans. Jonas thought it was boring, except for the part about the hurricane that came in and destroyed all the people's houses and cars and boats. (He is referring to the destruction of hurricane Katrina that was shown in the movie.) I tried to teach him about the need for conservation and the effect of pollution and industry, but environmentalism is not his strong suit right now. Maybe if there was a superhero with a light saber that went around saving the world from heartless corporate polluters and industry...
We got home late last night. Immediately upon detraining, Jonas threw all of the junkfood that he had consumed over the last two days on the train platform,... in front of everyone. I got some weird looks when I praised him and told him he was a "good boy." I was just glad he didn't throw up while still on the train or later my truck, or in his bed... all in all that was the best place I could imagine at the time.
The kids are glad to be home and we have some great memories of our trip. We will definitely do it again and I am already planning how to take all future trips via Amtrak. I'm going to leave the driving to them from now on.