Voodoo and the Hands On Children's Museum

We had one last day of Portland and then we needed to head back to home base.

The Airbnb had some very cool artwork on the walls.

Voodoo Doughnut is usually on my Portland todo list.

We crossed over into Vancouver, WA and visited Vancouver Mall. Ernie is really fun to shop for because he's growing so fast that no item of clothing is ever that big of a commitment, so we can get silly stuff on occasion. It's also usually pretty cheap and has fun designs.. what more could you ask for? Also once you start licking the clothes I think you are obligated to buy them so that simplifies the decision making process.

There was a little mall playground we needed to scope out.

On the drive home we made a quick detour in Olympia, WA to the Hands On Children's Museum. We put our hands, feet, and probably tongues on all kinds of things there.

This was a pretty cool set of pipes with some air pressure in them. You could stick a scarf in one of the holes and watch it zip around the tubes and then get launched out somewhere.

There was a giant Lite-Brite.

There was a boat.

We figured out how to time the drives during nap time so that we had a very happy Ernie Babe.

Garlic Garlic Everywhere

In my never ending quest to entertain my parents, today we drove pretty far out of town to Chehalis, Washington to see the Garlic Fest & Craft Show. 

The fact that we moved so far away from home is kind of fun because there are a lot of new agricultural products out here. Who doesn't like garlic?

Even the local vampires are on board.

They were sold out of garlic ice cream which was very sad, but they did have garlic fries and garlic ears, which were like a savory version of the elephant ear.

Tom even bought some garlic to take home and plant in his yard.

On our way back north we passed through Olympia so I figured we should give the capitol building a gander.

I learned a lot of fun Washington State trivia.

We found a fun little place to take a walk in Brewery Park at Tumwater Falls. First of all let's address the elephant in the room: Tumwater does sound like a child's explanation of diarrhea. No, I don't know why they named it that.

In addition to being a fun walk, the park is also the site of the now derelict Olympic Brewery. Every time I see an abandoned brewery I think how lucky St. Louis is to have such a vibrant and historic Anheuser-Busch.

We hit McMenamins Spar Cafe for dinner.

I can't get enough of the artwork in these places. It's all so quirky.

Like what the hell is this thing?

Back in Kirkland, Mom and Tom entered the Matrix via the Meta Quest 2 we recently acquired.

I finally finished Elden Ring on Xbox Series X. I checked my total play time on this thing two weeks ago and it said 7 days 5 hours. I didn't check it again. Killing god has a certain sense of accomplishment that comes with it, I must say.