Portland - Day One

We love Portland. It is very fun. We very much enjoy the Saturday Market (which happens on Sunday too!) We very much recommend it.

In the morning we went to OMSI - the science museum - and we saw real mummies. (We debated whether to call them "real live mummies" or "real dead mummies." Dad suggested if we met the former we would need to run fast.) It is sort of scary seeing mummies - including mummies of children and animals. In the mummy exhibit there was a story of a young woman, her husband, and their baby son. The mom had a disease (TB) and she gave it to her husband and son and they all died. Very sad. They were discovered, along with over 100 other mummies in a tomb in Hungary. They had been naturally mummified. Now their remains are being used to help develop better vaccines for people with drug resistant TB. Fascinating stuff. This exhibit is the result of a discovery of multiple mummies in the basement storage of a museum in Germany.

After the mummy exhibit, we went to the Saturday Market. We weren't sure why it was so crowded and hard to park. From a distance we thought we saw a parade. David wondered if it was a political demonstration. Turns out we were there on the morning of the Pride parade. We enjoyed a variety of things for lunch - pizza, burritos, potato pancakes, and pierogies. Yum. Topped that all of with "elephant ears." We did a little Christmas shopping and AmyRuth bought herself a graduation present. In a small world moment AmyRuth bumped into a student from her ASL class. Hawkeyes all over the world I guess.

After the market we went back to OMSI to do more of their permanent exhibits. David and the kids went on the submarine tour. They would recommend it. We learned how the crew slept, ate, and even took showers. We got to look through the periscopes. There was a navy vet on the tour who was sharing stories during the tour as well.

The chemistry lab was a hit, as was the ball room and the earthquake simulator. We probably could have stayed for another hour or 2 but at 6 we decided dinner was a good plan. A local burger place did the trick and now we're trying to calm down at the hotel so we can all get some rest before the zoo tomorrow!

At Dick's Kitchen. We've traveled the state from south to north!