First day of School

Today was Travis's first day at Kindergarten. School actually started on Tuesday, but the kindergarteners just went in one day this week, a few kids each day, so they'd get to see their classroom and meet their teacher in a smaller groups. Today was Travis's day!

Travis was pretty excited to be going. He was up early, got ready, and ate breakfast without problems. At 8:00 he and Hailey piled into the car and dad drove them the six miles to Travis's school (no buses for kindergarteners this week).

A nice lady at the front door lead us to his classroom, where he was met by his teacher and unloaded his supplies. Then dad and Hailey left.




At 11:15 (right on time) dad and Hailey showed back up at the school on the bike, tag-a-long, trailer combination, and Travis was waiting at the front door with a few other kids and a teacher. He was smiling like he'd had a great morning. We rode over to Burgerville, had lunch, and then headed for home.

Since it's around a 500 foot climb to get home, we decided to try taking the Municipal elevator to knock 100 feet off the climb. We weren't sure we'd all fit at the same time, but while eating lunch we'd decided that if necessary Travis would go first with the tag-a-long and wait at the top for Dad and Hailey to come on the next trip.

We arrived at the elevator, disconnected the tag-a-long and trailer, and when the doors opened Travis asked the operator if we could all come aboard. She said whatever would fit in she'd take up. Travis and the tag-a-long went in first, and another lady who was already on the elevator (operator-in-training?) volunteered to hold the front of the tag-a-long. There still seemed to be plenty of room so we loaded the trailer (with Hailey) aboard, followed by my bike and me. Everything just barely fit!

Except the top of the tag-a-long flag... which nobody noticed was sticking partially outside the elevator doors. The doors closed, the elevator headed up, and the flag headed down the crack between the doors for about 2 seconds until the flagpole snapped in half in the middle. The elevator lady and I both apologized to each other as I pulled the part that was stuck in the door out.

When we got to the top we unloaded everything, hooked it all back up, and headed up the hill towards home. We had to stop once to rest, but made it shortly thereafter.

Below is the elevation graph of the trip. We start off at 108 feet above sea level, and go down slightly for 2 miles, where we cross the Willamette River. Then we have a slight climb for a little over a mile where we catch the elevator, which takes us up 100 feet. Shortly after that we start the long climb to the hilltop. The last mile and a half is relatively flat; our house is at about 480 feet above sea level.