Day Five: Kids Rock!
"You know you’re in California when it rains and all of a sudden tourists stop and wonder what the heck is going on."
Yes, it rained today and I did that very thing. It clouded over once when I was there and every other day since then it was bright, sunny and relatively warm. I left my room this morning in a fleece. Two steps away from the front door, I stop, cock my head to the left and ponder for a moment. "It’s raining." Whipping myself around, I head back to the room to rip my gortex out of my packed suitcase.
<fast forward>
Sitting here in the middle of Portland airport, a young girl and her mother plopped themselves down behind me.
"Mom, let’s take the speed boat for a irde." "This dolphin’s name is Adrienne." "Let’s ride this two person ferry behind a motor boat." "Won’t we get sick from going over the wake? How big is the boat." "Oh, it’s small but we’ll be fine." "Let’s drop the boat anchor!" "Look! I’m riding a whale!" That’s only a few of the dozen ideas she had in the span of 5 minutes.
The particular object I was sitting on was fairly simple, but interesting enough to spur interest; perhaps that’s what attracted me to it subconciously. The bottom half of the object resembled a granit boat and top half a soft rolling surface, humps if you will. I’ts amazing where the imagination of a young child can take them.
The most amazing thing owever, was the ability for this girl to articulate her ideas … she was smart too. "Hi, my name’s Chris, what’s yours?" "Mine’s Arline, I’m four and a half years old and I’m from Portland. We’re going to California." She put a smile on my face and will liekly be the bright spot during this lame three hour layover in the airport.
