This past weekend our family met my sister’s family in downtown Portland for some fun wandering. The trip had started as a planned visit to Voodoo Donuts just off Burnside, but the presence of “adult” donuts on their web site resulted in a change to Finnegan’s toy store and Pioneer Place.

The kids had a blast at Finnegan’s, and we waited out a rather severe deluge of snow, sleet, and rain before heading a block away to a store we saw coming out of the parking garage: Authentic Models. I had never heard of this store before, but the old bi-plane models hanging from the ceiling and the huge sailboats in the windows made it necessary to stop in. It was a nerve-wracking few minutes, trying to manage six busy kids who just left a store in which nothing was off-limits for their exploring fingers. But they did great, and we were awed by the beautiful displays and by avid curiosity as to who would spend $4600 for a mini Bugatti with no motor (!!). Here are some pictures from this place:

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One of the first things I saw when we walked in was a bright red miniature ride-in Bugatti that I initially thought was pedal-powered. They also had a powder-blue version in the showroom that was just as beautiful. I discovered later that these are individually hand-made, and come ready for an electric motor that the customer has to install. The brakes are actually inside each of the four wheel hubs and linked together with a thin cable tied to a brake lever on the side of the cockpit. The seat is leather. The wheels are inflated rubber tires on custom aluminum hubs. In short, I was awed by them.

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Add the hot air balloons, airplanes, dirigibles, sailing ships, and vintage-looking globes, looking glasses, miniature wooden model kits for kids, and carved “glider” rocking horse, and I was enthralled.

From there we headed down to Pioneer Place to walk around and, presumably, grab some yogurt or ice cream to mollify the kids, who originally expected donuts with cocoa puffs on them. It ends up we just enjoyed the sky bridge between the mall and Saks, got some smoothies at the food court, raced elevator travel against escalator travel, browsed the Mac store while waiting for Lindsey and Tori at Claire’s, and rode Max back to the parking garage.

And, with Lindsey’s purchase of some magnetic earrings at Claire’s, our parking in the Smart Park ($2.50 for four hours with validation) was, this time, smarter than Paul’s $5/day smash-my-window-and-steal-my-loot parking lot.

Amy wrote about this trip, too, and has some great pictures.