More than I bargained for...

I love a good bargain. I am always telling people how much I love things like priceline, ebates, and restaurant.com. I've gotten some great deals, stayed some awesome places and eaten at restaurants that I would have never been able to afford or would have never heard of otherwise.

The bad news about Salt Lake is that they don't have too many restaurant choices on restaurant.com but anytime we ever go on vacation I am always excited to print off a couple certificates and eat for cheap while traveling. Portland had about twelve pages of restaurants. I chose a random couple of restaurant coupons to print off. I always check the menu to make sure the restaurants are affordable and check reviews, etc. to make sure we don't end up in some grungy yucky place.

Well one of the certificates I printed off was for a restaurant called Starky's. It was a little on the expensive side but they had some hamburgers and salads that were very affordable. A quick check on google maps showed that it was close to our hotel and that people had rated it about 4.6 out of 5 stars. We were golden.

So we pull in to Portland in the early evening last Wednesday and decide to go straight to dinner. My Dad was a little nervous about the neighborhood it was in, since there were lots of .... um....downtownlike people around. It didn't bother me, I loved downtown Austin and all the unique character and flare there, and the shops/people in this area seemed pretty similar.

We pulled in to Starky's and my dad wanted me to go check it out to make sure it wasn't full of hoodlums.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a really nice restaurant, tablecloths, candles, the works. I checked over a menu and that looked fine too, if anything the restaurant seemed a little too nice for my three tired, sick-of-sitting-all-day, children. But I was hungry and tired and wanted to use my coupon.

I went and shared the good news that the restaurant looked fine, though there weren't any other children there.

So we go in. No one was there to show us a table. Weird. So since my kids were bouncing off the walls and crawling under tables we showed ourselves a seat and waited. My kids were real heroes on the trip. They traveled so well, but they had really had it. Ben was trying to through the dishes off the table. Gwen was under the table, and Ivy....well there were no high chairs around so she was a handful. I was debating just leaving but decided that we should just order and hurry up.

I hadn't really noticed the table of twenty-something guys that was seated directly behind our table, but then a group of three new guys joined them, all the guys at the table stood up and there was....uh....mmm...well the other guys were really happy to see the new guys. Lots of hugging, lots of kissing, and I've never seen my mothers eyes open so wide.

As I was averting my eyes from the PDAs taking place at the other table I noticed that....well, everyone at every table was male. And there were no kids, and... it was just kind of different.

At that point I decided that our crowd was probably better suited for a Wendy's. You know, the kind of place with a slide rather than China.

Once we got out to the car I googled "Starky's" in Portland again. This time I went past the star rating and actually read the reviews and yeah....totally a gay/lesbian friendly restaurant.

I took my parents, and my children to a gay restaurant.

I'm sure the food was good. I am certain the people were lovely people, but I am having a hard enough time explaining the birds and the bees to my children, and I didn't particularly feel up to the task of explaining same gender attraction. I'll save that conversation for Blaine to have with them.

So that is how we wound up at Wendy's. And to the lucky couple at Starky's seated at the table nearest the exit, I hope you enjoyed the $25 gift certificate : )