I survived 20,000 penises with my nephew.....

Crazy, true story. Saturday night I was at Colin's girlfriend's grad party. Colin's mom was leaving and I wasn't ready to go yet, so I offered to give Colin a ride home, so he could spend some more time with Keira.

We're getting ready to leave and Derek texted, letting me know the naked bike ride was going on. I didn't really give it much thought, I'd read about the ride and knew it was going on, but I didn't think to ask where the ride was going to be, I figured it would be downtown, no where near where I was going.

Boy was I wrong!

We left Keira's house around 10 and started heading home. There was no traffic and we were making good time. As we were coming over the bridge, I noticed lots of police lights flashing and then I saw a bunch of naked bike riders right off the exit I wanted to take to get Colin home. No problem, I'll take the next exit, it's a little out of my way, but that should get us around of all the riders.

I start teasing Colin and making jokes about the naked riders. It was really funny when they were far away and you couldn't see that much of them. Of course, Colin pointed out that he was 18 now and could be one of them, that took the fun out of it for me, he'll always be my little nephew!

We take the next exit and start going west, but wow, more police cars blocking the way I want to go. OK, no problem, we'll just turn around and go east a little further up to the next main street. Colin and I both agree, this is a good plan.

We get to the next main street and it was smooth sailing all the way to Colin's street, where I need to turn right. Up ahead, I can see that the street I'm on is blocked several blocks south, thankfully, we were turning right, I thought we were in the clear, just 20 blocks to go.

Yeah, not so much.

Four blocks down, we were blocked. There was a cop car blocking the whole street. Damn, what now, this is the street we need, Colin's house is just a 5min drive from where we were. We tried to come up with another strategy and Colin decides to go ask the cop if he can tell us the best way around.

About 30 seconds after Colin gets out of the car, I see lots of lights coming up the street towards us and I realize we are about to be right in the middle of the naked bike ride. OH MY GOD, what have I done! Yes, I realize my nephew is not a little kid, he just turned 18, he's an adult, he could be riding his own bike in the naked bike ride if he wanted, but I was mortified none the less. I had driven him right in to the middle of thousands of naked people!!!

What was I to do? Colin gets back to the car and the riders are upon us, about 3 car lengths away, riding by us in all their naked glory. The cop said that we either had to wait it out or the only way to get him home was to take side streets around the riders. Well, I couldn't just sit there and watch the nakedness with my little nephew in the car, so we tried to find another way around.

We drove around another 10min, getting blocked at every turn and finally decided we'd just have to wait it out. I got us to a main intersection that had a huge line of cars and parked and waited.

At this point, Colin and I couldn't stop laughing. I mean seriously, we're less than 5min from his house and can't get there, because of thousands of naked bike riders. Colin calls his mom to let her know what's going on, I call Derek to let him know and of course, everyone is very amused by our predicament.

Then Colin decides to call Keira and let her know what's going on. She doesn't answer, so he has to leave a message. He decides to leave a cryptic message, something about 20,000 penises and then to me he says, "We need to make shirts. My shirt's going to say, I survived 20,000 penises with my Aunt Jen." Then I say, "OK, I'll make one that says, I survived 20, 000 penises with my nephew."

Colin's mom calls to check in and see where we're at, and he tell's her his idea about the shirts and she says "and twice as many boobs". And there's the back of our shirts.

It took about 20min for all the riders to go by and once the intersection was clear, I had Colin safely home in under 5 minutes.

What a crazy drive home. If I would have just taken the first exit, we would have been able to get by it all and I never would have been stuck watching the thousands of naked bike riders with my nephew.

Let me tell ya, this whole experience for me, gives whole new meaning to the phrase: "Keep Portland Weird" !

Oh how time flies...

Today, my newphew is graduating from high school. Seems like just yesterday, he was a baby and now he's all grown up.

Watching Colin grow up has been one of the highlights of my life. I have so many wonderful memories. Him playing with our boxer, Bud, they were the best of friends. When he was discovering the joys of food and the different flavor combinations he'd come up with by adding everything to his cup of milk and then trying to get someone else to drink it. Story time, he used to drive me crazy with his "Tell me a story" rant that wouldn't let up, no matter how many stories you told. Going on our many trips to Disneyland (watch out for the prickly pear!). My favorite memory, when he learned he could pee outside, he didn't want to go anywhere else!

I am so proud of Colin and all his accomplishments. His amazing grades, he's graduating with more than a 4.0 GPA. His volunteer work, he's done many tours as an Outdoor school counselor, and he's also been a volunteer at OMSI for several years. The thing I'm most proud of is what a great kid he's turned out to be.

Colin's future is so bright and I am so fortunate that I get to be part of his life  journey to see where it takes him.

I love you, Colin. You've made me so proud. Keep it up! I can't wait to see what you do next!