Finding Portland…

Well I’ve arrived somewhat worse for wear, though no worse than expected. My arthritis always seems to kick in when it’s cold and wet and Portland is, well…cold and wet. It’s about 38F and raining off and on. Luckily I figured this out before I got here so I packed properly.
My trip started in Honolulu, naturally enough, at Honolulu International Airport (HNL). I haven’t always liked our airport as much as I do now. That might be because it’s been under construction off and on for so long it’s been kind of a pain. It might also be because I’ve been to so many other airports in the last few years. Ours has its issues, but on the whole, it’s okay. For instance, we offer free WI-FI.
San Francisco International Airport (SFO) does not. I showed up there about 4:30 AM and discovered that not much was open (things open there at 5:00 AM) and that it’s a T-Mobile hotspot. Thanks but $9.99 for an entire day when I’m only going to be there an hour or or two is a bit much. Luckily I can use my cell phone as a wireless modem. It may not be all that speedy, but it works just fine thank you. I didn’t have breakfast in SFO as I’d planned because the restaurant I was going to eat at didn’t open till it was a bit too close to my next flight’s departure.
On to Portand (PDX). They do offer free internet, but I wasn’t around long enough to use it. I’m sure I’ll get a chance on the way back though.
I picked up my car, which was a fun experience. I’d reserved the cheapest possible economy car I could as I always do. The salesperson really, really, really tried to get me to upgrade a level or two (at an added cost of course). I declined. At that point it turned out they didn’t have any economy cars and I’d have to get one a level or two up, at the orginal cost. Had I agreed I’d have been paying for what they were willing to give me for free. Lovely.
Then it was off to my hotel, Red Lion on the River, a reasonably nice business type hotel. I got there at around 9 AM after only taking one wron turn. I’d love to blame that on the directions I got from Google, but I suspect I was reading them wrong.
My room was ready and it’s even got something of a view of the river and the city of Vancouver, Washington across the way. Having my room ready at 9 AM was great. I might have had to wait till 2 PM. In any case, I checked in, had breakfast, and took a nap. When I woke I showered and such and went off to register for the vampire slaying conference. The earlybirds meeting was at 7 PM and it was nice. I saw a couple folks from home.
After that i went to Safeway to get some supplies for my stay. You know, things like toothpaste which is hard to take on planes these days. Getting to Safeway, which is almost literally across the street from the hotel was a 10 mile adventure. It was dark and I made a wrong turn coming out of the parking lot. That meant I was headed on to the freeway heading towards Washington. On that side of the river I got onto another freeway and had to go several miles to get to an exit where I could turn around. Needless to say I finally got to Safeway, about 30 minutes after I left the hotel. 🙂 I guess I’m not much of driver. 🙂
That’s it for now! I’ve got the morning off, so I’m going to try to get some photography in before the conference starts.
Aloha!