PDX

Packed and drove to Radisson Hotel by the Airport. A little difficult to find. Almost clobbered a motorcycle when I had to change lanes at the last minute to make my turnoff. Guy was in a hurry, passing on the right.

Anne bought a case and a half of micro-brew beer, in bottles, for her brother. No problem, just wrap it up and ship it as luggage. We each get two bags and we are only taking one a piece. Lay an old sleeping bag over a duffel bag that my brother Andy left us. Set the two boxes of beer on the bag, wrap them up in the sleeping bag, and zip the giant duffel bag closed. Great, it all fits. It is a little heavy. Are we going to meet the weight restrictions? Well, no, we are not. The bag weighs 56 pounds, and bags over 50 pounds net a 50 dollar surcharge. Okay, so we have to open it back up, pull out the smaller box and pack it in another bag. Okay, now we are under the weight limit.

We stay at the hotel because they offer free parking while we are gone, and because we do not have to get up at some ungodly hour and drive to the airport. We still have to get up at an ungodly hour, but it is a little easier to get ready, because we have already cut our ties to the house. No trying to figure out if we forgot anything. All we have to pack is the stuff we brought with us. Does what we save on parking pay for the hotel room? Maybe, I don't know.

The hotel has fancy numbered beds. Supposedly you can adjust the firmness of your mattress by pressing these buttons on the remote control. I could not detect any difference. The remote was a bit of a pain to use. Press the up button to increase firmness and this motor starts running and making noise and the numbers on the display increase. Okay. Press the down button and nothing apparently happens. Hold it down for a while and then let up and you get a new, smaller number in the display. I tried running it up to 95 and then down to 35 and I could not detect any difference, until I tried to get out of bed. Then I noticed there was a padded rail at the edge of mattress. The center of the mattress had sunk below the edges. I think I probably should have boosted the pressure a bit. Later on I could hear the neighbor running their mattress pump. Loud and obnoxious.

All the outlets were in use, so I had to unplug something so I could plug in my CPAP machine. Why are outlets in hotel rooms always in the most inconvenient places? They always seem to be behind the mattress or the dresser. Seems like the room designers could do a better job of this. Anyway, I got the machine plugged in and then it quits. What's wrong now? Well, the outlet is loose. If you the jiggle the plug, the machine turns back on. Seems having a plug in the socket and then jamming the mattress against has damaged the outlet. Big surprise. Get it working and leave it. It continues to work, thankfully.

The shower had a large diameter head. The flow was adequate, but the force was not very high. It was weird, when I let the water run on my face it tickled my lower lip or something. I couldn't quite figure out what it felt like exactly. It did not hurt, but I could not stand it either. Could not let it run on my face for more than a second or two at a time.

There was a tissue dispenser under the sink, but it only had two or three tissues and was soon empty. There used to be a card lock on the outside door, but it was gone. There was a track of something gross on the parking lot outside the back door where a garbage bag had dripped on the way to the dumpster.

Turns out we were lucky to have a room. All the hotels in the area were full because of the Grand Opening of IKEA tomorrow. Anne had booked our room weeks, if not months, in advance.