Thursday, June 30
We were only about an hour and a half late arriving in Portland yesterday. Got checked into the hotel okay, but decided we were way too exhausted to do anything else. So we ordered Room Service and were asleep by about 9:30. It was nice to sleep on a bed that neither moved nor tooted, and to take a long shower in a real bathroom (even if it is a toy-sized one for a major hotel).
Having slept until 10:00 this morning, and having spent some time on the phone with Kellie about how to get home since the train is not running to Chicago due to the floods, we wound up having lunch instead of breakfast.
Blessings on Kellie who had already been working with Amtrak Vacations people on options for getting us to Glacier and home again. We hope to have a plan confirmed tomorrow.
If you're reading this, you know that I was finally able to get my blog entries transferred to Margaret's laptop so they could be uploaded. That took part of the afternoon. The rest of today was mostly spent meeting and greeting old and new friends ... and waiting for elevators.
The Hilton Portland is 24 stories tall, hosts major conferences, and has exactly 4 public elevators, once again confirming my general opinion of architects' intelligence. Oh, and their exhibit space which is being used for our Hospitality room, is a level of an underground parking garage with no restroom facilities on that level (our conference has about 2,000 attendees, see previous comment about elevators).
Friday, July 1
I spent most of today sitting at a booth selling crocheted string shopping bags ... well, mostly chatting with people who were making the rounds of the crafters' booths. Margaret was off attending lots of the programs, but she did find time to bring me two VooDoo donuts. They were excellent and pretty much constituted my entire lunch. So now, after a volunteer stint on the Registration desk, I'm waiting for my dinner order in the hotel's bar.
As for the rest of the trip, we are supposedly set to go on to Glacier by train as planned, and stay two nights with a tour of the park in between. Then we will be bused to the Grouse Mountain Lodge in Whitefish, Montana. The next day we will be conveyed to the airport in Kalispell, Montana whence we will be flown home. All thanks to Kellie of Travel Leaders and Anna of Amtrak Vacations.
The rest of the evening was spent in the Hospitality room schmoozing and reminiscing with friends from around the country.
Saturday, July 2
I had scheduled a meeting for my Haiku SIG (Special Interest Group) for this morning. I truly expected only one other person besides me to show up for it. I was completely delighted when five other people came also! We had good discussions about both haiku and the SIG.
Margaret went to Powell Books in the morning then shipped her purchases home. We had a very nice little pizza in the hotel's bar for lunch. In the afternoon I worked Registration again while she went to more programs. In the evening we had more interesting conversations with some of the speakers she had heard earlier.
Sunday, July 3
At breakfast this morning, we were discussing, yet again, the foibles of this hotel (the list grows longer). Liz declared that the Hilton Portland must be an active member of the "Keep Portland Weird" Committee. We all agreed.
Margaret and I have also discovered that there are apparently no sightseeing tours of the city. You are expected to see Portland by walking around or by hopping on and off their public transit system. That is definitely not my idea of how a person using a walker or other assisstive device should be seeing a city that is new to them. Portland has been added to my "do not bother to come back" list.
Margaret has gone off to find a rumored craft fair somewhere in the city. I hope that she doesn't get rained on as the day is very gray and cloudy. Amazingly, this is only the second cloudy day we've had on the trip. Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the West Coast's drought situation.
After a final shift at Registration (it's astounding, some of the questions we got from supposedly smart people), I went to hear a program called "Mathemagics" by Dr. Arthur Benjamin who is a professor of mathematics at Harvey Mudd College as well as a magician. It was a fun and fascinating show of mental math skills. I think that, if I had had a math teacher like him in my youth, I would have done a whole lot better with the subject.
We were only about an hour and a half late arriving in Portland yesterday. Got checked into the hotel okay, but decided we were way too exhausted to do anything else. So we ordered Room Service and were asleep by about 9:30. It was nice to sleep on a bed that neither moved nor tooted, and to take a long shower in a real bathroom (even if it is a toy-sized one for a major hotel).
Having slept until 10:00 this morning, and having spent some time on the phone with Kellie about how to get home since the train is not running to Chicago due to the floods, we wound up having lunch instead of breakfast.
Blessings on Kellie who had already been working with Amtrak Vacations people on options for getting us to Glacier and home again. We hope to have a plan confirmed tomorrow.
If you're reading this, you know that I was finally able to get my blog entries transferred to Margaret's laptop so they could be uploaded. That took part of the afternoon. The rest of today was mostly spent meeting and greeting old and new friends ... and waiting for elevators.
The Hilton Portland is 24 stories tall, hosts major conferences, and has exactly 4 public elevators, once again confirming my general opinion of architects' intelligence. Oh, and their exhibit space which is being used for our Hospitality room, is a level of an underground parking garage with no restroom facilities on that level (our conference has about 2,000 attendees, see previous comment about elevators).
Friday, July 1
I spent most of today sitting at a booth selling crocheted string shopping bags ... well, mostly chatting with people who were making the rounds of the crafters' booths. Margaret was off attending lots of the programs, but she did find time to bring me two VooDoo donuts. They were excellent and pretty much constituted my entire lunch. So now, after a volunteer stint on the Registration desk, I'm waiting for my dinner order in the hotel's bar.
As for the rest of the trip, we are supposedly set to go on to Glacier by train as planned, and stay two nights with a tour of the park in between. Then we will be bused to the Grouse Mountain Lodge in Whitefish, Montana. The next day we will be conveyed to the airport in Kalispell, Montana whence we will be flown home. All thanks to Kellie of Travel Leaders and Anna of Amtrak Vacations.
The rest of the evening was spent in the Hospitality room schmoozing and reminiscing with friends from around the country.
Saturday, July 2
I had scheduled a meeting for my Haiku SIG (Special Interest Group) for this morning. I truly expected only one other person besides me to show up for it. I was completely delighted when five other people came also! We had good discussions about both haiku and the SIG.
Margaret went to Powell Books in the morning then shipped her purchases home. We had a very nice little pizza in the hotel's bar for lunch. In the afternoon I worked Registration again while she went to more programs. In the evening we had more interesting conversations with some of the speakers she had heard earlier.
Sunday, July 3
At breakfast this morning, we were discussing, yet again, the foibles of this hotel (the list grows longer). Liz declared that the Hilton Portland must be an active member of the "Keep Portland Weird" Committee. We all agreed.
Margaret and I have also discovered that there are apparently no sightseeing tours of the city. You are expected to see Portland by walking around or by hopping on and off their public transit system. That is definitely not my idea of how a person using a walker or other assisstive device should be seeing a city that is new to them. Portland has been added to my "do not bother to come back" list.
Margaret has gone off to find a rumored craft fair somewhere in the city. I hope that she doesn't get rained on as the day is very gray and cloudy. Amazingly, this is only the second cloudy day we've had on the trip. Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the West Coast's drought situation.
After a final shift at Registration (it's astounding, some of the questions we got from supposedly smart people), I went to hear a program called "Mathemagics" by Dr. Arthur Benjamin who is a professor of mathematics at Harvey Mudd College as well as a magician. It was a fun and fascinating show of mental math skills. I think that, if I had had a math teacher like him in my youth, I would have done a whole lot better with the subject.
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