Monday 29th May - to Portland

Up at 7am and breakfast in the Premier Inn. We were ready earlier than planned but went down for the bus anyway. In the event we had to wait over half an hour for the ‘every 20 minutes’ shuttle. Fortunately it was a Bank Holiday so there was hardly any traffic about and we were at Terminal 3 very quickly. Delta now have a 2-stage check-in but we got through that quickly and, having dropped our luggage, went straight to Security. We were ready for Les to have the full scan after his knee set off the alarm. After that we found that our tray had been pulled to one side and we had a long wait for it to be checked. While we were waiting Anne realised that the medicine bag that she’d put in the rucksack with our prescription tablets also had tubes of sunscreen and ointments. There was no fuss and the security man simply put them in a clear plastic bag and put them in our rucksack.

We went straight to the Lounge but were a bit disappointed. While the new one is obviously smarter than the old one, it’s more impersonal and it was quite crowded and it took us a while to find a couple of seats together. Not sure that we like the ‘upgrade’. We got ourselves coffee and read the papers and then all of sudden it was time to go to the gate. The gate itself didn’t seem very crowded and we didn’t wait long before boarding started and was finished very quickly. Unfortunately we had to wait a while for a slot, possibly because of the previous couple of days chaos caused by BA’s computer failure and in the end we took off 30 minutes after schedule.

This was the first time we’d flown with Delta and we were very pleased. The plane was obviously quite new and comfortable even in Economy. The only hiccup was the food. They had Les down for a vegetarian meal and he had to have it as they claimed to be short of normal meals. It was fine - in fact Les liked it more than Anne did - Dahl with basmati rice and spinach. They fed us twice more with snacks - all vegetarian for Les. A very smooth flight and we landed 15 minutes ahead of schedule. We had a fantastic view of Mount Hood as we came in to land. We were out and through immigration fairly quickly. This would’ve been even quicker if the people on the plane had made the system clearer to us. As we’d been to the USA previously on the same passports we could’ve simply put them through a machine instead of queuing to have our fingerprints taken. We picked up our baggage quickly and then had another ride on a shuttle bus to the main airport building. We found that we could take the light rail to the city centre for $1.50 each. It was a 30 minute ride and it dropped us 400yds from the hotel.

Another slight hiccup when the receptionist wrote the wrong room number on our card wallet but once this was sorted we were into our room. Not worth unpacking so we just had a quick shower and then went out for a walk. We walked down to the river and then along the riverbank passed the extraordinarily large funfair that is currently on. As we headed back towards the hotel through the Old Town we started looking for restaurants and found a Chinese that looked nice and was quiet and empty. A very nice meal - far too large - we could’ve shared one main dish. Interesting chat with the waitress who was Chinese/Hawaiian and had also lived in Adelaide. She recommend that we go to Crystal Springs tomorrow rather than the famous Rose Gardens. The latter are very crowded at the moment and Crystal Springs, a rhododendron garden, should be quieter. It looks as though we can get there very easily on the light rail.

Tuesday 30th May – in Portland

Slept a bit fitfully even though we were very tired. Up around 8am. After we’d showered Les walked to the boulangerie one block away and brought back a fruit cup, pastries and coffee.

Unfortunately there was a steady drizzle, so we decided that Crystal Springs wasn’t a good idea. Instead we made our way to Portland Art Museum. We were going to take a streetcar, but after taking a wrong turn on the way to the stop we found it was simpler to walk all the way. Had a coffee in the museum café and then spent the rest of the morning wandering round the various galleries.

The café was crowded at lunch time so we decided to leave. Had a really nice fishburger each at Elephants In The Park. Anne was still a bit frazzled from broken sleep so we walked back to the hotel for a rest. Our room hadn’t been made up although it was after 2pm.

After a short rest we walked back up to Pioneer Courthouse Square and into the Tourist Info and TriMet office to find out about buying tickets for our journey back to the airport tomorrow. From there we walked to Powells City Book Store and spent an hour browsing there.

On our return to the hotel at 4pm our room was just about to be serviced so we went back down to the lobby bar for a cup of tea. The waiter was very friendly and when we came to pay he said it was on the hotel. After that we rested again for a while. Anne looked up restaurants she had bookmarked before leaving home and found one which was Greek and only 5 mins from hotel. We walked there and had a really nice meze.

Wednesday 31st – Portland to Astoria

Up quite early after another fitful night. Same routine of Les getting breakfast from the boulangerie while Anne started packing. The most difficult part of the morning was waiting for the lift to get down from the 8th floor. We (and the other hotel guests) realised that only one of the three lifts was working. Eventually we had to get into it on its way up in order to get a space. Having left the hotel we walked up to Pioneer Square. Luckily all the traffic lights were with us and we crossed all the junctions without stopping and a train arrived as soon as we got to the stop. We were at the airport by 9.30 so we decided to have a coffee before we picked up the car

Car rental seems to get simpler all the time. We’d entered all our details on line and it probably took us no more than two minutes to sign a couple of pieces of paper and then get the car. It’s a Santa Fe much like our own and the biggest problem we had was working out how to use the stand alone satnav that we’d rented.