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So here I am sitting in the Portland Oregon airport without (to my relief) the responsibility of not geting scratches on a new rental car and contemplating the 14 miles or so journey to our hotel where hopefully there are no more unexpected surprises awaiting.

As with Atlanta I am gazing out at the skyline of Oregon viewing the mountains and fir tress in the distance. The trees begin to take on the aspect of a horde of lawn gnomes from the Travelocity commercials and I chuckle at my first impressions of my future daughter-in-law's stomping grounds. This gets shared with her on the cell phone during the back and forth over the car rental situation.

By the by the mystery regarding that was a simple one. Dan had used a debit card to pay for the rental car reservations and the clerk failed to check that. I never use debit cards so the thought never occured to me. Was pleased he had gone the distance for us afterall. He was furious but pragmatic over saving some money in the long run. He tends to be rather careful over his just and honest rewards for his labors. He works hard and is well deserving of it. I never have any money to spare beyond wondering how to pay for next month's Avengers.

Looks like Heather will be meeting us a little sooner. I confess to a slight bit of disappointment over not being met at the airport with a sign and flowers and candy bars and a red rug but that's TV Land dreams. Hoping she can squeeze us in with all the errands being run by her for tomorrow's big event is putting a damper to the big meet.

I start to call her back as I prepare myself to whine a bit about being stuck here in this much more charming thenatlanta airport and what should our next step be.

Wrong again. Guess who has voice mail on. I
don't bother leaving a voice mail hoping to smoke her out by way of a ladies curiousity. You would think after having a daughter of my own plus two different daughter-in-laws I would know better. The curiousity level of young ladies these days borders on a catatonic state.

I postpone updating Heather until we reach higher ground. Time to take my destiny in my own hands. The money saved by not declaring baggage is now being sacrified to the Taxi gods. And they are merciless. I was also about to learn there is a pecking order when using airport cabs.

I leave Ruth to guard our baggage and stroll outside to see a long line of cabs lined up in an orderly fashion awaiting fares. I go to the very first in line and a young lady with a noticeable accent agrees to take me to the hotel as soon as I get my baggage out to her. This bodes well. Except she leaves a minute later with another fare. In the time it took to go back inside to collect the Mrs. and the bags someone grabbed her and she took off with the sure thing. I pay a bit more attention to the status quo. Passengers are approaching the line of cabs with bags already available and it's first ready first to ride. I end of with the sixth cab in line and he manages to deliver us to the Comfort Suites for $42 and only going about a mile out of the way. I had even shown him my mapquest route but cabbies have their way. I consider I got off easy.

The desk clerk is delighted (every one in this city seems to be delighted) to see us. It's almost infectious. Until the credit card question comes up. It's almost a rerun of Budget Car rental. I also know I can my travel agent Bev on the phone in two minutes back home at AAA so I'm not too worried. I inform her my company as already taken care of expenses.

"Oh you're THOSE people." What does THAT mean and who has Bev told them I am. Some high level manager or someone like that. Really shouldn't be wearing the Superman/Batman hat then. I nod and we are given cards to open the door to our room on the third floor numer 314. We notice a computer for guest use in the hallway near the elevators and Ruth is back in heaven. She is very attached to the computer at home.

I'm not losing a whole lot of sleep over where Heather might be. Dans plane isn't due to midnight so no chance seeing him today. No genuine interest in sitting thru a wedding rehearsal. Along with Dan's airline instructions in an e-mail to us were remarks that Heather NEEDED us at the rehearsal. Ruth had to listen to me going on and on about needs versus wants. Mind you I didn't know Heather would turn out to be such a sweetie pie as her Facebook never gave me a feel for her personality. Boredom or fatique is starting to weave its oh so evil work. Still early and plenty of time to adjust my public persona to a more aggreeable level. Food is the next priority.

We are directed to a place called Elmer's a little ways up the street on the other side of the highway overpass. It looks pricey and the taxi ride killed two meals for sure so instead we end up at a Macdonalds on the other side of the street. It turns out that this piece of the American culture was the same Macdonalds Heather worked at before joining the Army according to her mother I find out later. Never got a chance to share that with Heather while we were out there.

We return to the hotel and I call Heather and prepare for the next phase of our trip.

Good stopping point. To be continued.