Parents Only Vacation: Getting to Oregon

I really coulldn't bear checking email or spending much time on the interwebs during our vacation, much less blog. We're back home, after a really long day of travel and bad weather, but here is a little bit of our vacation,  day by day.

One of my favorite parts of taking a trip is the travel to the destination. The whole vacation is ahead of you,  and all you have to do is relax and get there. Our getting here took 12 hours, included 2 flights and a lengthy layover. That a lot of time to do people-watching, and to get annoyed with other passengers. Naturally since we were hoping for a relaxing vacation, we would be surrounded by small children and infants on both flights. Both.

In retrospect, I'd like to send an electronic high five to the first set of parents and your approximately 18 month old daughter. Sure, the dad was a little annoying since he talked to the girl like she was a one month old, but whatever, both parents were attentive. We all survived the flight.

Now, parent set #2: y'all are assholes. During our 4 hour flight, your daughter cried 3.5 of those. Not wimper-crying or whining, but full body crying. Being one row behind you, we couldn't help but critique your attempts to keep her quiet. Let's review:
1. Shaking a baggie of Cheerios in front of her face. Was she supposed to magically get happy because you're offering her the same boring snack she's eaten for months? At least offer her something good, like a cookie or something.
2. Waving a book in front of her. Could you maybe not read it to her instead of just moving the book back and forth in front of her face?
3. Looking at each and shrugging, like you just don't know what she wants. She wants to be picked up out of the carseat, you morons. You could at least put her in your lap, or walk around with her. Oddly enough you did this once, and she got quiet right away. But being the morons you are, you put her immediately back in the carseat like she was now magically permanently quiet. Hold your baby!
4. Nothing. This seemed to be y'alls default. There was an awful lot of just sitting there, acting defeated and ignoring the baby. You seem to like letting the baby cry it out, and in your own home I'm happy to let you do whatever you want. But with a hundred other people or so to consider, don't you think it would be better to tend to the child?

To family #3 with five small children on that same flight, but in the row behind us, kudos. I'm not entirely sure you didn't sedate those kids before the flight, but whatever you did, it worked.

So, for reasons you can imagine, we were all happy to land in Portland. We rode the MAX to our hotel for the night. Here it looks like I'm asleep, but I'm actually studying a map while trying to avoid eye contract with a rather large burly man who was in the mood to talk.

We were spending that first night in Portland, and we were staying at Hotel DeLuxe. Cute hotel with a sexy, glamorous vibe. I loved the decor.

The view of Portland from our room.

 The elevator was glamorous,too. I was tired, but was rallying to walk to dinner. I was also silently kicking myself for cutting my own bangs a few days before. that is just never a good idea.

 Portland is a biking city. Did you know? If I remember correctly, it's the 2nd most-biked city, if that wording makes sense. It's almost the city that has the most people biking to work, almost.

 Besides the bikes, it's also known for outdoor art. While not officially the same calibre of art as the bike sculpture above, the "art" below just made us chuckle.

We had a decent dinner and Keith tried some local microbrews and we retired pretty early. Or was it late? I can't remember. Great start to a very good vacation.