Portland, Oregon!!

So many of my friends are moving from Xanga to this site, so I'm going to be posting duplicates of my personal updates both here and there -- for a while at least.

I was planning to update last Saturday, but then didn't get it done, so I'm going to start today with our trip to Portland. We've come out here to attend the TCA conference (Truckload Carriers Association - Reefer Division). We'll be here in Portland until Wednesday afternoon, then drive across the mountains past Mt. Hood to the Sunriver Resort where the conference will be held.

We flew out of Richmond on time Monday morning at 7:00. Arrived in Dallas, walked to our outbound gate, then determined what we were going to do. It was 10:00, so we decided to have a bite to eat at one of the food courts. John had a breakfast sandwich, I had a grilled chicken salad from Popeyes.

Then I sat and read a while, listened to a Koinonia House message on my computer (didn't feel like spending money to get online to check emails). We had a four hour layover, so we had lots of time, but when you have to lug your carry-on luggage everywhere, it's not as nice. There was an incident with my red makeup/toiletry bag -- John had that and his own small file folder bag. (I had my purse and my computer case, although we sometimes switched off between the computer case and the red bag.) John sat in the food court sipping a coffee and reading, then went to the wash room. He picked up his bag and forgot mine! He did his thing, then wandered to where I was sitting. First thing I said was, "Where's the red bag?" Oops!! He went racing back to the food court and there was a security officer getting ready to take it -- someone had reported an unattended bag. John said, "Sorry, sir; that's mine." He wasn't asked to identify it. But my bag would probably have been blown up to make sure it wasn't a bomb. :(

Just as we were about ready to board our Portland flight they asked if anyone was interested in giving up their seat for $300 and take a later flight to Portland as the plane was overbooked. John raced to the counter and said we would take them up on that. They took our tickets and put our names down. We were the first to offer, so we ended up waiting ANOTHER four hours to take off. They gave us two $300 ticket vouchers to use within the next 12 months, two tickets for the next flight, and two $10 vouchers for lunch. We had to go to Terminal C for our next flight; the agent who gave us the vouchers told us the best food options were in Terminal D, so we took the Air Tran to Terminal D and had a lovely lunch at a Tex-Mex style restaurant. Then we took the Air Tran to Terminal C. Our flight was out around 4:30 Central time. We arrived in Portland with no problem at 6:00 Pacific time, then went to get our luggage. As we were coming down the escalator to the luggage carousels we heard our name being paged -- we were directed where to go to get our luggage that had come in on the plane we were originally scheduled to come in on -- well, John's luggage made it. Mine didn't. In addition to all my stuff, it has John's dress shirts in it.

John called the Crowne Plaza for a shuttle and we checked in and settled into a lovely room. We had a good night. It is now 7:30 Pacific time. John is out having a coffee before he goes to get the rental car. I'm dressed in yesterday's clothes. I think I'll walk across the street for a 7-Eleven coffee. I'm not going to shower until I've checked to see if my suitcase made it in yet. I need to wash my hair but my curling iron is in my suitcase.

So that's our trip so far. It's overcast this morning; temperature was 72° when we landed last night. It's supposed to get up to 85° today. Nice break from the 100's we're having back home this week! We had 3/4 inch of rain the other week, but storms have been going around us. Ashland had a nice rain Sunday evening during church, and over 3 inches were dumped on Interstate 64 from Goochland to Short Pump. We got lots of wind and thunder but not a drop of rain from that one. But God is faithful. He knows our needs and He will provide in His time.