Going to Portland, Oregon

This Veterans’ Day Weekend, I’m going to Portland, Oregon.  I’m leaving early tomorrow morning and returning on a red-eye Monday night on United Airlines.  I bought the tickets a while ago when there was a big sale on flights through ZFV.  ZFV is the name given to the Philadelphia 30th St Train Station.  UA has a codeshare arrangement with Amtrak, and the flight from EWR to PDX was probably $200 cheaper if you tacked on an Amtrak train ride to ZFV on either end.  This doesn’t make sense but that’s how it is.

Although, I’d heard that it’s not difficult to convince UA to “drop” the ZFV portion of the ticket, which would have required me to get from New York City to Philadelphia only to embark a train back to Newark, getting this change accomplished was not easy for me.   While I can “skip” the ZFV portion on the way home, I cannot merely ignore it at the start of the trip, as the remainder of the ticket would be canceled.

After numerous unsuccessful tries to drop the ZFV portion of the ticket, which would have required me to get to Philly (or possibly, Trenton, another Amtrak stop on the route) by 5 am tomorrow, I finally convinced an agent to drop it and keep me on the EWR-PDX flight.  In the time since I’d bought the ticket the departure time for the EWR-PDX flight had changed by only 20 minutes, still leaving me with 1.5 hours between the scheduled arrival time of the Amtrak train and the scheduled departure time of the UA flight.  I hooked onto this, explaining to the UA phone rep that I liked a bigger “cushion” of time.  I pointed out that this was not like a typical flight connection, as I’d have to still get from the train station and get through security, and, as such 1.5 hours was less than perfect. He kept saying – this is a Philly flight, you can’t change the city to EWR. I kept saying, No, it’s an EWR flight with a little train ride added on.

We’re staying at a Kimpton hotel. It’s a “new” property, so, as an Inner Circle member, I get one free night.  I am paying for the other night.   As anyone, or perhaps EVERYONE, knows, I’m in love with Kimpton.  I’m sure this will be no exception, and I’m SURE  I’ll be writing about it.

I’ve been to Portland a few times and really like it.  Once, I ran a marathon on nearby Sauvie Island, where they gave out strawberry shortcake at the finish.  Ah, the things we remember!  We have no particular plans.  Won’t Run For Miles is coming down with a cold or flu, so I’m sure there will be a lot of R&R.  In the land of great wine and craft beers,  Won’t Run For Miles already started antibiotics, and announced that he obviously won’t be drinking…. Wha?

I’d love to go for runs, walk around the Pearl District, shop (Oregon has no sales tax), eat good food, and, weather permitting, visit the Columbia River Gorge or Mount Hood.

Any suggestions on where to go, what to see?  Is there anything special happening in Portland this weekend?