Portland Trip day 1

What an incredibly long day its been. Nicole (from www.tilanofresco.com) arrived to pick me up at 8:30 am this morning and with the car absolutely FULL of class kits (over 400 various kits), we set off on our journey to CKC Portland. From out previous road trip to CKC Seattle, we don’t have a very good track record for getting places without getting lost along the way. We stopped off at a Starbucks only minutes from the border and we got lost trying to find our way back onto the highway. I know, it sounds ridiculous! We did however make it all the way to Portland without getting lost or sidetracked along the way, the sun was out and by the time we reached Portland it was actually warm out! (20 degrees celcius). We got lost trying to find the Walmart Supercenter, so we gave up and decided to go straight to the hotel, then we got lost trying to find the hotel. Finally we made it! The Jupiter Hotel. Well…. its….different. It’s not like any hotel I’ve ever stayed in before, its totally funky and retro! But it sure seems to be a popular place – there are always people around, the bar and restaurant are constantly booming. We burst out laughing when we saw our room – green shag pillows on the bed, a mural of a babbling brook on the far wall, and the doors were painted with chalkboard paint (there was a cup of various chalks inside for us). There was also a little something on the bedside table too…. you can use your imagination for this one. 😉 Oh and when we checked in they told us quiet time starts at 2am!!! lol! There were also 2 pairs of ear plugs waiting in the room for us.

Our funky room

Handy little ear plugs, wonder if we will use them…

We thought it would be fun to write our names on our door….  then thought maybe if people knew there were two girls inside we might get some unwanted knocking on the door so for safety reasons, we changed it….

Then it was off to CKC – Nicole was teaching 2 classes around dinnertime.  The classes went really well, everyone in the classes was so nice! And apparently we have Canadian accents 🙂

We didn’t leave the convention center until almost 9pm. Other stores we wanted to go to were already closed so we headed towards the Walmart Superstore. We had a map but of course we got lost again (this was the 5th time getting lost today for us). We finally pulled over at a Holiday inn and went in to ask for directions. We were told we were 135 blocks away from where we were trying to get to! How in the world we wound up there we have no idea!!

We did make it to Walmart eventually – this is a 24 hour one too – exciting for us! LOL!!! Well actually the exciting part is being in Oregon and having no sales tax!!!!  We grabbed snacks, and some stuff we can’t get in Canada, and headed back to the hotel but we didn’t get back until after 11, and we still hadn’t eaten dinner. The bar at the hotel was open (and was quite busy) – so we went down to see if they were still serving food. They were serving a select menu and we were starving so we stayed, and actually the food was really good! Eating dinner at midnight is not something I usually do though. Oh and something else funny, we got ID’d a couple times tonight – I love it when this happens! Getting ID’d at 30 years old is very exciting, lol.  🙂

the lights around the outdoor lounge at the hotel