Doubletree Hotels Portland - Lloyd Center

Seattle to Portland, OR 3 Nights in Portland, OR (13th September - 16th September)

On Thursday it was time to enjoy my last trip in a sleeper car on Amtrak, heading about 1,300 miles north of Los Angeles to Portland Oregon. Fortunately, the last trip was by far the best, not for the view, but for the train itself. The Coast Starlight is unique in that it boasts a Parlour Car - exclusive for sleeper passengers - which contains its own restaurant in addition to the dining car, its own theatre, comfy chairs and also hosts wine tasting sessions, which was nice. On the train I m...

Emma comes back from buying her coffee with no change from my $5 bill. "What? I gave her a good tip." We have a fun few minutes verbally fencing about the generosity of tipping with other people's money before settling down to reading in the cafe at Powell's. We've been meandering around the city all day. Our gay concierge, after a prissy moment of uncooperativeness (maybe he thought I was hitting on him) became incredibly helpful about the best vintage clothing and record stores in town. We ...

The danger for a writer visiting a new locale is the easy generality. The challenge I face -- the temptation -- is to capture that defining quality which summarizes a place. Unfortunately, it's so easy to confuse insight with glib generalization. Confined to the few blocks of downtown, I'm in no position to offer any precise, accurate description of Portland. Which doesn't stop me from trying. First, cars do not drive the city. Portland planners have suffered through a lot of productive meeti...