Today I’m Portland-Bound

I slept like absolute crap last night.
Dreadful.
Not helped by an enormous amount of noise outside, and someone pointing their bed-lamp out the window & straight at the window of the room I was in, so there was about half of the head of the bed which was too bright to sleep in.
I was tempted to get up and use the mirror from my kitbag to brighten up their day too, but the roommate was sleeping. (also unwell)

Still, it made for an early start and getting to the train station with time to spare.

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Mt. Rainier still being visible.

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For a while there in Seattle, it looked like the mountain was getting closer.
It was impossibly far off when I first saw it, and then every subsequent day it got clearer, the features easier to see.

There’s not much to say about the train trip.
It was comfy, the scenery was nice, and it beats the hell out of dealing with airports & airport security.

Conveniently, the Portland MAX light rail system is right beside the Amtrak terminal, so getting to my hotel out by the airport was fairly simple. (I’m not a huge fan of the security theatre of airports, but I’m rapidly becoming a fan of airport hotels with cheap rates and easy public transport access)
I say ‘right next to’ the Amtrak station, but it’s actually right next to the Greyhound station, which is across the street from Union Station. There’s a wide variety of people there, some waiting, some begging, a few having a loud argument across the street at each other, …

The hotel room’s nice; Artwork isn’t quite Hostess Cupcake II from the Doubletree in Chicago, but it’s not boring.

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And the WiFi was up to the task of streaming Mikey Mason’s Revenge of the Hufflepuff show on Concert Window.
Turns out that I could hook Pangur Ban up to the TV & watch he show in Big-O-Vision.

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