Washington/Oregon 2021 - Damn GPS

We stopped by my niece's house the next morning to witness the aftermath of the wedding and say goodbye before heading off to Portland. Apparently the festivities had gone on until the wee hours of the morning. My youngest nephew had been up until midnight before rising at 3 a.m. to catch an early morning flight back home to Baltimore, my new nephew in law had forgotten where he had left his phone the night before, finally finding it in his pants from the previous day which were themselves found, crumpled, in one corner of the bedroom. As we left my grandniece had her head in my niece's lap as my niece braided her hair. It is a sweet ritual between them. It brought back memories of my final day at my nephews house 6 years before, the two of them, my grandniece only 6 at the time, in the bathroom, singing at the top of their lungs to the radio as my niece, curling iron in hand, tamed my grandniece's then unruly hair. 

Getting to Portland was easy enough. We took the wide interstate highway this time, as opposed to the more scenic route we had used coming in. Nearing the city we decided to give GPS one last opportunity to guide us through the city streets to our hotel. Once again we found the technology lacking as it began to send us, as it had before, driving around in circles. Once again we switched the damn thing off and went by instinct, eventually finding our destination without her assistance.

Checking in to our beautiful, historic hotel, opened in 1913 it is on the nation's historical registry, we discovered that a sizable number of covid mitigation measures were still in effect. Masks required in all indoor settings, many businesses still shuttered, a combination was needed to access the restrooms in the lobby of the hotel, along with public restrooms in several other places. We felt as in we had taken 2 steps backward as back home Chicago had fully reopened, without capacity limits and dropping mask mandates for the vaccinated. 

We went to the only operating dining option in sight, a sports bar, for lunch, before retiring to our sumptuous room for some well deserved down time.