Out on the wiley windy moors
Jun. 11th, 2005 11:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyranoSafely in Vancouver. The market (PNW in general, Portland in specific) is bad, however, and so I had to leap on an eleven o'clock flight out of SFO on Friday night into Seattle in order to be certain of arriving in time for Jess' party. So I got in, and it was nearly one. Struggled out to try and get the attention of my rental car people (who were, as promised, open 24 hours... if you could find somebody) and got my car and went to the hotel, where I discovered the first instance I've seen of having to pay for parking in addition to paying for your room. Which was weird, but I guess understandable in several ways.
However, at the counter I discovered that our contract with this hotel had expired as of the first of the year and our web page hadn't been updated. Unprepared to pay two to three times what I had budgeted, I paid for parking and headed on down the road, figuring to make Vancouver and crash there, at the alternate hotel I'd made plans for if I actually managed to fly into Portland.
You will be shocked to learn that we had no contract with that hotel either. By this time it was about four in the morning and I was very unsafe to drive. The nice lady behind the counter took pity on me and managed to find me a rate for only $70, which I could afford.
It's kind of eerie--this hotel is across the river from the old OryCon location, and obviously built by the same people. Lots of echoes of OryCon.
So yeah, I got a good five hours of sleep and appear to be ready to tear into things again. And afterwards there will be another drive up I5 to return the car and hop a flight home. The joys of nonrevenue travel!
As a side note, kitties who live in my home neighborhood who want to continue to be such should not, at one in the morning, wait until I am the single car anywhere to be seen on the road and ten feet away before lunging across the street. There was a definite sound of impact, but when I pulled over I could find no sign on the car or the road or relatively nearby that the cat had ever existed. So I'm hoping it was an India rubber cat, and glad I was only going the prescribed 25 mph, and assuming the cat scuttled off and learned a Very Valuable Lesson.
However, at the counter I discovered that our contract with this hotel had expired as of the first of the year and our web page hadn't been updated. Unprepared to pay two to three times what I had budgeted, I paid for parking and headed on down the road, figuring to make Vancouver and crash there, at the alternate hotel I'd made plans for if I actually managed to fly into Portland.
You will be shocked to learn that we had no contract with that hotel either. By this time it was about four in the morning and I was very unsafe to drive. The nice lady behind the counter took pity on me and managed to find me a rate for only $70, which I could afford.
It's kind of eerie--this hotel is across the river from the old OryCon location, and obviously built by the same people. Lots of echoes of OryCon.
So yeah, I got a good five hours of sleep and appear to be ready to tear into things again. And afterwards there will be another drive up I5 to return the car and hop a flight home. The joys of nonrevenue travel!
As a side note, kitties who live in my home neighborhood who want to continue to be such should not, at one in the morning, wait until I am the single car anywhere to be seen on the road and ten feet away before lunging across the street. There was a definite sound of impact, but when I pulled over I could find no sign on the car or the road or relatively nearby that the cat had ever existed. So I'm hoping it was an India rubber cat, and glad I was only going the prescribed 25 mph, and assuming the cat scuttled off and learned a Very Valuable Lesson.