What a difference a little change of perspective can make!
My post here yesterday shared a photo of a wall of old radios. I was concentrating on the radios themselves, and cropped the photo accordingly.
Our friend, Robin Beechert, captured the same scene but with a different “eye.”
Her version tells a lot more about the store’s preparations for the weekend before Halloween!
Lucky you live Hawaii!
That was my thought when seeing the weather this morning and the forecast for the next few days here in Portland, Oregon.
We didn’t pack for this kind of weather, so we’ll just have to layer up a bit, I guess.
It drizzled on and off all day yesterday, which is typical for Portland. People can probably tell that we’re from out of town because we carry umbrellas. Portlanders seem to almost ignore the rain. It must be an acquired skill.
Sunrise is at 7:42, more than an hour later than in Honolulu. Sunset just after 6 p.m., only a few minutes later than Honolulu.
Today’s plans include a long walkabout in Powell’s Books, the huge bookstore in downtown Portland. Back in the 1970s, we would visit Powell’s before the store grew to fill the entire city block. Near the entrance, Mr. Powell would typically be seen next to a pile of used books, examining each one and separating out the “keepers,” which went into a separate pile. It was all part of the Portland “scene” at that time, before the gentrification of the surrounding Pearl neighborhood got rolling. Today, gentrification and homelessness are engaged in block-by-block conflict.
We’re planning a short trip in December to the San Francisco area to visit family and friends. I set up the basics, flights, rental car, and hotel reservation, over the summer. It’s a simple trip, one destination, one hotel, a car. All booked online.
But I’ve learned that it pays to check back later because there’s often money to be saved.
That proved to be the case again today.
When I originally booked a car through Costco, the price, after all the fees and taxes were added, was a pretty steep $588 for the 8 day trip.
This afternoon I checked again and I was able to save close to 20%. Same airport, same rental company, same class of car. Price quoted today was only $480.
Luckily, Costco makes it easy to cancel a reservation and then simply rebook it.
Usually I compare Costco’s price to the price if booked directly from the rental company. Costco usually wins. I also comparison shop with AAA, and AARP, which both offer travel services and car rentals.
I haven’t had as much success with finding better hotel deals, but I do make a habit of checking anyway. Several times. Just in case.
We’re flying home on Tuesday, just a couple of days ahead of a “reunion weekend” planned by our alma mater, Whitman College.
Getting out of Dodge just in time, it appears.
The Marcus Whitman Hotel and Conference Center, the largest and most prominent of the hotels here in Walla Walla, was suddenly closed and evacuated last Friday due to chemical odors in the basement. The parking lots are empty, the hotel entrances locked and secured by yellow security tape.
Over the weekend, pure gasoline was found in a 10-foot sump in the hotel basement. Apparently the gasoline somehow migrated from a service station across the street into the hotel basement, although the two locations are not connected by any pipeline or drain, and it isn’t known how the gasoline made its way across the street.
Now, according to the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, there is a two-pronged effort underway to remove gasoline from the hotel basement, and empty the tank at the service station so that the process of locating the leak can proceed. The UB’s story does note that they still have to find a contractor for the leak detection.
So far, there is no estimate of how long the hotel will have to remain empty while the volatile gasoline is removed and the area determined to be safe.
It now appears likely that anyone who booked one of the hotel’s 133 rooms will have to find accommodations elsewhere. That may not be easy, nor will the alternative digs provide the ambiance of the Marc.
I imagine there’s a lot of anxiety in the administrative offices over at the college today!