Rode the train for a 3 hour run through cloud, rain, blue sky and sunbreaks (typical spring in the pacific NW) alongside a stretch of Puget Sound you can't see from a car and got to PDX too late for happy hour. So walked the bike through the Pearl District to the HI hostel. It's a scruffy late C19th rooming house. I have a lower bunk in a poorly lit warren of rooms with 7 other budget travelers. I'll be perfectly fine. By now I'm a veteran of hostels in several countries so I select US ones primarily for location and pack ear plugs and an eyemask. If any of my roomies choose to be inconsiderate like some of the jackasses I met during last year's tour of Germany, well I have a repertoire of responses to choose from. If I have to deal with a repeat of the noisy sex of my roommates from Baden Baden, this timeout will show no mercy and I will toss their sorry behinds out of the room, irrespective of time. Baden Baden really was a nadir of budget traveling for sure. On the recommendation of the reception folks I had an inexpensive meal (bowl of brown rice, black eyed peas, collards and pulled pork at Laughing Planet, a noisy veggie, vegan and locavore place decorated with plastic dinosaurs. Sadly, my days of dining on an expense account are long gone, and in my bike knicker pants and riding rain jacket I fit right into Portland's alternative world. All I lack is an unusual hair color and piercings. I had thought of packing my joke tattoo arm warmers for the full fashion statement but decided I was plenty weird enough just choosing to visit Portland like this. The next 4 days are 60% rain so I'm just gonna deal with it. I need to study the map as I don't want to wipe out on the MAX tracks.
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