Arrived Portland - sunshine! 04-30-15

There was a lot of traffic from Eugene north on I-5 and I had to keep my hands on the wheel and my mind on the traffic, so not many pictures.  Also, I tried using the macro feature to take photos of flowers and it messed up the settings on my camera.  I stopped at a rest stop and got out the instruction book, but all I could figure out to do was to reset everything back to the factory defaults.  So, now I will have to start from scratch to get the camera back to where it was.  Might just as well buy a new camera, eh? 

  

It was a bit of a shock to switch from my solitary cruising along the highway to being in downtown Portland with scores of cars, bicycles, pedestrians and traffic signals.  I had to drive around the block a couple times until I could park by the lobby to go inside and check in.  Fortunately the Bell Captain took over my assortment of bags, boxes, baskets and water bottle full of lilac blossoms and delivered them to my room.  When I was parked in the parking structure I just walked into the lobby, took the elevator to the 13th floor and found my room, with everything already inside.  What a way to travel - no luggage  schlepping required. 

This way how I knew my camera was askew!  These are two logging trucks on I-5, heading for the sawmills.  No way to correct the focus.

 

Testing the camera out in the rest stop.

 

But back to factory settings and not what I have become accustomed to.

 

At the Doubletree Hotel in NE Portland.  Mt. Hood is on the horizon about a third of the way from the right.

 

Here is a magnified shot - but it is very hazy on the horizon.  Perhaps tomorrow will be better.

 

And this is the view straight down.  the windows don't open, of course, but there is still a barrier about a foot out from the window.  I am almost directly over the front door of the hotel.

 

We had a "mixer" at 7pm, although it is hard for 200+ people to do much table changing.  But we had a pile of fabric, trims, buttons, glue, markers and scissors on each table and Lyric Kinard led us through a few "fun" exercises, most of which I did not understand.  But I talked to a bunch of people and a bunch more talked to me.  Afterward a buffet of cheese, veggies, fruit, crackers and dessert cakes was served and I made that my dinner.

 

Not sure what tomorrow will bring, but hope I find time to fine tune my camera.  I have finished the SQG newsletter and sent it for proofing, so I will have corrections to do tomorrow.  Why can't I see the errors and someone else can?   I'm glad I have good proofreaders to catch my mistakes.

 

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