So it begins

Here we are in Portland. We had a pleasant trip, stopping a few times to stretch and to eat. We were in downtown Portland right around 5 PM on a Friday, so it did get a little bit hectic as we manouvered our way to the front door of the Hilton. After checking in, we stopped to eat at the in-house restaurant; a great pasta dinner! Then it was just a short stroll across the street to the older Hilton, where the packet pickup had started. We had picked the right time to do it, as there were very few people in line and when we left the numbers had increased dramatically. Tomorrow there will be lines up the escalators and out onto the sidewalk.

Now we're settled in for the evening; the car is parked safely away somewhere underground and we won't see it again till Monday morning checkout time. And that means we will be doing some walking around downtown tomorrow...call it "training".

On our way to the hotel I did see that they were already beginning to assemble all of the hardware/fences/etc that are used for crowd control and tomorrow we will certainly see a thousand portable toilets lined up near the start. Utilitarian, but quite colorful!

I had this thought last year; all of those toilets are locked with a little padlock and of course each must be un-locked sometime before the start. Imagine the pandemonium if someone lost the key?