Let’s start from the beginning….actually yesterday. We decided to drive to Orlando Airport area and stay at a hotel so not have to deal with traffic in the morning. Did not know that I had a booked into a brand new hotel. Very nice and worth it, interesting artwork in the room. Across the street is the WallyPark offsite airport parking we are using.

Orlando International is crazier than Chicago O’Hare. There is road construction on the ramp going into to the airport; fortunately not-to-bad traffic at 8:30 in the morning. A good time to enter the airport and process through security. Very busy with summer travelers in the airport, minimal business travelers. As to be expected, our flight is delayed leaving Orlando for Atlanta by 40 minutes.. Haven’t experienced one flight on time this year. I guess vacationers will tolerate it; business travelers would be annoyed….but they are rarely seen at this airport.

The Delta variant of Covid-19 is supposedly floating around. Most are wearing masks, some have it below their noses and some don’t have them on at all. No one seems to care anymore. The airport seems just like it was before. Social distancing, forget about it.

After the long flight to Portland, Oregon, we have an hour drive to Hood River, OR and our historic hotel, right on the Columbia River. It was worth a full day of travel to find ourselves relaxing outside in the 60 degree weather. YES! A break for a few next few days before we head to the more intense heat of Spokane and the start of the bike tour.

We were able to see Mt. Hood a little bit while driving along the river. The hotel still has the ancient elevator – one fo the first Otis elevators of its kind – serial number 13. The interior of the hotel is styled and decorated in tune with the era it was built, the early 1920’s. Long hallways, and you must use stairs unless you request the receptionist to take you up in the elevator. The staffing shortage is also evident at this hotel. It took 30 minutes to get beverages and another 45 minutes to get food. We were still on Eastern time zone and starving, but perhaps the service delays were ok since it helped us adjust to the time zone. We finished dinner at 9 PM local time, midnight home time. We crash, anticipating our exploration of the Hood River area tomorrow.

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The view of the Columbia River