The Road To Portland
Traveling
is about facing oneself and others in colorful new ways. Here's a
reprint of an article written enroute to Portland, Oregon, City of
Roses.
Does the fear of something make the very thing happen?
After
leaving Hood River we headed for Portland and under cover of a dark
night pulled into a long driveway, leading to the Comfort Inn of
Troutdale, a few miles east of Portland.
The Comfort Inn looked well-named,
and I couldn't wait to plop into a warm bed, surrender to sweet dreams,
and awaken refreshed for our Oregon and Washington adventure.
"Let's check in!" I blurted.
No more driving looking for the best accommodations.
A
young girl with long brown hair and an easy smile, who seemed pleasant
and bright, though admitted she'd never been anywhere, or done a thing
with her life, said that indeed the Comfort Inn was the most comfortable, clean, and quiet hotel in all of Troutdale.
"Our rooms are very quiet," she assured me.
That's all I needed to hear.
The night before I'd only slept two
hours due to the clanking and banging of construction workers on Los
Angeles's 405 Freeway, and, to boot, I was getting over some bug.
So I made my way to the end of long hallway, opened the door to room 302, and sighed relief at the sight of a quaint room, just across from Carlton's.
I felt safe.
My bags dropped from my hands, and
in minutes I was in comfy purple pajamas, brushing my teeth with Tom's
of Maine natural spearmint toothpaste.
Just like I did at home.
And just like I did at home, I wondered what were those loud sounds? The sounds coming from...
Why was the room rumbling?
Yes, the room rumbled.
It was as if I'd put a quarter in a machine to make the entire room shake.
I stopped brushing.
What's going on?
I listened carefully, and the rumblings guided me to the right.
A few more yards...
And, yes, the sound and movement and rumblings were outside my window.
I grabbed the crimson drapes, pushed them to the side, and observed over 80-polluting diesel trucks under my hotel window.
The quiet and clean hotel window I'd chosen while chasing clean air.
The diesel trucks rumbled a truck symphony --indeed!--because they ran their damn engines.
All night?
I can't breathe!
I
threw an ivory Patagonia jacket over my purple pajamas. Marched down
the hall. To the creaky elevator. And made my way to the lobby where the
sweet night manager sipped tea.
I stood in front of her, hands on hips.
"How can you say that's a quiet room? It's next to a truck stop. Please give me a room on the other side of the building."
"We have truck stops on both sides of the building," she said defensively.
"Why did you tell me this is a quiet hotel?"
"I don't hear them. Many have refrigerated goods on board so they idle their motors all night. It's like white noise."
I tapped my foot.
"That white noise vibrates throughout my body."
Her face went blank.
"There's nothing I can do about it."
I felt sad and mad and tired, and,
"Had I seen those loud polluters in
the cover of darkness, there's no way we would have stayed," I said,
lamely. "Can you find another hotel?"
"No," she said, with advancing attitude, "and since the diesel trucks are on both sides of the building, and hotels in Troutdale are booked, I'm afraid..."
"Don't you have anything quiet?"
She sighed.
"We get prostitutes for the truckers here. They never complain."
Images
of police raids littered my anxious mind. I hadn't thought of the link
between truckers and prostitutes since Primetime ran a sixty-minute
special. Now I was in the thick of...
"How about a room in the middle of the building?"
She handed me the three remaining keys to vacant rooms.
I
knocked on Carlton's door for help to pick the best room, and to move
my baggages, and wouldn't you know it? His Southern gentlemanly charm
vanished. Poof! In it's place was a sleepy head who couldn't be
bothered playing musical rooms.
"Just turn on the a/c and go to sleep," he suggested as if battling it out with an air conditioner would help.
Diesel trucks spewing fine particulate matter was why I left Los Angeles.
Carlton, being a normal guy, turned on his a/c, which drowned his noise, and he promptly fell asleep, leaving me to play musical rooms alone.
I sat on the bed in each vacant room to feel the rumblings.
I sat, I heard, I recalled Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
After I picked the least offensive room, I went downstairs to return the extra keys.
A trucker with kind blue eyes and naked women tattoos running up his arms, wished me, "Good-night," and offered to walk me to my room.
"That's very kind of you," I started, "No!"
I was up until 3 a.m. listening to the drone of diesel trucks, and my brain, wondering if a trucker, prostitute, or policeman would soon be thumping nearby.
I thought to myself: A fleet of 'em traveling through Oregon, and they all stopped here. Why?
Why chasing clean air me?
The next morning, I captured the following diesel trucks getting gasoline on the other side of the building, steps from my room. 
And in the distance, a paper mill, polluted the sky.
Maybe the fear of something does bring it on.
As we pulled out of the Comfort Inn's driveway, and headed for Portland, I conjured up images of roses, and gardens, and finding clean air by game's end.
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