Day 6, Hitting the city

The sun rose, waking up the Pipers bright and early for a new day, as they grumbled and rolled out of bed their morning was hastened for the fact that they had to be in Portland for their talk show in the Whitsell Auditorium at 1. Trees flitted by the RV, smaller cars passed by the towering Motor Home as the family of four traveled down the Highway 5 to Portland, Oregon. As they hit some of their first traffic jams they realized they had arrived in the outside skirts of Portland. A few minutes later as they exited the freeway they saw the skyscrapers glinting in the sunlight, the massive buildings were pretty in some peoples eyes, Tara who had a sweet spot for big cities loved the look and style of the magnificent buildings. A small bit after arriving in Portland they were faced with the “parking an RV in a big city” problem. There were no large movie parking lots that they had become so very familiar with over the days. Now they were seeing small packed parking lots and narrow streets and barely any places to park. Even for small little cars, the town of Portland has based itself on public traffic, so having a car in general is a major nuisance, and having an RV was a disaster.

After driving around the city blocks for almost an hour they began to get more and more frustrated, for their movie talk show was going to start in about 15 minutes. After a lot of yelling and angry mutterings they found a small parking spot, well it actually wasn't a parking spot, it was an unloading space but they figured they could stay their at least thirty minutes. The showing finished about an hour later, and surprised to hear that no-one had said anything about where the RV was parked they set out on a hunt for parking, it took at least 30 minutes before Ben came back to the RV with good news, they had found a couple spots available in a small little lot hidden behind a larger building, the actual parking in the spot situation was quite difficult as they soon discovered. Ben attempted to back into the spot, but after a lot of forward and backwards turning he was about to give up, it took Annie to push the interesting smelling dumpsters against the fence for the RV to finally pull into the slot. Halfway there, they still had to successfully navigate the second RV into the other available spot. They continued the pull forwards then backwards process until... success! Both RV’s where parked in an overnight parking lot. Pleased with the parking job, the Pipers decided to take a relaxing walk around downtown Portland.

Since their movie wasn’t playing at the cinema till tomorrow they decided to have a celebratory meal at Hotlips Pizza to congratulate Daniel on his recent achievement of straight A’s in the previous school year. As the family headed back from their tasteful meal the sun was beginning to hide behind the skyscrapers, the air was chilly and the shadows were towering above them. Tara had forgotten about one thing though. As she stepped foot into the small parking lot her nose was stung with the sharp urine smell that had been lingering in the bushes alongside the RV. She did a small double take as she instantly remembered one of the major downsides of large cities, most of them were somewhat heavily populated with homeless people.

Not always a bad thing, but definitely well, a thing. Tara was attempting to make her family create a pact to not open any vents or windows that night, but with her stubborn mother in charge… Kim liked to have her vents open above her bed to keep air flowing through the RV and didn't want to budge off of that need, Tara didn’t quite understand why it was better to have the RV smell like fermented pee then to have it be stuffy with the four of their breath. Anyway, at least they had a permanent place to park their RV for the couple days they would be in Portland. The family once again curled up under their blankets and with hope of good smells they drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow night at 7pm Phoenix, Oregon is playing in the Whitsell cinema. See you there!