Aug. 30, 2014 --- to Portland:
After spending the night in Vegas with our friends, we all headed off to breakfast (found a Co Co's which we were excited to try since they use to be near our house in St. Louis years ago and we enjoyed them then), then we were off to the car rental facility.  If you've never been to the Vegas car rental facility, it's probably like nothing you've ever seen before!  It's like a mall, complete with escalators to different levels and  a huge garage.  Turn in of the vehicle went pretty well, although the Budget guy didn't seem to like it when we didn't stop way in the back and instead pulled up to make a new line. But we were soon on our way to the shuttle bus (full size buses here) and off to the airport.  We had a 2:55pm flight and made it there in plenty of time.  Our flight on SW to PDX was on time and in about 3 hours we were in Portland.  We sent Ken off to get the car while John, Coni, and I waited for our luggage.  About the time our luggage showed up Ken also showed up at the luggage carrousels with keys to our light green Subaru Forrester mid sized SUV for the next 2 weeks.  I got a particularly excellent deal on that rental!  After checking rentals for months and months, a couple days before our flight the Subaru SUV came available for $90/week base rate through Dollar.  I jumped on it!  Cancelled our full size reservation for a Ford Fusion for $475 for the 2 weeks (a Fusion is now considered a full size car!).  Signed Ken up for Dollar's express rental program.   When he checked in, they told him we had gotten their 10 minute mistake.  I had checked the rate about an hour after I booked it and it was back up to the $750/week rate that it usually was, but they honored the $90 rate.  We were even surprised that it averaged 30 miles per gallon for the whole 2 weeks and we drove it over 2600 miles---up and down lots of mountains, too!
I had gotten most of our accommodation reservations, but there were 2 nights that didn't work into the timeshares we had, so Coni offered to book us hotels for those 2 nights.  They also graciously paid for all the gas for our car the first 9 days.  Since it was almost dark by the time we got there, I figured we'd spend the first night in Portland.  Coni got us a suite at the PDX Embassy so we headed there to check in.
Then we headed out for dinner.  I knew there was a McMenamin's Restaurant nearby--Kennedy School.  The John D. Kennedy Elementary School is a former elementary school that has been converted to a hotel, movie theater and dining establishment

the movie theater

 one of the classroom chalkboards decorated with the movies being shown in it's theater.

 snack bar by the movie theater

 the Boiler Room Bar

 Love this EIEIO picture.

  McMenamins is a chain of 65 brewpubs, music venues, historic hotels, and theater pubs. The chain is located mostly in the Portland area, but has many other locations in  Oregon and Washington. According to the Brewers Association, McMenamins is one of the top 50 largest craft breweries in the United States.

 some of their menu

 We sat outside in the courtyard

 waiting for our dinner

 tasty burger

 tasty fish and chips

 the Cafeteria

 What would a trip to Portland be without checking out Voo Doo Doughnuts?!  So we went there for dessert.  It's known for its unusual doughnuts, eclectic decor, and iconic pink boxes featuring the company logo of voodoo priests. Where else would you wait  in a long outdoor line in the middle of the night for doughnuts?

 Love their stained glass windows.

and their Cash only sign.

 and their doughnuts!

Their iconic pink boxes with the voodoo priests.

 their menu board

Thought their vigil board was a nice way to remember the newly departed, too. 

 Back at our home for the night.  This is from the rail by our upper level room overlooking where we had our free breakfast the next morning.

 Part of the deal Coni got was to include a card that was to let us get items free from the vending machines on our floor and the floor above ours.  Unfortunately, our cards wouldn't work.  But we kept seeing kids with grocery bags full of the vending machine items running up and down the hall.  We even went and got new cards, but they didn't work, either.  John was fake kicking it here out of fake frustration.

 We also had problems parking when we got back from dinner.  They had 3 weddings going on and all the parking spots were full.  After some complaints, they did remove the $10 parking fee.  Coni and John even had to have housekeeping bring them their tv remote and bedding for the fold out couch.  We found out the fridge was unplugged (the next morning) and the hot water by the bar didn't work.    Ken and I were given the bedroom---felt sort of guilty.