What a tediously long day this has been. My trip to Portland, OR was side lined in Cincinnati for "maintenance issues." I think maintenance is new airline jargon for mechanical problems, less scary. In this case, maintenance is refers to broken hydraulics. Yikes!

Delta first outlined our predicament about 15 minutes past scheduled boarding as the several hundred people at the gate began stirring nervously. The first guestimate was an hour's delay. The hour came and went and nothing happened. The second announcement indicated that a part was being flown in from Atlanta and our departure time had been changed to 8:45 pm (originally scheduled for 5:00 pm). Along with our wait came a $7.00 food coupon that fell short $3.00 of covering the soup and small salad I ate at Max and Ermma's. Hmmm!

We finally boarded at 8:45 pm and were wheels up by 9:30 pm. The Delta staff did go out of their way to be nice to us. They were so gracious to the coach section by "giving" out earphones instead of charging for them. We saw two movies "Bourne Supremacy" and "The Notebook." "Bourne Supremacy" was pretty good, although I discovered I could take my headphones off, read a while, put the headphones back on and know exactly what was going on in the plot. "The Notebook" totally captivated me. It is a very sentimental love story and a perfect "grab a box of Kleenex" Saturday night video.

We landed about 10:45 pm local time (1:45 am on my watch) and I grabbed a taxi to the city. This is my first visit to Portland and I am really looking forward to seeing some things, in between meetings of course. My first view of Portland? Heavy fog, misty and cold...just like rest of my trips this year! The staff at the Downtown Marriott tells me that my room overlooks the Columbia River, I just can't see see it through the fog.