Ho Jo

Tom and I headed on a road trip to California to bring our son (Tommy) his belongings he left behind. Tommy’s plan was to send for it when he had the funds. Tom thought it would be nice to bring him his things and have some time together. We wanted to rent a trailer and attach it to our car. Unfortunately, U-Haul wouldn’t do that because Ford Explorers tend to tip over when pulling a load. I’m not a big fan of tipping over so we looked into other options.

We decided to rent a cargo van. The day came and Tom went to pick up the van. He got there and Enterprise would not rent us the van because we were going out of state to California. It seemed they didn’t have a replacement option there. When things looked bleak, Tom said a prayer and it was Avis to the rescue. Tom had to first remove all the seats before he could load up the van.

So we headed out after I got off from work around 5:30 pm. Our plan was to go as far as Portland and continue on the next day. We had a great time talking and laughing. When we finally got there, we checked into Howard Johnson (Ho Jo) (pictured above) and then we figured we would find a place to eat. What do you normally do when in a new city? You ask the hotel clerk about the restaurants that are nearby, right. Sure, but this guy steered us wrong.

We stopped at a place called Buster’s BBQ. It looked good on the outside. But we didn’t get good vibes when we went in. You had to get your own tray and get on a line to order. The place was dirty looking and we just left. We drove and saw a place called Newport Seafood Grill. It looked lovely on the outside, but shall we chance it? In order to get there we had to turn around. We pulled into the Fred Meyer parking lot and noticed a Starbucks sign. Note to self – lattes in the morning.

The Newport Seafood Grill was nice looking on the inside, but the service was really bad. It took forever before someone took our order. When we finally got our food, we found out they ran out of what we wanted. The food was okay, but it hit the spot. I thought the whole situation was funny and helped Tom find the humor in it.

Just for the record, Ho Jo’s are really old and they tried to update this one with free Wi-Fi. So Tom set his laptop on the table and tried to connect. He had trouble getting a signal. He’s not surprised. I took a shower and when I came out, what did I see? - Tom on the floor next to the door with his laptop open.

“Honey why are you on the floor by the door?”
“Well it’s the only place I could get a signal.”

Our first day was full of laughs and I have to thank Ho Jo and Newport Seafood Grill for my entertainment. My next few blog posts will be about our trip. Stay tuned.

© Nadine Z. 2007