Vacations Blog

The irony of this entire thing is that I could have chosen any hotel in the greater Portland area.

It was a business trip and they’d pick up the tab.

Marriott on the water? A night in one of the McMenamin’s pub-based rooms? Hilton?

I could have had any.

I decided to try for ‘cool’ and ‘funky’.

In fact, that’s what I typed into Google.

The first to pop up was the Jupiter Hotel and from the initial look of the website, it was everything I hoped to find my one night in town.

It’s a motel with a makeover. I can dig it.

I got off of the plane and into the cab.

‘800 East Burnside, please’, I said.

‘Jupiter Hotel! Nice choice, man’ he said.

‘Thanks!’ I said back, suddenly reminded of how nice everyone was in this town.

‘Have fun!’ he said as I got out of the cab, which seemed weird, but I didn’t mind as he was so kind to only charge me $4.

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‘Hi!’ said the very nice boy behind the counter.

‘Hi!’ I said back, again reminded of how nice everyone was in this town.

‘Here’s your key!’ he said handing me a key.

‘Thanks!’ I said, taking the key.

‘No problem, sweetie!’ he said as I walked out of the office, which seemed weird, but I didn’t mind as he was so kind to ignore the fact that I was from Oklahoma…with a last name of Queen. Which usually gets me a few comments.

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And so I walked past a lot of very nice guys with beards to my room.

‘Hi!’ a lot of them said.

‘Hi!’ I said back to a lot of them.

And then opened my door:

It was like a forest! With nice pillows and a flat-screen television and some ‘cool’ and ‘funky’ toiletry ideas for a greener world:

And so I sat and thought about how quaint and wonderful this place was and how nice everyone was in and around the area and it wasn’t until I noticed the condom on the pillow that this might be a little bit more than ‘cool’ and ‘funky’.

It could be a gathering place of boys-who-like-boys; which is fine. I’m fine with it. Even tried a little makin’-out with another boy back in the 90’s to see if I was. I was not, but have no problem with it.

But just to be sure, I went ahead and re-visited Google for some answers…

‘Jupiter Hotel’, ‘Portland’, ‘possibly gay’.

And I found out…well, everything and nothing.

Portland is a free-thinking city, that’s what makes it so wonderful. So I’m sure I could replace ‘Jupiter Hotel’ with any and get some hits.

Let’s try:

‘Hilton hotel’, ‘Portland’, ‘possibly gay’.

Oh. Okay, nothing, really.

Which means it was either, yes, a very gay hotel, or just run by a bunch of well-dressed hipsters who were nice.

I left more confused than when I came in – which, if owned by the types that I think own it, is exactly what they wanted.