My wife's family has been going to the Seaview/Long Beach (WA) area for decades. We hadn't done a family trip there for quite a while, so we planned a family trip for this year. It was my in-laws, their 5 kids and spouses, and most of the grandkids. I think we had 25 in total. Almost everyone drove. My wife and I decided to fly. My son (25) decided to take his own car and drive separate from everyone else, because he wanted his car out there so he had the freedom to do what he wanted when he wanted.

My son drove out there last Saturday (July 30) and stayed in a hotel in downtown Portland. He did valet parking. The next morning, he called for his car. They brought it up, and explained that there had been an incident and several cars had been broken into, including my son's car. His rear passenger window had been smashed. Turns out they had taken a suitcase, but it was empty (he took an empty suitcase to put his dirty clothes in as he wore them). Apparently security noticed and chased the guy away before he could get anything else. They vacuumed out all the glass, and said they would pay for it - but it was Sunday and they didn't know how long it would take to get it replaced. They agreed to keep it in their valet parking area until it could be fixed. My wife and I flew in to Portland Sunday morning, so we went and picked up my son and loaded everything from his car into our rental, and we drove to Long Beach (about 2.5 hours away).

The next day (Monday) my son start calling/texting trying to figure out how to get his car fixed. He got the name of the company that was going to fix it, but they didn't have have the window in stock, so they said it would be a few days. Then everyone stopped responding to his texts. Finally on Thursday he got word that his window had been replaced, but that the valet's insurance had rejected the claim because "they don't cover vandalism". My son handled it well, but spoke to the valet company directly and said that they had told him they would cover it and he was going to hold them to it. They agreed to cover the almost $500 replacement cost. So, at least it was paid for, but my son ended up driving out to Portland and back for nothing, because he didn't have his car all week, which means he didn't have the freedom he craved. Oh well.

On Friday when everyone else hit the road to drive home, my wife and I went back to Portland. We had decided to spend an extra day there because we were in no hurry to get back. So, we got a hotel in downtown Portland (different one than my son) and spent the evening walking along the river, got a donut at Voodoos. That was nice. Saturday morning, we walked down to their downtown market (a bunch of vendor booths, food trucks, etc). Then we walked a bit through downtown. I wasn't that impressed. It was smelly, and a lot of homeless tents set up. As we were walking back to the hotel, we passed a Nordstrom Rack store and my wife wanted to go inside. As we approached the doors (they were double glass doors), we noticed a guy standing in front of the doors just looking at his phone. We figured he was passing time waiting for his wife in the store. As I opened the door for my wife (what a gentleman!) there was a guy leaving through the other side of the door. As soon as he stepped out, a female employee walking behind him grabs him from behind, and the dude that was looking at his phone outside the store grabs him from the front. The thief had a backpack stuffed full of stuff, and obviously they had been tracking him and waiting for him to leave. The girl employee that had grabbed him from behind latched onto that backpack and was not letting go. So, the thief wiggled free of the backpack and took off running. All of that happened a couple feet from where I was standing holding the door from my wife. After grabbing the backpack off the thief's back, the employee just took it back into the store and into the office. I was impressed with that girl - she was a tough one - probably early 20s with long blond hair, but she handled that guy with ease. He put up quite a struggle trying to break free, but ended up having to ditch the backpack because she wasn't letting go.

Anyway - our week began with a theft, and ended with a closeup view of another attempted theft. I'm not in a hurry to spend any more time in Portland.