This is a relatively easy find close to PDX airport so that cachers who are traveling can stop by and pick up a Travel Bug and take it with them to a far off location.
This TB hotel has 3 rules:
1. Never show the tracking number of any TB either in your logs or in pics of the bug.
2. If a particular TB has a goal that truly involves leaving the Pacific NW area, DO NOT take that poor, hopeful bug and then park it in another local cache. ARRRGH!!
3. Whenever feasible, please report in your log the names of any TBs not in the cache but listed on this page. That way, the cache owner can boot that TB's name off of the above list.
If you are spending an hour or more waiting to change planes at the airport, you can get to this cache via MAX train for $1.25 and a bit of a walk. Directions: hop on train. Get off at the Mt. Hood Ave stop (the next stop, can't miss it). Follow your GPS to the parking lot of a famous place of business. That cool rock formation in the corner of the lot was especially built for us geocachers to sit upon. Just sit there, pull out the cache, have fun, then put it back. Along the way, say hello to any business employees who drop by to say "HI!". (They've been instructed to look out for us geocachers, so they know we are OK.) Enthrall them with your most fun cache adventures if you both have the time for chatting with each other.
After all is done, walk back to active train station and head back to airport. Catch next plane. Relatively convenient for ya. :)
If you have more time than that while waiting for your plane, check out my PDX Airport T.B. Lounge Supplementary Page for other things to do and places to go instead of getting bored and stir-crazy inside an airport waiting room.
If you are driving from Portland, take 205, airport exit west, turn south on 82nd.
A prime feature of the PDX Airport Travel Bug Lounge is my grand experiment known as the Travel Bug Protection Kits. The kits consist of fill-out-able cards which explain the travel bug concept and some ziplock bags. You can fill out a card to show the name of the bug, it's owner and most importantly, the bug's goal. Then use a ziplock to protect the TB. This makes it easy to tell if one should take the bug or not when others are visiting the cache.
A little bit of PDX Lounge history: the original location was very close to the active MAX station NE of the current location. It had nice tree cover. Then came autumn, the leaves fell, and the cache was placed in what turned out to be a very magical willow tree that had branches which hung low to the ground in such a way that it created a wonderful tree room. The magic willow was buldozed and yet another cacher rescued the cache. This last, final location is secure enough from trouble that it SHOULD last indefinitely. We are making sure of that.
Non-bug trade items are OK. However if the trade items start to overwhelm the space a bit, please do the cache a huge favor and take away a lot of the excessive non-bug items.
NOTE from 3-28-04: I really should post my TB Mission Card PDF for folks to use. It's been around for awhile, and this would be a good page to place a link. This is not related to the TB Protection Kits, but it's useful in it's own way. Check it out here.
=trying!