Remember when I said I was a total dork and loved maps?

Well... I have been working on this Portland trip for about four hours now. If I ever doubted that I inherited sick, anal planning skills from my dad, those doubts have been laid to rest.

Allow me to present... my workspace. (click to enlarge... you know you want to)

 

 

 

 

Allow me to explain... so obviously that large map is my AAA map of Portland. It's somewhat marked up with locations, but the map is so detailed that I wanted to have more pinpointed directions to the places we're hitting. So I planned out a rough itinerary for our trip, and printed out directions from Google Maps according to the itinerary. For places in the Downtown area, I went to the Trimet system website and used the Trip Planner.

Then I labeled each map by day, color-coded it (not because I need to... but because it's fun!!) and paperclipped them. Oh, and those gift certficates? Restaurant.com totally kicks ass. And they're having a sale so I got 50% off already cheap gift certificates to nice places. I have about eight of those in the stack. Also, in my research I came across a website that lists all the places in Oregon that have free wi-fi... so I printed the list from Portland in case we need to look something up during the day.

Finally, I figured we needed a city map. I know that we can probably get one while we're there, but it came up in my online searching and I decided it wouldn't hurt.

Did I mention that I love maps?

Now if you'll excuse me... I need to go have lunch. :)

comments

When are you going?? While your research is certainly impressive, I hope you take a few hours to throw your map aside and just walk around and allow yourselves to get lost. Don't worry: the hills and the river will keep you from straying too far from home. :)

sonja | April 19, 2008 12:04 AM

sonja - we're leaving next tuesday... so soon!! and don't worry - saturday and sunday are map free, as are weeknights after dinner. there will be getting lost! :)

karel | April 19, 2008 12:14 AM

I love it :D A girl after my own planning heart!

Susheela | April 21, 2008 9:50 PM