So I guess the "drive vs fly" question is settled: we'll be driving down to Portland tomorrow. The question of which telescope is coming along has also been settled: I purchased a new 120mm short tube refractor (600mm focal length) for the trip. I will miss the aperture of the dobs, but the smaller size and quicker setup time make the refractor a more practical choice. I also picked up a 35mm Panoptic eyepiece, which with the refractor gives a field of ~4.5 degrees at 17x magnification. Not bad. Viewing conditions here have been pretty crappy since I bought the scope, so I haven't been able to test it as much as I would like. My views of Jupiter were a bit disappointing, but I don't know whether that was due to the scope or the very poor seeing. The moon looked fabulous and I was pretty pleased with what I saw of the tip of Orion's sword and also zooming in on the Orion nebula and the Trapezium. We have a bit of shopping to do in Portland. We can't stay away from Powell's even though we won't have room for too many books. We're not sure yet what route we'll take from there; probably down through Reno toward Death Valley.