Oregon Trip Travel Day and Home

Wow. Now that I've caught up on sleep, I can finally wrap up my travelblog on my Oregon trip.

Monday morning, I woke up around seven, got everything packed and broke down the spare room at my cousin's by around 0745. She, Matt, and I left the house and ended up at Starbucks, big surprise, driving through a rather nice fog to get there. Once we had our caffeine fixes ready, we headed off different directions, they to work, me to the interstate to head up to Portland.

The whole trip up I-5 was shrouded in fog, in most places so thick I could barely see past the nose of the car. It finally started thinning out around Aurora, and was sunny by the time I reached the rental counter and dropped the Aveo off.

I also shot the mandatory Logging truck on the road, just north of Aurora where it was starting to get less foggy.

I was almost exactly the TSA mandated 2hrs before my flight, so, after getting through security and being escorted out to the ticketing desk to check my bag that had alcohol in it, then going BACK through security, I had some time to kill. So I pulled open the laptop and tried to log into PDX's wifi. No-go. My terminal was on the very edge of the wifi signal and was intermittent. Meh. So I edited photos for over an hour until the waited area started filling up, iPod in and pretty much ignoring the world. A bald guy with a goatee sat down next to me and opened up a high-end Alienware gaming laptop and started talking loudly on the phone at about 1030. I groaned, figuring I was going to be stuck with him the whole flight. Sometimes I have a sense for these things. I was both right and wrong on this one.

After a while the gate attendant showed up, and I powered the laptop down and wandered over to her, seeing if we had a full flight and if it would be possible to trade for an exit row for legroom. She assured me that we had a full flight. Ugh. I was going to be on the window seat like a sardine, and I was SURE those 3 kids would be behind me and that family who didn't seem to know English would be in front of me. In other words, hell.

I went back and grabbed another seat as someone had stole mine next to the power outlet, sat don, and stuffed my nose in my book, a Kathy Reichs novel called "Death Du Jour". I read and people watched until they called boarding for the flight.

I managed to be a little less than my normally clumsy self getting on the plane, and didn't dent my forehead on the entry door, as this time I remembered to duck. I had a 737 for the flight down to Houston, so I could walk normally down the isle, unlike on some flights where I have to bend almost double to get to anywhere.

Scanning row numbers I came to my row, 21. There was already someone in the middle, E, seat, a beautiful brunette who grinned when I stowed my backpack in the overhead and apologized for having to move past her for the F seat on the window.

I figured for sure she was just in the wrong row. It happens a lot on flights.

But we both settled and buckled in. I pulled my book out of my pocket and turned the iPod on, she went and started studying note cards.

A couple minutes later, the bald guy chatting away loudly on his cell phone wandered over, stowed his gear, and plonked down on the aisle seat of our row, D seat.

The brunette leaned over and whispered in my ear that she was sure he was going to talk the whole flight.

I whispered back I bet the FA was going to have to tell him to shut his phone off.

She laughed and went back to her cards.

Maybe I wouldn't kill myself on this flight after all.
Looking out the window, the day had turned quite pretty, so i snapped a pic with the cellphone, since all my camera gear was in the backpack overhead.

Sure enough, we pushed back from the gate, the announcement about portable electronics came on, and I pulled my headphones out and switched off the iPod.

As I did so, the woman next to me, we'll call her Jane, 'cause that's not her name, leaned over again, stating she was kicking herself for forgetting hers, because with it she could tune out the world and get some studying done.
i agreed, commenting that normally I would just ignore the world, listen to my music, and read on these flights, since I seemed to have terrible luck with people sitting beside me, and indicated our bald companion still yammering away on the phone though the plane was moving.

She arched an eyebrow at me, as if deciding whether I meant her, too, then laughed and said she was afraid she was going to be sandwiched between the kids and the people four rows up that didn't speak English.

I kinda snorted when I laughed.

Right then, the flight attendant came through and told our seatmate he needed to hang up the phone.

In an aside to Jane I muttered "I'm taking this and you can get it back after the flight" in a schoolteacher voice.

She cracked up.

Then we were on the runway and rolling.

Once we leveled out, and the announcement came to be able to use electronic devices, I went to turn the iPod back on, but instead unclipped it from my belt and asked her what kind of music she liked.

For the rest of the flight, I didn't read any of my book, and she didn't get any studying done, since we were pretty much chatting the entire time, about any and everything that came up. With her craning over me to look out the window, I shot a couple pics of the Rockies north of Denver (We pulled out the map in the magazine and I used my Aviation Geek Knowledge to plot our average flight speed and time aloft to determine where we were), and, later, sunset over western Texas.

A few minutes outside Houston, the First Officer came over the intercom and told us that, due to storms, we were going to have to divert to Austin to refuel and wait until Houston re-opened, and the plane banked around to begin descent into Austin.

We landed and taxiid to the middle of the tarmac, away from the terminal, and I pointed out during descent and landing the lights of other aircraft doing the same. We soon had about five aircraft out the window beside us on the tarmac, where we sat for about an hour and a half.

They let people off the plane who wanted to stay in Austin or make other arrangements after a while, and, no sooner had those twenty people or so gotten out the door, the announcement came to get back into our seats because we were cleared to go. That was around 8:10 central time...my flight to Tampa was supposed to have left the gate at 7:27. But I was sure it would still be there since the airport had shut down.

We did the little hop from Austin to Houston, where Jane and I split to hit our respective flights to different parts of Florida. Of course, we'd already exchanged info on the plane.

My flight to Tampa ended up leaving at about quarter to eleven, central, and I didn't land in Tampa until a bit after 0230, then had to collect my checked bag, get a shuttle to where my truck was parked, and drive home. Oh, and hit a McDonalds on the way because I hadn't had anything but coffee and beer all day.

I didn't get home until a bit after 0330, where I was attacked by the Great White Hype......though I'm not sure if it was because he missed me or he wanted my cheeseburgers. I'm gonna go with a bit of both.