Day Seven in Portland

Wednesday (Travel Day)

We had stayed up late the night before packing and cleaning, so when the alarm went off at 630a, I was less than thrilled. I got up, showered and drove the rental back to Hertz. The store didn't open till 8a (though the website said 730), so I walked across and dropped the key at the hotel across the street (a sign on the door had said to do so). I ordered an Uber and stood on the curb waiting, enjoying the last day of brisk weather.



When I got back to the Airbnb, Lola and Billie were just out of the shower and getting dressed. In thirty minutes, we were out the door and into an Uber, headed to the airport. The airport in Portland is super easy to navigate and pretty small for large city. We got to our plane quickly. I was less than thrilled to realize the plane was a prop plane and we entered it by walking on the tarmac and up stairs. It was like 1950 all over again. The plane was a small one, with only 4 seats across. The flight to Seattle was a short one, less than an hour, and was without incident.

When we got to Seattle,  we had a little time to kill and we had a snack in the airport. I also visited the SubPop store in the airport and bought a small book. The pricing was reasonable and gave me fresh reading material for the flight home. If you'd like to read about the book, visit my reading blog here. The flight to El Paso was just around 3 hours and was without incident, until the final descent into ELP. We got a ton of turbulence and it seemed like forever as we circled and circled the city. While I definitely don't enjoy turbulence, the length of the shaking was enough to turn my stomach a bit. Lola felt the same. No puking, but definitely felt pukey.

When we landed, we headed over to the luggage pickup. Lola and Billie's bags were there, but mine wasn't. When I checked at the counter, they told me another customer must have grabbed it. I was nervous because the bag contained two laptops along with a host of items we had purchased on the trip. Lola's father gave us a ride home and, on the way, I got a call from Alaska Air, telling me the bag hadn't made the flight from Seattle and was still there. It took 2 days to get the bag and was the only flaw on this amazing trip.

Overall, this trip to Portland was an entirely needed and enjoyable trip. We were relaxed and not under pressure. Both of us did a great job at leaving work behind and just enjoyed the trip. Billie was great throughout, wasn't a brat and travelled like a champ. The city of Portland is a dream. Loved it so much and would definitely return. Fantastic journey!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 2 Austin (ACL)

Image
 Woke up in the hotel a little earlier than the rest of the fam, so I went down to the breakfast area. I know this isn't a review site, but holy cow! the spread was above and beyond. I had some biscuits and gravy (because white), then went back to Lola and Billie to wake them up (as the breakfast was only open for another 30 minutes. They rolled out and also expressed delight at the sheer amount of quality food. Neither had biscuits and gravy though! I went to the front desk, as the ladies finished their meal, to find out when the pool opened. I was informed that the pool was closed because it was "out of season." Some stupid BS right there. We had picked this hotel with the goal of swimming in the morning, so that kind of sucked. Billie was less than thrilled. So we filled our bellies and then wandered back into the room. Checkout wasn't till 12, so we lounged a while before leaving. The drive into Austin was just 2.5 hours from Junction, so it was a short leg. We ha...
Read more

Day Eight of London, Amsterdam, Paris

Image
Thursday I will not lie to you, it's been a long run already, and we've still got another 6 days to go. How terrible, right? 6 more days in Europe. I'll stop complaining. Anyway, we woke up this morning a little late. We had booked tickets into the Van Gogh Museum for 10a and when the first alarm went off at 830a, I assaulted the snooze button. Jet lag has really pushed my sleeping time back late, typically between 2-3a. So when we finally got rolling, we stepped outside to find it raining. Not as bad as London, but bad enough to slow everything down. We got to the tram station and the first tram didn't show up, so we were delayed by close to 5 minutes. I was a little worried they wouldn't let us in. I'm always worried about that sort of thing. It was no big deal and they let us in without complaint. The Van Gogh Museum is the largest collection of the artist's work in the world, I think I remember it being close to 275 of his paintings under one roof....
Read more

Day 4 of Paris 2022

Image
The big keystone to this trip was Billie's birthday, so we were definitely going to Disneyland Paris on her birthday (3/10). Lola is a massive Disney fan and Billie is growing up in her footsteps. I didn't have much connection to Disney when I was younger, but watching my daughter and wife thrill to the parks and movies is enough to keep me coming along for the ride. And, sometimes I have a little fun of my own!  The trip out to the park is a 45 minute train ride out of the city. It's hard not to enjoy a fast train through the Parisian countryside. You can tell your headed to the right stop because they put the mickey ears on the name, you can't miss it. Billie was hopping up and down the whole way, because she's 6. It's fun to let that energy power the entire day, until it runs out of course! We arrived at the park early enough that there wasn't much of a line yet. But we got into formation to wait to get in, excited to storm the park before the crowds arri...
Read more