Vacation to Oregon

My wife and I decided to take a little vacation to Oregon to see our friend Jo. Last time we went we drove and it was about a 10 hour drive. We decided that we would rather take the one and a half hour flight this time. I’m not sure which one was faster in the end.

We flew out of San Francisco through United Airlines. When we arrived at the airport everything was chaos. There were people everywhere and very few attendants to help people get in the lines they were supposed to be in. Luckily we managed to get in the line we were supposed to be in but people around us were complaining that they had been in a few lines before they got to the line they were supposed to be in and it took them hours to get any help. What’s more we noticed some people had even missed their flights due to the incompetence of the United Airlines staff. When we finally made it to the front to get our boarding pass we hit another conflict. Turns out that Expedia.com screwed up when I made a change to my ticket and United was going to charge me an extra $150 even though I had already paid Expedia.com $300 to make the change in the first place. I complained and luckily they made the change without charging me any extra fee. (If they had required payment I would have paid so I could make my flight and then worried about complaining until I got my refund once I got home)

After that whole crap-fest we got to the security lines. I had to empty all my pockets, remove my shoes and go through the metal detector scanner thingy. When we were getting our belongings together after the scan they said that my wife’s bag didn’t clear and they had to search it. They removed a bottle of hairspray and re-scanned the bag, it cleared this time. We had no choice but to throw out the hairspray. I do understand the issue with the hairspray bottle, security said that with the elevation change it would explode in her bag. I didn’t believe them at first but when we got to our destination her lotion bottle had exploded in her bag and made quite a mess. Probably a good thing we didn’t have the hairspray as well.

Once we finally got on the plane we had smooth sailing all the way to Portland. We got off the plane, quickly met up with Jo and made our way to her house. The weekend was filled with movies, laughs, good times and good food. We celebrated Jo’s birthday with Hanna and her family, we saw the waterfall in Falls City and we laid around like lazy bums.

Wonderful time with JoAnn but it had to end. She drove us back to the Portland airport and we made sure to get their early in case we had to deal with the same bullshit we did at San Francisco. The Portland airport was FANTASTIC. We flew back on Alaska Airlines and they had a little kiosk where we typed in our information and got our boarding pass without needing any assistance from airport employees. The line to get through security was quick and although we still had to empty our pockets and take off our shoes everything flowed so much faster and smoother. When we were through we still had an hour until our plane took off so we sat down at a little café for breakfast. I was starting to think everything for our way home was going to be wonderful and easy.

Once we arrived at our gate we got the notice that our flight had been delayed due to heavy fog in San Francisco. We had to wait an extra hour for our flight and once we did finally start boarding we were told that we couldn’t keep our carry on luggage with us, it had to be put on carts and put into the back of the plane. The flight home was much more bumpy and shaky but we arrived in San Francisco safely, got our luggage and started our trek through the airport (which was once again a madhouse of people everywhere) to the BART station to catch a train back to Pittsburg.

I had arranged for my brother to pick us up from the BART station in Pittsburg but due to the delay in our flight he would no longer be able to pick us up. I tried to call my Mom but the train kept going underground through tunnels which killed my cell phone reception. Getting through to my Mom was a pain in the ass but I got through and she agreed to pick us up.

I enjoyed my time in Oregon with JoAnn but I wasn’t fond of the flying and BART train ride. I think that perhaps driving was a better option. Next time we decide to head out to visit JoAnn I’ll plan for more days off and we’ll drive and stay in a hotel along the way or something. We’ll see what happens.