Friday, June 17, 2005

Whence the trip began...

I haven't written much of anything about the trip that I took to the Pacific Northwest in late May. I thought that, since I've been struggling to add content of late, I could entertain the few people that stop by here still with my account of the flight.

Caveat lector...




The above picture is the point where my boyfriend and I exchanged (several) tearful goodbyes. After a final hug and "call you soon", I went up the escalator to the security checkpoint. Even though I'd worn flip-flops specifically to avoid the icky, unsanitary "PLEASE REMOVE YOUR SHOES" portion of the checkpoint, they made me take them off anyway.

Flip-flops. I was walking barefoot on shiny, sticky, who-knows-how-long-since-mopped airport floor.

I spent the next few minutes scrubbing the bottoms of my feet with thin airport paper towels and watery dispenser soap. Thankfully, no one came in the restroom to witness my germ-fearing insanity. From there, I proceeded to the bank of stiff seats at my gate to await the flight.

And waited.

And waited.

Twenty minutes past the scheduled time, we were ushered into a Boeing 737. I had the luxury of a window seat, and a seat-mate that didn't take up more than her own seat area. An hour and a half later, we were landing in Denver.

I scoured the airport for something to eat, and wound up with a bottle of water and a hot pretzel. I settled down next to the bank of windows at my gate with my spoils and waited for the second flight of the day - the one that would take me to Portland. A couple of hours later, it arrived.




There was much turbulence over the Rocky Mountains, and I swore that the plane was going to go down on those isolated, snow-and-tree-covered mounds. I was gripping the armrests with fear, and debated whipping out my credit card to make an in-flight call to say goodbye to everyone that I loved.

Three hours later, I was glad (as was my credit card) that I hadn't been so silly as to actually follow through.

As we neared Portland, the landscape became pretty and craggy again. When the pilot temporarily interrupted my hysteria by pointing out a couple of landmarks ("Mt. Rainier is visible to the right side of the plane, and Mt. Shasta is visible to the left..."), I whipped out my camera. Since I had a left-side window seat, I was able to snap a few pictures of Mount Shasta.

At that point, the realization that I was more than a few hundred miles from home really began to sink in. We debarked from the plane after a smooth landing and I struggled through PDX to find the rental cars. A teary, "I miss you"-filled call to the boyfriend later, I was on my way to Salem.

To be continued...