Departure Day Already - Dry Ice

I woke before the alarm and quickly snuck off to the bathroom to brush my teeth and dress in my running clothes. Someone had already prepped morning coffee, so after my 55 sit-ups I left out the door for my early morning run (I skipped push-ups for my badly aching shoulder). For whatever the reason, it is most often pouring rain during my final run when visiting Glenn. Today, however, was an exception. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and more stars than I could count were visible overhead. The moon provided ample light as I ran through town towards the river. I shortened my run by about a ½ mile turning around at the waterfront condos.

I woke Mindy upon my return. Mary Ann & Tommy were already up and milling about. I poured myself a much desired cup of coffee. By the time I got out of the shower everyone was up, including Glenn. We had plans to leave the house just after 7am for our 9am PDX departure. By the time we had our luggage loaded into the Expedition it was 7:08am. We returned inside for a final goodbye & a few pictures. As he often does, Glenn continued snapping pictures even as we pulled away from the curb into the sunny vista.

No more than a few miles down the road, we had to give Glenn a call to confirm our exit. Traffic was extremely thick on the 5 and a wrong turn would eat up lots of precious time. Lucky for us, the exit we needed was the least populated one. We were on track in a handful of minutes driving along the Columbia towards the airport on a sun this drenched morning.

Bob dropped us curbside much like he did when we left home last Thursday only this time he waited for his boarding pass. After the skycap tagged all seven of our bags and printed our boarding passes Bob left to drop the rental car. We were on our way to the security check point in short order. Bob caught up with us even before we passed through security. It didn’t take him long at all. We were at our gate a few minutes later.

Once there, we visited the Wendy’s directly across from our gate for a fast bite to eat. We were lucky in that they were already serving lunch even at 8am. As luck would have it, we boarded the plane on time but then sat for almost an hour on the tarmac as the airline dealt with a “dry ice” issue. We didn’t leave Portland until almost 10am. By the time we took off fog had engulfed the airport. We weren’t sure if the mountains would be in view or not. They were, though! We could see all of them lined up for our viewing with Rainier, St Helen’s, and Adams out to our left and Hood, Jefferson, and others off to our right. They were breathtakingly beautiful.

I did plenty of reading and sleeping on the first leg of our flight home. As is often the case, the flight back east seemed to go much quicker. The pilot alerted us of our impending landing in Minny in what seemed like a couple of hours. We were just a bit nervous since we left Portland an hour late. Making our connection home was a crap shoot. Little did we know that our connecting plane had yet to land in Minny. We hurried from concourse G to concourse F. It was probably three times as far as our walk last Thursday from C to F. But as we hurried up to F11 we saw that our departing plane was just pulling in. Our departing flight as it turns out was delayed by about 20 minutes.

We tinkered with the idea of grabbing a beer but didn’t. I wasn’t really in the mood for one anyhow. Instead, it was time to begin refocusing on home and work. Ho-hum.

Our flight boarded by 3:45pm CST. We must’ve taken off just after 4pm. I read during most of the final leg. It was dark by the time we landed back home. Where had the day gone? I felt like we just left Oregon a couple hours prior yet it was already 6:30pm at home. The weather was 32 degrees with snow – about like it was when we took-off five days earlier. The forecast called for plenty more overnight.

Bob got us home pretty quickly. And after he and Mary Ann helped us carry in our bags they headed on home. We had a terrific time wasting not a single minute. It was go-go-go the entire time!

Even though we were home we couldn’t yet rest. We had to leave immediately to fetch the kids who were at the dance studio with Grandma Sharon. In the meantime, the snow kept coming down harder and harder. We arrived at the dance studio around 7:45pm. We ordered a pizza from Minelli’s just as we pulled away towards home. Both Mindy & I were craving one of their pizzas.

Bella went in with me to fetch the pie. She was very clingy, but I guess that’s to be expected after being gone for five days. Our pizza had a couple minutes yet upon entering. Perfect – just the way I like it. That guarantees it hot out of the oven. I couldn’t wait to get home and tear into the pie. The kids were hungry too. We ate immediately. Mindy gave the kids their souvenirs from our trip. Bella expressed her displeasure with the mini-treasure chest from Multnomah Falls. J Jacob, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy his basalt rock straight from the cascades.

While Mindy got the kids ready for bed, I tried to unpack and organize as much as possible without being to anal. I managed to get my suitcase & backpack unpacked and separated before giving way to sleepiness. We were in bed by 10pm after a ridiculously fast day. It was hard to imagine that I woke up about 13 hrs ago almost 2600 miles away in Oregon but was back home to sleep in my own bed – almost like we never left.