Rockin’ Portland
This weekend was spent in Portland, Oregon at the house of the infamous CrackerJillian. Party goin down to celebrate various college graduations. I used it as an excuse to get to the only west coast state I haven’t been to. Oh, and, of course, flying somewhere across country to get drunk with my other traveller friends. Again. Unfortunately, my recent string of bad luck with connecting flights continued. This one was a fucking nightmare.
It started with the plane leaving Detroit a half hour late because of congestion at O’Hare. We boarded and left the gate on time, but then sat waiting to take off for a half hour. Actually get to O’Hare at the scheduled time, but sit on the runway for 50 minutes because there’s another plane at our gate. I spent more time sitting in the plane than in the air. I get off the plane as my flight to PDX is scheduled to leave. Even though I carried on, it was an express plane with particularly small cabin bins, so we had to drop our bags off as we boarded to be put under…. Wait another 20 minutes for the lazy fucks to get them off the damn plane. The pilot even offered to for us, but union rules bullshit…
So I miss my flight. Then proceed to the customer service counter, with at least 50 people in front of me. After waiting for about a half hour, a guy comes around and says that we can’t reschedule here, only get accomodation vouchers. We have to call an 800 number to reschedule… but of course, he doesn’t offer that number. I get it from someone else in line. The first available flight leaves at 2:45 the next afternoon, arriving at 4:45. I reschedule. Or so I thought.
Fast forward, I’m at my very fancy Marriott Suites checking other flights on the computer. I find an earlier possibility. Call to try to get on it. Guess what? They have no record of me being on any rescheduled flight. Not only is the earlier flight I was trying to get not available, but the one I thought I was already on wasn’t either. Best I have is getting into PDX 8:21 the following night, 20 hours later than I was supposed to. I’m livid. But I take it in the ass for lack of anything else I can do. Still checking United’s page, I find I can leave Chicago at 10am, fly to San Francisco, and then catch a connection to Portland by 2:45, which is even earlier than the original flight I thought I had rescheduled. So yay for that. Apparently I’m visibly pissed, because some guy randomly offered to run back to his room to get me a beer. Yay for him. I tried calling other Chicago booties with no luck. I’m way outside of town, and there are no bars close. I decide I’m going to drink this beer and promptly proceed to my room so I can blaze one before passing out so I can do this all over again in the morning.
Everything goes better in the morning, and Tracy and Bill pick me up from the airport and head back to Jillian’s house. Preparations for the evening festivites are still being made, but before long the keg of Bridgeport IPA is tapped. Things get fuzzy after this. I remember it being fun, and meeting some more of the Boots crew… and lots of beer. There was at least 12 hours of drinking…. It was good.
The next morning consisted of making breakfast and heading off in the car an hour and a half to the coast at Pacific City. It was a beautiful day and we had great weather. There’s a sand dune at the beach that we climbed up for the view. It was pretty busy with people. After our fill of the beach, we headed to the brewpub that was also there and got some dinner and beer. We headed back eventually so that we could make it to trivia night at the bar… Jillian’s on a very serious team and couldn’t miss… And good choice to go. Our team won, so we got $25 to promptly spend on more beer. I was supposed to head back that night, but since I got in so late, I felt cheated, so I called and changed my flight for a day later. At first United was hassling me again, saying because I didn’t change the return flight when I rescheduled my delayed flight, that I’d have to pay $100 to do it now. Fuck that. I called back a little later, got someone else, and got them to change it for me.
The next day, Monday, Tracy and Bill left earlier in morning and afternoon. Jillian, Boston Bill, and I went downtown to take a walk. We got some food from the vendors at Pioneer Square, and coffee from Stumptown. We walked back over the bridge to Jillian’s to take a nap before getting dinner later. She had to work at 8, and my flight left at 11. For dinner we ended up at the Bridgeport Alehouse.
By 8:45 I headed to the bus stop. I had to take that to the Max train to the airport. All went well, and I got to O’Hare on time, where I slept until my next flight left. I got back to Detroit at 9:30am, just enough time to sleep another couple hours before having to go to work. Oh what fun that’ll be.
Tags: beach, Beer, North America, party, Portland, Travel, United States
nerokerr1
Darn it I forgot about the Portland party! Sounds like a typical boots weekend…drinking. Man…you have no luck with flights these days. Crazy! Remind me not to fly anywhere with you…