Going and Coming

We flew out of SeaTac at 11:10 on the morning of June 25th.  Dayton is the closest airport to my parents, but they were able to find everybody direct flights into Cincinnati (over an hour away), so my dad did a lot of driving back and forth. After our unpleasant adventure going through Chicago two years ago, we were glad to not have a layover this time.



Preparations for the flight included lots of food and some new toys.  Kate got some new Zoobles, which she was very excited about.  Those kept her occupied for a good long while. (She knew from experience that plane flights mean new toys, and kept asking, "When do I get my surprise?")



Dad and Andy check out some letters while waiting to board the plane.



Andy and I were seated in one row and Doug and Kate were right behind us.  We decided that would be better than having three of us together and one person across the aisle.  It worked out pretty well.  The kids each had a window seat.




Looking toward Tacoma--you can see the Narrows Bridges(es) in the background.



Mt. Rainier peeking up over the clouds.



Peter's family and Barb's family came out from Utah.  Everyone's visits were kind of staggered, but we had an overlap of about three days with everyone there.  Chaos!  There are sixteen people in the family now.  Six grand kids, with Kate being the oldest.  It was great to see everyone again, and spend some time with the new little ones. 

We were in Ohio for eleven days. and came home on July 6th. We had a 9:20 flight out of Cincinnati, so in order to get down there in time I got up at 4:15. That was a very long day. (As it turned out, the airport wasn't busy at all, and we got to our gate with more than an hour to spare. Oh well. You can't plan these things.)

Andy fell asleep early on but only slept for about an hour, and spent the rest of the time trying to climb over the back of the seat, or over me.  I had my Kindle and MP3 player to keep myself occupied, but didn't really get to do much with them, with Andy acting up.  (I did let him type the alphabet on my Kindle over and over, but that only lasted so long.)  A five hour flight with an active two-year-old is a loooong five hours.

It is good to be home!  We got a pizza from Cerello's  and then took the kids to the Fircrest wading pool for a while.  Everyone was talking about how hot it was, but after Ohio it really didn't feel hot.  We've been enjoying the cooler weather.  The air feels lighter, somehow. 

We didn't have much trouble adjusting to the time change on the way out, but jet lag seems to have hit hard coming home. Andy and I did a lot of sleeping this afternoon.

Portland (pool, pictures, pizza!)

We heard about the animatronic dinosaurs at the Oregon Zoo and thought our little dinosaur fan would love it, so we took a quick trip down to Portland. We drove down on Wednesday afternoon (June 23rd) and stayed at La Quinta Inn, went to the zoo on Thursday and then came back home. 

La Quinta had an indoor pool, so we took the kids swimming. They had some water wing floaties that Kate used. She was really paddling around for the first time. It was so fun to see. Andy loved the water, too. (Nice and warm!)

At the pool we ran into the owners of our old apartment complex (the place we were living when Kate was born), who were there with their grandkids. That was a bit surreal.

After swimming we went to get some dinner. Doug had been to Old Town Pizza when in Portland before, and was able to find it again. Cool place!



The kids colored and played with a wooden pizza puzzle while we waited for our meal. (That's Kate's pool hair.)



We got pizza with kalamata olives, prosciutto, mushrooms, and pine nuts. Yum!

Flying the friendly skies. And the not-so-friendly ones.

We are back from our two weeks in Ohio! We got back Wednesday night. Actually Thursday morning. We flew United through Chicago, and at this point we're feeling like we'll be perfectly happy to have nothing to do with United or Chicago ever again. Our trip out was fairly uneventful, but coming back was very like a journey through the ninth circle of hell (or whichever one it is that has the eternally long waits, high temperatures, and screaming children).



We knew that traveling with a four-year-old and a baby was going to be quite a production. That's three suitcases, two car seats, one stroller, an overstuffed diaper bag, a camera bag, and two backpacks. This is what the collection looked like on the way there (minus some of the carry-ons, which were still being carried when I took this picture). It looked slightly different on the way back because our stroller broke and we had to get a new one.



We had lots of snacks and some new toys for Kate, to keep her busy. Andy was great and slept for almost the entire way, on both flights. (And they showed an episode of Chuck on the plane, that I hadn't seen before. Wheee!)



Coming home was another story. We had scheduled an early-afternoon flight, and we were supposed to get in at 6:15. Liz Wight (one of my Visiting Teachers) would come pick us up at the airport, and we'd be home in time for dinner.

Our flight from Dayton to Chicago was one of those smaller commuter planes with two seats on each side. We were given seats across the aisle from each other (the girl with the seat next to Andy's was happy to switch with me). It was supposed to be a short flight--in fact, we were joking about it being only ten minutes long because it said it took off at 1:26 Ohio time and landed at 1:36 Illinois time. Boarding was delayed a bit because of something electrical that needed maintenance. As it turned out, the air conditioning also needed maintenance, but apparently that wasn't what they had been fixing. It was so hot on that plane. They kept passing out water and suggesting that people keep their window shades down.



After we'd been in the air for a while, the pilot said, "Some of you may have noticed that we're flying east instead of west--we're in a holding pattern because of thunderstorms in Chicago. If it doesn't clear up soon we may be diverted to South Bend, Indiana to refuel." Which is what happened. A little detour to South Bend (I got a nice view of Notre Dame on the way down), where they set down on the hot tarmac and we got to go inside for a while (air conditioning! Yay!).



We weren't there for very long and then we got back on the plane and back over Chicago and into another holding pattern. They did get us on the ground eventually, but then our gate was occupied, so we sat there for another forty minutes, sweltering.

When we finally de-planed in Chicago after 5:00 we had already missed our connecting flight. (It was delayed a bit, too, because of the weather, but not long enough.) So then began the process of figuring out What To Do Next and taking care of our family at the same time. We weren't sure whether it would be best to find another flight, even if it got in really late, or stay in Chicago overnight, or even go back to Dayton. We got in a very long line at customer service, which did not appear to be moving at all. We did try calling reservations, but with the noise, the non-native accent, and the apparent lack of options, we decided we'd probably have better luck sticking it out with customer service. We took turns holding the place in line while taking care of bathroom and food needs. We were not nearly as well-stocked with snacks as on the trip out, and provisions were running low. Kate wanted a pretzel. And then French fries (with ketchup). And then a blue raspberry lemonade. Then Doug mentioned that there was a play area nearby, so I took the kids there while he continued to stand in line.

We were in the play area for maybe twenty minutes, where Kate staked out a spot for her "house" and fought over cubical cushions with some other kids. Then Doug called my cell phone and said they'd gotten us on a flight on Continental, going through Houston and getting in to Seattle at 1:30 a.m. Which sounded dreadful, but I said, "All right, let's do it." He came to get us and Kate threw a HOLY SCREAMING FIT about leaving the play area. (Yeah. If you were in the Chicago airport Wednesday evening, I'd like to apologize. She does have a very piercing scream.)

We hurried through the airport and found the gate for the Continental flight, only to discover that it was delayed also, so we faced a very real possibility of getting stranded in Houston. I'm still not sure how we made the decision to get on that plane. I think at that point we just really wanted to do something. Perhaps being stranded in Houston sounded more appealing than being stranded in Chicago. And I kept telling Kate that when we got on the plane we would see if we could get her a pillow and blanket, and she could curl up and go to sleep, so that was certainly a strong motivating factor. (Please, get us on a plane so this kid can go to sleep!) We were also pretty sure that our luggage had made it to Seattle without us by this point, and we had a strong desire to follow. So off to Houston we went.

Doug grabbed a fruit cup for me right before we boarded, and I ate it before we even took off. We were all running pretty low. We did get a pillow and blanket for Kate, mercifully, and she did go to sleep.

When we reached Houston, two hours later, we were delighted to discover that the flight to Seattle had not left yet, so we set off for the other end of the airport as quickly as we could (why are connecting flights always as far apart as possible?). It was supposed to leave at 10:52, but they were just boarding when we hit the gate at 11:15. That was the only delay that day that worked in our favor. Thank goodness for small miracles. I finally had the feeling that yes, we were going to make it. And Kate was in a pretty good mood, after getting a little sleep, which definitely made things easier.

We had four seats that were scattered all over the plane, so we enlisted some help in trading. They got me and Andy together, and Doug and Kate together farther back. The flight was almost four hours. I dozed a bit, uncomfortably. Doug reported a similar lack of success--trying to sleep on planes hurts his neck and makes him cranky.

We landed at SeaTac airport (yay!) right on time. Kate enjoyed stepping on the sculpted fish in the floor. "Let's do something fun at home," she said. Doug replied, "How about S-L-E-E-P? That sounds like fun."

We checked with the Continental luggage office, and they were able to confirm that yes, our stuff had made it to the United office, but they had closed at 1:00 so we couldn't pick it up. But, they said, since we'd finished our journey with Continental, they would pick it up from United and deliver it to us themselves, in the morning. They even had a loaner car seat for Kate (we had Andy's with us). The lady there was very helpful and I shall certainly keep Continental in mind for future travel needs.

I'd been calling Liz Wight all along, keeping her updated on our progress. Her son Alan came to pick us up. Good man. (He said he's often awake at that time of night.)

We staggered in the door shortly before 3:00 a.m. Kate threw another screaming fit when we told her she'd have to go to sleep without books and stories. It was a loooong hard day for everyone.

A guy from Continental dropped off our luggage the next morning and all was well. We are back in our own home, enjoying nice cool Washington weather. I had a lovely long nap yesterday. Now I have two weeks' worth of photos to go through.

Coming Home

We took the train back Wednesday morning. Brian and Rachel were on the same train with us, going up to Portland, so we had breakfast together in the dining car.



We'd had to get Kate up early to catch the train, and she was pretty droopy during breakfast. We thought she might take a nap afterwards, but as soon as we got back to our seats she perked back up and was bouncing off the walls again.

There was a lot of snow in the mountains, and a lot of trees that looked like this right next to the train track:



It was so pretty! Kate was impressed. She was sitting looking out the window and making up a song about Arctic animals.

We went through a lot of tunnels and snow sheds that we hadn't been able to see at all on the way down, because it was so dark. We were in the last car of the train so I took a few pictures out the back window. The window was really dirty, as you can see, but the pictures are kind of cool.






There were lots of neat misty areas too.

Somewhere between Chemult and Eugene the snow ended. I completely missed the transition, since I was downstairs at the time, getting Kate into a new shirt after a mishap.



Kate plays with her dinosaurs in the dining car. ("Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!")

I did a lot of crocheting, finished reading A Girl of the Limberlost just in time for book club, and started on The Hero of Ages. We like the train! We'll have to do it again some time. (Hopefully for a happier occasion.)

All Aboard!

We caught the Coast Starlight (Amtrak) at 10:30 Saturday morning, headed down to Klamath Falls, Oregon.



Doug and Kate on the platform, watching the train approach.



We boarded at station 11, so we got Kate to find the 11 for us. On the way out she "found" all the other numbers, too, and read them to us as we pulled out.



I took Kate up to the lounge car so I could point out Titlow Park as we passed. When we go to the park it's always a big deal when the trains go by. Now we've seen it from both sides!



Going under the Narrows Bridge. We'd been under once in a boat a few years ago, when there was only one bridge.



Mist near Olympia.



I did a lot of crocheting on the train. Yes, I caved and started one of those Japanese patterns, even though I haven't finished my painting. (The painting would have been much harder to take along.)



Lunch in the dining car, near Portland.



Kate was kind of bouncing off the walls, and finished eating before we did, so our waiter brought her some crayons so she could draw on the paper table cloth. This was my contribution, from a Korean train song. I know I spelled it completely wrong.



After Portland Kate finally conked out and slept for a while. She gave up naps a long time ago, but will still occasionally succumb to the lullaby of the moving vehicle.

This was my first time on Amtrak. It was nice to be able to get up and move around, and check out the different parts of the train. The seats were pretty comfortable, too (we liked the leg rests). And it probably would have taken us about the same amount of time to drive it. Once it got dark, though, going through the mountains, it was completely pitch black outside and looking out the window became considerably less interesting.

We got into Klamath Falls a little before 10:00. Doug's mom and his brother Al picked us up at the station.

Spacious Skies

We flew out early on a Wednesday morning. Our flight was at 9:00, and we had to leave our house at a little after 6:00, so we were feeling rather groggy. Doug dozed off shortly after takeoff, but then I woke him up to tell him that we could see Rainier, Adams, and St. Helens all at the same time. I knew he would want to see them. As we were gaping out the window Mt. Hood came into view as well. We'd never had such a great view. Of course I got out the camera (this picture is stitched together from four shots--pretty good, no?) Then a little later I told Doug I could see another mountain past Hood, and he said it must be Jefferson. It was a great day for mountains.

Kate slept a lot, and when she woke up she was mostly content to sit and play with whatever was handy (we brought along her pencil from the fair). People commented on what a good little traveler she was.

I got out the camera again as we were nearing Detroit and took some pictures of the clouds. That second one has some shapes in it that make me think of bears.



In Detroit we got on a little commuter plane that took us to the Dayton airport, and my family picked us up there.