Weekend Escape
Last weekend I vanished for a few days. I just needed to get away from school and life for a bit, and have some time to rejuvenate. So, I went to see some good friends in the northwest, and just get away for a bit. It was a good trip.
Unfortunately, things didn’t get off to the best start. My flight left from LAX at 6:50AM, so I got up at 4:00AM so that I would make it to the airport on time. Got to the airport around 6, and hopped into the line for checkin. I had a bag to check, but unbeknownst to me, there’s a 45-minute cutoff for checking luggage onto a plane! So, after 20 minutes in line, I get to the little checkin kiosk, and it automatically put me on standby for the next flight! ARGH! Missed the cutoff by 5 minutes.
So, now, completely demoralized, I went through security and wandered over to the gate for my original flight. Fortunately, there was a woman who had also ended up in the same predicament, and I saw that she was angling to get on the original flight. She succeeded! So I went up and tried the same thing, and the person said I just needed to come back and get my bag when the later flight arrived. No problemo.
Phew! No more standby! I’ll actually make it to Portland.
Just as an aside, who decided that the default response should be to automatically move the passenger to be on standby for the next available flight?! That’s not a very nice thing to do. At least present a set of options:
- Move me to standby on the next available flight.
- Send my luggage on the next available flight, and I’ll stay on this flight.
Anyway. Flight went smoothly, and when I arrived at the Portland airport, I went to pick up my car. I rented from Hertz this time, since I had a discount from AAA that made my rental the same price as every other rental company I checked out. (Why so much more expensive?!) The person who helped me at the counter was named Lisa, and she was awesome. I told her how I had left my driver’s license and credit card at the rental counter the last time I traveled, and she told me this story about how one of her customers almost did the exact same thing! She had to run out to the lot to keep him from driving off without them. Anyway, she was really nice, which really helped smooth over the flight-aggravations.
Also, Hertz was out of compact cars, so they gave me one of the Saturn SUVs. That was an interesting vehicle to drive. I thought I was going to get seriously dinged on the gas prices, but that SUV only has a 16 gallon tank, and it gets surprisingly good gas mileage. I was quite impressed.
The vehicle also had only 121 miles on the odometer when I got it. Needless to say, I ran it up a bit…
I dropped in to say hello to the people that I was staying with, and after a little bit I went back to the airport to get my bag. Fortunately it was actually there, and it only took about 10 minutes at the airport to get all that taken care of. Then it was time to relax and kick back with my friends.
On Sunday I went to Powell’s Bookstore, one of my favorite places in the whole world. Unfortunately, this required driving around in downtown Portland, one of my least favorite places in the whole world. But, it was really worth it - I found three books that I am very excited about:
- Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes, about the making of the fusion bomb
- Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, all about the seamy underbelly of the restaurant industry
- Smoke & Spice by Bill and Cheryl Jamison, a very popular book about making real barbecue!
I have slowly been poring through these - I hope to put reviews up shortly!
Besides the books, Powell’s has another interesting characteristic - its death-trap of a parking lot. It’s the kind of parking lot that I would expect somebody to design on the last day of his job. It includes every possible way of making it difficult to park, without actually making it impossible. The ramps between floors are one car wide, so you have to flash your lights and honk your horn before hurtling up or down between levels. There are massive wooden posts spaced regularly on each floor, right in the area where people need to drive through to park. And then the parking-spots themselves are in strange places that typically require several attempts to get into.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I was out of there!
On Monday I was going to drive up to Seattle to see a few more friends, but unfortunately, plans didn’t work out like I’d hoped. So, instead I just drove around all the old places I used to go, and I reminisced about old times. I drove by Microsoft, which is expanding like usual. I also drove around Mercer Island, Bothell and Woodinville (where I used to live), and Queen Anne Hill. I also dropped in at Taco Time and got a bite to eat! That was the best - there aren’t any Taco Time restaurants around where I live now.
Anyway, after a few hours of driving around, I decided it was time to head home. The drive back was uneventful. Got to enjoy the Tacoma Aroma, which has surprisingly abated to some degree. (Or maybe that was just a good day.) That city stank back when I was living in that area. (A paper-plant was the culprit…)
One other interesting thing - on the way up to Seattle, I saw a pair of bald eagles flying around in the air. That was pretty awesome. I wish I could’ve gotten a photo, but I was on the road.
On Tuesday I got ready and went home. It was sad to leave my friends, but I needed to get back to my responsibilities and my normal life. I made sure to get to the airport nice and early that time!!