ODO: 338,352
Today is for relaxing. And doing laundry. And more relaxing. And packing. Our flight leaves at 1am….Because that is the only flight time left when you book less than a week in advance, and you refuse to take anything but the shortest flight. Which is twenty hours of travel time…Our Uber to the airport is an adventure. Our driver doesn’t want to go all the way to the airport because he is scared “the cops will catch him if he goes there”. Instead of dropping us off at departures, he stops on the side of the very busy road with no sidewalks and asks us to walk from there. He seems confused when we express our displeasure at the situation. After we frogger our way across the multi-lane road, we encounter a kind British diplomatic entourage that gives us directions to our terminal. Inside, we have a very late dinner before checking in and heading to the gate.
We sleep the six hours of our first leg to Panama City. Panama City is where they make you go through security a second time at the gate, very annoying. KoKo gets selected for even more extra additional security screening. She’s pretty unimpressed by this. The lady who does the extra additional screening is equally uninterested, so it goes very quickly.
Some hours of napping later we land in Houston. This is a big moment in our journey. America is going through turmoil, and a lot of innocent people are being caught in the churn. Specifically, legal permanent residents trying to cross back into the USA. We have no idea what to expect, and the news has been horrifying, so before landing, we make a deportation plan, delete all social media from our phones, and all the other items on the “It’s a sketchy time to be an immigrant in America” check list. We head towards the Global Entry lanes, like we usually do, and, like usual, we breeze through customs! So much relief! Later, it’s discovered that KoKo was allowed through the Global Entry lane with a VERY expired Global Entry card. You just never know how these things are going to go.
After eight hours of wandering the Houston airport we board our flight to Portland. After almost a full twenty four hours of traveling, we get to climb into a very standard and comfortable hotel bed, and quickly fall asleep.
Forty four hours is all we have in Portland, so we need to make it count. Task one: Check the condition of our house and collect our yard tools. Our renters have moved out so it’s inspection time! Good news! It looks exactly like we left it! Huge relief. Next up: Family visits, and picking up the welder, followed by stocking up on fancy mustards. We haven’t been able to find fancy mustards, and we miss them. Our final to do item: Pizza with friends! They take us to their favorite spot, and we get to spend a couple of hours catching up before turning in for an early night.
It’s travel day again….but first! Quality family time! We pick up some breakfast and head over for most of a day of visiting with Berne’s mom (Hi Lynda!!). Back at the airport, one of our favorite restaurant’s has opened a location just inside security! We get some hand made pasta and head to our gate with our bag of delicious. One quick flight, and one almost same length Uber ride, has us settling in for a very early night at our temporary home for the next two weeks.
Finally, a day to rest! We sleep late, the twenty hours of travel have erased the cushion we had from the Argentinian time zone we just left. We walk over to our favorite breakfast place, and our favorite waitress still remembers us, solid welcome back to California. On the way back from breakfast, we wander through the farmers market, and find amazing chocolate chip cookies. Because we’re crazy, we also go into work for a couple of hours. We round out our day with a stop by our favorite Chinese food place before getting a little more relaxing in.
Now…..we work!
Leave a Reply