Stranded For the Holidays

I don't fly much. In my entire life I've been on a plane maybe 8 or 10 times total. I like how fast you can get to your destination if you fly, but I hate airports, the cost, security requirements, cramped airplanes and how other people get to dictate when and if you will travel. Most of my family knows by now that Daniel and I were supposed to be in Utah last night. But the people at Southwest didn't buy enough de-icing equipment and mother nature sure wasn't helping out so our flight got canceled. It's a good thing we still have friends living in Portland.  

We are staying at Robin and Briton's house. They are in Utah because they DROVE there on Thursday.  I spoke with Robin.  She said the drive was so scary, she was in tears going over the Blue Mountains and it took them 12 hours to get to Boise.  The point here is that they made it. Whereas Daniel and I are stuck here, in their house until Wednesday.  (I believe that we are legally squatting now)

We would have gone back to Lincoln City if not for the fact that highways 26, 6 and 18 are all closed so they only way to get back to LC would be to drive nearly to California, get over to 101 and backtrack.  So we decided to stay put. If all goes well, we should be able to land in Utah at 9 A.M. on Christmas Eve. But in the meantime, here's what we've been doing. Look for subsequent entries on this.

Sunday: After our flight was cancelled we called Southwest trying to get some other flight.  They informed us the first open seats were Wednesday but to keep checking online if we could. It took us 15 minuets to figure out how to turn on Robin and Briton's computer.

Once it started snowing again and the airport stopped ALL outbound flights, we figured we weren't going anywhere.  Daniel and I did puzzles in a crossword book I brought for the flight.  We then turned our attention to R&B's television. They have no reception but plenty of DVD's. We watched "Ice Age".  It seemed appropriate.

By now we were getting really hungry. R&B said we could eat anything we could find, but not wanting to mess up the kitchen we called for pizza.  Papa John's wouldn't pick up the phone. I think they have all frozen to death.  Pizza Hut isn't delivering. They're not that desperate for money.  Finally, as a LAST RESORT we call Dominoes.  They are that desperate.  Once the food arrived we watched "Much Ado About Nothing" followed by U2's "Rattle and Hum".  We were going to watch Pixar's "Monsters INC", but we think R&B took all the Pixar movies with them for the kids to watch in the car.

So that's it. We're here, living for a time at Robin's house like we own the place or something. I'll tell you one thing. If we can get out today, (it's started snowing again!) we are going to buy a snow shovel and make ourselves useful. R&B are earning a lot of brownie points for this!