The Beginning of the Trip

Today, we got home from our adventure. We are very grateful to be home, but also sad that this experience is over. Even though we had a very rough start to the trip, I still rand this as the best experience we've ever had.


In the beginning...


...we were supposed to leave Amarillo on Wednesday @ 4:10 & land in Portland @ 10:10. All 4 of us. It was a trip for 2, but we bought extra tickets and extended the trip so this could be our family vacation for the year. Our flight out of Amarillo was delayed 3 hrs because it was stuck in Dallas due to storms. No problem. We had a 4 hr layover in Denver, so we still had plenty of time (and now less of a layover). When we landed in Denver, it started snowing. HUGE, wet flakes. We get on the plane and have to wait for some passengers coming from connecting flights. Then, we had to be de-iced. Cool. We had never been de-iced before, so we were looking forward to the event.

FOUR hours after we were supposed to take-off, we were finally done being de-iced (Denver had put up most of its de-icers for the summer and we had to wait our turn). By this time, we had run through so much gas that we no longer had enough to make it to Portland, so back to the terminal to refuel. Then, they decided to just cancel our flight.


9 flights were cancelled for Southwest at Denver, so the lines were LONG and slow to get rebooked. Luckily, we got rebooked for Thursday, but not until late. Another new experience: spending the night in the airport. With kids. Not much sleep for me.

As soon as I could, I got us signed up to fly standby to Portland so we could get their sooner. The first flight at 6:45 to Vegas (with plenty of connections to Portland). And they had 3 seats for standby. We decided that me and the kids would go because it would probably be hard to get all 4 of us on standby together. So the 3 of us got to Vegas, and then got on the 1st flight out of Vegas to Portland.

Toby actually beat us there by about an hour because he got on a direct flight to Portland. We ended up getting all our bags and the rental car, and then into the hotel by around 2.


More of the story to come...including the BEST parts! And pictures! Oh, and by the way...our Tom-Tom is the only way we survived! Don't know what we would have done without it!