Travel Woes

We are finally in Portland, mostly rested from the hellish day we had yesterday. I don't want to discourage anyone with small children from traveling, but it is an arduous process.

The first part of the day went swimmingly. We've become pretty proficient with packing and traveling from Lambert. It started going bad after we landed at LAX. After getting off the plane, we had to take a shuttle from one terminal to another if we wanted to avoid going through security again. The shuttle port was a tiny, chair-lined, parallelogram-shaped room on the level of the tarmac. There was an argument going on between a desk clerk and one of the dumbest, most stubborn individuals I have ever encountered--and I've encountered a few in my days of customer service. This dipshit had neglected to depart from his shuttle with everyone else on board, had ridden back to the shuttle port, and had therefore missed his flight. His demands for a seat on a flight that did not exist did not cease the entire thirty-five minutes we waited for a shuttle. About two minutes into this fiasco, some brainless, irresponsible kid that will probably grow up to be a Congressman set off an alarm that blatted for the rest of our time there as well. To add to this cacophony, we had a ten-month-old baby boy who was hungry, tired, and uncomfortable from his four-hour flight...and we still had another two-hour flight to PDX.

Getting on our plane to PDX, we realized that the one sleep aid that Dexter has (a glowing seahorse named Charlie that plays music) was missing. He was by this time super-pissed and tired, so this was damn-near catastrophic. Tara got him to sleep after much rocking and shushing, but he didn't sleep for long. About the time he awoke, I realized that his sippy cup had leaked into his diaper bag and had soaked all of the bag's contents. Dexter proceeded to scream for the remainder of our time on the plane. Luckily we had some understanding traveling companions who had seen him being his ridiculously cute self a little earlier. Kristen picked us up at the airport and saved the day by bringing us another Charlie.

I had thought the only appropriate way to end last night was with a bullet, but I was wrong. We got settled at Kristen and The Ev's lovely apartment, and I had one of Evan's excellent homebrewed Chinook IPAs. It had a nice floral nose, and the single-hop character was refreshing without being overpowering. It didn't assault the pallet; it caressed it and told it everything was going to be okay. And everything was.