Oct 13 to 14 - Boston to Paris

I love it when the seatback videos have a map of where you're going. In this case, there was no seatback video, and when I finally put my glasses on after a few cramped naps and a bunch of data entry into my new BlackBerry, I noticed that there was a video screen at the front of our compartment, so I ambled up and took a picture of our route. We were nearly there. It had been a long day and night of flying and airports, but it was really not that bad. I'd felt a lot more cramped during 5 hour flights to Hawaii. But neither had I been able to stretch out across multiple seats. I had bought my first neck pillow. Only later did I realize I could have gotten one in the shape and color of an animal. That would have been fun. Mine was a comfortable gray, and now I see why people use them.

Our plane. No seatback video, but reasonably comfortable.

Our first view of Paris. It was 7:35 a.m. and would remain pitch black for some time yet. It looked and felt as though it could have been midnight.

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Kate goes home

I took Kate to the airport in Portland today, and she flew back to California on Alaska Airlines. I'd never seen this airline before - the one that has a picture of an Eskimo on the tail, but everyone thinks he looks like Bob Marley. I got to wait with her in the terminal. Remember when you could do that? I like terminals. It's deplorable that the actions of so few truly terrible people have affected so many. They probably didn't even have a security check at the airport today (I'm writing this from the future, and it's hard to remember that detail). You can see a slight reflection of the airport windows in the photo, and clearly the weather had changed quickly as it does here. The blue skies were gone again.

This was, of course, my first trip from Astoria to PDX - the first of many. Portland has a beautiful airport, and it's user-friendly, not too large, but big enough to eclipse the one in Grand Junction. I can't say enough about what Kate's help and presence had meant to me during the move. What an incredible friend. Now I was truly on my own to discover Oregon. I didn't know anyone in the state except my brother and his family, and they were several hours from Portland and further than that from Astoria. It had taken two hours to get from Astoria to PDX (1 hour east to Longview, and 1 hour south to Portland), and Gary, Beth and family were several hours further south of Portland on I-5.