Party of Two: Portland, June 2010: Day One

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Our triumphant arrival at PDX, Portland, Oregon's International Airport! Our entire family was gathering for my brother's wedding, woo hoo!

Here we are, newly-arrived, and standing on the elevated pedestrian pathway that connects the airport to the parking garage. The weather was gorgeous, though my brother told us it was one of the first rain-free days in ages. Tradition dictates that I take a photo on it each time but there were no family members nearby to help. A kind passerby noticed me trying to take ourselves LOL and offered to snap one for us.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So...we had had a hectic morning and afternoon at home running around and getting ready to leave. In my usual form, I still had to pack, deposit all three pets amongst various caretakers, and make final house-sitting arrangements for both my parents' house and my new house.

Ayize cooperated by taking an early nap, which was nice since it prevented travel crabbiness. On the other hand, it also meant facing an almost-five-hour flight with no downtime on a hot, crowded airplane. Hmmm...not sure which option was worse! But, thankfully, we were flying with a whole lot of family. If I had been faced with doing it alone -- especially given his penchant for non-stop, violent kicking the backs of seats, ugh -- I would have been drowning in despair.

Anyhow, for better of for worse, my tasks were completed and the taxi arrived on time. We piled in and headed to O'Hare.

Check-in went smoothly, my dad's wheelchair arrived, and we were whisked through security. Ayize tried to run away about eight times while I was dealing with my laptop, our shoes, the portable DVD player, and explaining what his food items were, but that's par for the course, and having my family around to help prevent runaway attempts was a total godsend.

Our gate was L1, literally about fifty feet from security, so we lucked out -- especially because they had already completed pre-boarding (our usual point of entry) and were starting the mad rush of general boarding. Dad, Ayize and I were luckily moved to the head of the line just before everyone else began trekking on so that he could get settled with his portable oxygen machine, and so that I could carry his equipment, help him get situated, and get myself and Ayize and the car seat all assembled without blocking too much traffic.

Not long after, my mom, sister, and two nieces joined us onboard.

Here we are! Me in the middle, my younger niece, Sophie, in the aisle seat.

Ayize was fuming about being strapped into his car seat. Having just woken up from a refreshing three-hour-plus nap, and then enduring being strapped in for the taxi ride to the airport, he was raring to go. All he wanted to do was run, jump, cavort, holler and just generally go bonkers. As soon as I strapped him in, he started with a litany of, "Mama, help, Mama, please, Mama get down. Mama, help, Mama, please..." ad infinitum. After what seemed like ages, he finally came to the unavoidable conclusion that he was well and truly stuck, so he put his hands in his lap, stared down at them, and stewed silently. This did not bode well for the next forty minutes of waiting to depart, plus the four-hours-and-forty-five minute flight to follow.

Still, being an eternal optimist (or a born idiot -- haven't determined which one yet), I clung to a thread of hope.

Across the aisle from Sophie sat my sister, Akari, and my older niece, Madison.

In front of us (thank God, thank God, thank God) sat my parents. My poor dad, as usual, bore the brunt of Ayize's annoying kicking. Just like Ayize and his car seat, Dad is always consigned to a window seat (because of his portable oxygen), so if we fly together and are seated behind one another, he is always stuck getting kicked. To his credit, he never says a word, but it depresses me to see him hunkered forward in his chair for entire flights because his back can't take anymore beatings.

Sure enough, Ayize started in almost immediately with his pernicious habit. I took his feet in my hands firmly and told him to stop. I let go and he started again. I did it again, and added that he was hurting Grandpa and giving him a owie. The third time I did it, I snapped my teeth at his feet, laughingly pretending to bite them.

Well, that worked! But only by distraction, because then he decided to see for himself how they tasted.

The flight progressed, slooooowly, until finally it was three-quarters over. I was counting down the remaining minutes with bated breath. Ayize had actually held himself together pretty well considering the length of the flight and the lack of sleep on it, but I was still exhausted from constantly keeping him distracted and entertained.

This Mickey Mouse video was a wonderful last option and thankfully held both bored kids at bay until it was time to land.

Beginning our descent.

Descending...really rapidly. Ugh, our ears were killing us.

"Mama, look!" he said, pointing to...

...a spectacular view of Mount Hood.

(My mom claims it's Mount St. Helen's. Not sure which one of is right -- probably her LOL -- but either way, it was a stunning sight.)

The approach.

Ten seconds from touching down.

And finally, at long last, our feet were back on solid ground. Ayize literally raced down the exit ramp and out into the airport, heedless of any actual destination.

My brother, Jo Jo, and his wife-to-be, Bahar, were awaiting our arrival. It was so wonderful to see them both again!

We gathered all our peeps together and headed out en masse to the baggage claim.

Ayize played with Grandpa's wheelchair while we waited for our luggage to come down the conveyor belt.

Next, we headed to the food court to kill some time with a late dinner. My other brother, Shishin, was arriving within the hour on a flight from O'Hare that piggy-backed ours, same airline even. It really sucked that our plane filled so fast back when we booked, or we all would have been on the same flight.

The girls were starving, given the long flight and the late hour, and it actually required some precision teamwork for them to lug their heavy tray together from the far-off Wendy's all the way back to our table. They did a great job and didn't spill a single drop.

Shishin arrived! Mom and Bahar disappeared into an airport shop to check something out and we finished off our food. It occurred to me then that the four of us siblings were all together for the first time in what seemed like forever. I asked everyone to stand together for a photo and a kind passerby offered to take us all.

Ayize kept running away to go bonkers and climb and run wherever he could out of a sheer overabundance of stored energy. I came out here to fetch him for the umpteenth time and saw my mom standing over him, talking to him, and freaking out because she thought he had run away unnoticed. I took a picture just thinking it was a cute Grandma-grandson moment (she was so sweetly helping him off the bench). But something else was going on in the photo that was a bit unusual. Look to the far left...

I stopped to pet the pup and chatted with the lady. No, the doggie did not enjoy his flight, she informed me, because the doggie did not fly. She just brought him with her to the airport from home to pick up her husband who was returning from a trip.

Well, I truly was surprised. I've lived in this city, and visited it maybe an additional fifteen times, and I never knew dogs were allowed in the airport. I mean, it's a pretty liberal place, but this dog was wanting to make its mark, if you know what I mean, on every passing chair and pole.

Anyhow, I watched them disappear into the distance. But not ten minutes later, I saw the same lady and dog rushing back the way they had come, her flats literally flip-flopping as she flew past us. I waited expectantly, and then...five, four three, two, one -- bam! here came what I had expected, a security guard in not-exactly-hot, but definitely a little bit hurried, pursuit.

Not long after, me, Jo Jo, Ayize and Mom headed to the top deck of the parking garage to Jo Jo's car. We needed to drive to the rental car hub adjacent to the airport. To leave the airport, we needed to walk over that afore-mentioned elevated pedestrian walkway (see first photo).

Mom and Jo Jo were a bit ahead of us, so this was my first photo. It was after that, when I was trying unsuccessfully to take the two of us together, that a nice guy stopped to take the one of us both.

The view looking one way off the elevated walkway; from this direction, you can see planes taking off and landing...

...and the view towards the other side. Lots o' traffic.

Up on the top deck of the parking garage. The only other people up there, as usual, were some non-traveling daddies just spending a Sunday night with their kiddos, watching planes take off and land just for kicks.

At National Rental Car. Somebody was crashing hard.

But then he got a second wind. Pulled my driver's license out of my hand (the little scamp) and tried to present it to the lady at the desk, as if he were the proposed primary driver of the rental vehicle.

I popped him up onto the counter to keep him out of harm's way since sleeping on the floor amidst foot traffic is generally a bad idea. So he got in on the action, helping to vote for which car we should get.

Not long after, we chose a minivan, loaded it up, and headed back to the airport where we grabbed everyone else and split our crew between the rental car and Jo Jo's Subaru wagon. Then we were off to the hotel.

It was a gorgeous night, warm and beautiful. Ayize and Sophie fell asleep during the short drive -- it was, after all, past ten o'clock, which is past midnight Chicago time -- and we let them snooze while we checked in. The we gathered our bags and the kids, me carrying Ayize and Shishin carrying Sophie, and we made our way to our various rooms.