Hoops Tour Northwest Day 2: Trouble On The Horizon

Written by pbrown on Monday, December 29th, 2008 ( Start discussion )

It’s been a rough start to the day. The alarm went off a full hour later today then yesterday, at 5:45. I was out the door by 7, but it wasn’t the last time I saw my house. I ran over to Starbucks to pick up famed basketball producer Jon Bradford, and realized that I had forgotten my wallet. It turns out that you need ID to travel on airplanes these days, so we had to run back to the house. Unfortunately, I completely forgot that I had paid for pizza delivery last night, and my wallet was by the front door. After a frantic search of the couch and the laundry, Heidi remembered, and I found my wallet right where I left it.
We finally were off for the airport. Sea-Tac was still a little like a refuge camp after last week’s storms, but we breezed through security with little hassle. Our travel plans for today were to include a flight to Portland, then another flight to Eugene, then a rental car to Corvallis. There was a good reason for not taking a direct flight to Eugene, but I’ll explain that later.
Anyway, we were supposed to take the 9 AM flight to PDX, but when we got to the gate we found out it was going to be delayed. Fortunately we were there early enough that we could move up to the 8:30 am flight and get to Portland a little early. I figured I could do some work on the laptop then have plenty of time to catch the flight to Eugene at 10:30.
Well, no reason to think things would go right in Portland. When we got to PDX we found that our flight to Eugene wouldn’t be leaving until at least 11:30 because it was in the maintenance hanger. That wouldn’t get us to Eugene until 12:30, which would put us in Corvallis too late to make our crew call, so we had to abandon the second leg of the flight and drive from Portland.
A quick trip the PDX Hertz Gold counter and we had our car. This sweet Mercury Grand Marquis was ours for the day. It’s a surprisingly spry car, considering that it feels like it’s about 3 times bigger than the car I normally drive.
An uneventful trip down I-205 and I-5 led us to Corvallis by noon, letting us have a great meal at McMenamin’s on Monroe. I say great, because as much as I love all things McMenamin, they’ve never been particularly impressive in the service department. Today they took our order quickly, brought our food in record time, and got us out the door in 40 minutes. Impressive!
So now we’re at Gill Coliseum, back in M2, and the game between the upstart Seattle Universty and Pac-10 rising star Oregon State is four hours away. Tonight we drive back to Portland, and tomorrow we’ll be on an early flight back to Seattle so we can do the big double-header day at Washington.
I’m also going to have to try to find some time on Wednesday to make a call to my friends at Alaska Airlines. You see, before this trip I was 3 flight segments away from the 60 total flights in one year they require in order to qualify as an MVP Gold, their highest level of frequent flyer. MVP Gold status gets me free upgrades to first class, along with access to high-speed security lines at the airport, among other perks. My plan to fly to Portland then Eugene would have gotten me two segments, then tomorrow’s flight home would have gotten me number 60, and Gold status. Now I’m going to be stuck at 59, unless I can convice a nice Alaska/Horizon customer service rep to help me out and give me credit for a flight I booked but didn’t actually fly.
I’ll update this story if I hear more later this week. In the meantime, I may post tonight when I get to Portland, or it may be tomorrow at UW.